THIS IS NOT WHAT FEMINISM LOOKS LIKE | THE FEMINIST SHIRT CONTROVERSY
As if feminism itself is not already (somehow) a controversial issue, creating "This is What a Feminist Looks Like" tshirts using (predominantly female) sweatshop labor and distributing to large male icons like Joseph Gordon-Levitt (my personal celebrity crush), Tom Hiddleston, and Benedict Cumberbatch, was not exactly a foot in the right direction.
Source: ELLE UK
Feminism, quite simply, is the “radical” view that women and men should have equality–no double standards in societal perspectives, no glass ceiling, no objectification and commercialization–the list goes on. In the United States (and in most of the world), it is not difficult to see the male-centric perspective that dominates and governs society, politics, the judicial system, and the workplace (in fact Sweden has dramatically benefited from seeing things from a more gender-balanced perspective). From receiving a smaller paycheck for the same career (devaluing the potential or work of a woman) to the widespread lack of justice for rape victims and victim-blaming, the existing system in most of the rest of the world lays testament to the strong need of a feminist movement–one which both men and women need to be a part of in order to succeed.
Enter the “This is What A Feminist Looks Like” shirts that you might have seen on the chests of some of the most in-demand men in Hollywood to raise awareness for this movement (in the guise of consumerism, of course, but we can save capitalist holidays/agendas for another post 😉 ). In theory, the idea of getting influential men to spread the word about, and trying to normalize, feminism, sounds like a great way to attract more men to join the cause, which unfortunately is not the easiest task to do. Not to mention that these roughly $70-$80 t-shirts are also raising money for charity. Sounds like a potentially decent plan?
Well, except for the teensy little part about the whole “these-shirts-were-made-in-a-sweatshop” thing. Which, I suppose, is slightly important and relevant to the discussion of feminism, given that most garment workers are marginalized women trying their best to make ends meet for their families and are taken heavily advantage of. It’s amazing how easy it is, as consumers, to not think twice about where our products come from. Scratch that. It’s incredibly frightening. The conditions in sweatshops are fairly widely known but also mentioned quite frequently here on JooJoo Azad (exhibit A, exhibit B), so it would not be necessary to again go through what these horrid conditions would entail here, but rather to understand the difficulty in reconciling the production of “feminist” shirts by exploited women.
While Fawcett claims to have launched an investigation into the suspicions on unethical practices which has concluded that such assertions are not accurate, (because a brand would definitely want to admit to hypocrisy?) the Daily Mail seems to have reached a different conclusion: women in their factories are being treated in a way counter-productive to the clothing’s suggested message. Earning less than the minimum wage is not only violating the basic human rights of these women, but it also directly contradicts the goals and purposes of feminism as a means of empowering and encouraging women. And this raises important questions for the feminist movement rooted in such consumer-based societies: Does feminism, as a movement, only extend to white, American women? As a feminist, is it not your responsibility to take into consideration the message your money is sending to fashion companies’ mass exploitation of marginalized women around the world?
