Fashion Must Listen: Women's Rights are Human Rights

Rose Schneiderman. Image Source: Brown Brothers

This is a guest blog post by Mary Beth Graham, events and policy advisor at the Scottish Women’s Convention, and my fellow volunteer at Fashion Revolution Scotland.

"What the woman who labors wants is the right to live, not simply exist — the right to life as the rich woman has the right to life, and the sun and music and art. You have nothing that the humblest worker has not a right to have also. The worker must have bread, but she must have roses, too. Help, you women of privilege, give her the ballot to fight with."

Rose Schneiderman, speech to textile strikers in Lawrence, Massachusetts in 1912

Gender inequality is woven deep into every facet of the global fashion industry. In terms of consumption, women are thought to drive around 80% of all clothing purchases, through their combined buying power and their perceived influence on buying decisions of friends and family. This power is incredibly important. It consequentially translates to a substantial amount of responsibility in consumer actions and decisions. How we use this influence - the brands we decide to buy, the quantity we buy, the way we care for these items, what we do when we’re finished with them, and (particularly in our age of abundant visual technology) how we communicate our actions within this space to others – is where we undoubtedly gain significant capacity to create change. Indeed, so much of the work invigorated through Fashion Revolution and across the sustainable fashion community, aims to empower us, the ‘consumers’, to embrace this influence in many positive ways.

But this movement towards smart, considerate and ‘ethical’ consumer behaviour, can only bring us forward so far, when more powerful structures allow for the perpetuation of gender inequality at every turn in the chain of fashion.

In the business of fashion, women make up more than 70% of the total global workforce, but only 40% of womenswear-focused fashion brands are actually designed by women, and women hold less than 25% of leadership positions in top fashion companies. Just out of curiosity, I looked at the CEO’s of the first fast fashion brands that come into my head, and it wasn’t impressive – Zara (Carlos Crespo), ASOS (Nick Beighton), Primark (Paul Marchant), Boohoo (John Lyttle), Topshop (Paul Price). A further side note - in January of this year, H&M appointed its first female CEO since its founding in 1947, Helena Helmersson, who replaced Karl-Johan Persson. In this move, Helena Helmersson became the first woman to pilot one of the four largest fashion groups in the world.

Undoubtedly, gender representation within fashion retail and business management has long been in dire need of protest and progress. However, we are here to focus on #WhoMadeMyClothes, and in the manufacturing and production of fashion, the position of women becomes significantly more concerning. Alessandra Mezzadri, an academic focused on this area, says that “gender inequality is not simply an outcome of globalisation; it also crucially shapes its functioning.” Approximately 80% of garment workers are women, while manufacturing management and factory owners are predominantly men. There are two perspectives that show in the discussion of this gender divide. Development economists, alongside others in more financially pragmatic roles, view the millions of jobs in garment factories as “the great equalizer.” This employment is an ideal opportunity for poor women who have lived in rural areas, typically within acutely patriarchal communities, to gain an income. This income supposedly leads to financial and social independence and establishes these women as equal to their male counterparts, in the eyes of the law and also in recognition of their human rights. In turn, it is felt that this employment opens the door to further career progress, into industries that bear higher value, and thus higher income, eventually bringing women and their families out of poverty and into a middle class position.

Unquestionably, the impact of fashion manufacturing on country’s economies must be recognised – it is often credited as giving Bangladesh the potential to graduate from Least Developed Country to Developing Country (being just the fifth to do so). In Fashion Revolution’s White Paper, we acknowledge many ways the industry has improved quality of life, particularly focussing on the situation in Bangladesh since Rana Plaza. However, they ensure it is clear that this progress is not nearly enough.

The second, and significantly more important perspective, is from the women in the industry. Despite the views above, it is clear through simply listening to worker’s voices and experiences, that they are anything but empowered. Instead, their position in patriarchal subjugation has extended from the home, to now include the factory floor. One article makes the compelling assertion that employers, governments, and even the highest powers in international financial institutions, (The World Bank and International Monetary Fund) have “embraced one of the core tenents of contemporary feminism – the right of women to paid work – to justify the employment of women in EPZs in deplorable and often dangerous positions.” Before looking closer at the intersection of gender in the form of different human rights issues, we must acknowledge the overarching reality that women make the majority of garment workers for a deliberate reason.

The inherent worth placed on women, their position within society, and the value of their voice, leads to their perception as submissive, weak and vulnerable. One female Bangladeshi garment worker says, “Women can be made to dance like puppets, but men cannot be abused in the same way.”

The abuses experienced by women throughout the supply chain are complex, and often inextricably linked with one another. In the ready made garment industry, the unequal power dynamic between workers and management is often cited as the predominant issue. Within the factory, the gender disparity within the hierarchy of employment leads to power structures that are patriarchal, class-based and casteist They establish men as superior to women, and “paint labourers as less of humans than their supervisors.” By setting this standard, women’s rights are negated. It is also important to note, before going forward, that most cases of abuses will not be reported due to fears of retaliation, within what is considered a significant culture of silence.

A living wage is critical, because women often take the primary role for providing for their families. With wages continuously kept low, women cannot move out of poverty, ensure a level of decent nutrition and education for themselves or their children, and struggle to gain independence and personal development. Global Labour Justice speak of gender based violence as an outcome of the structure of our global supply chains, as the fast fashion model relies on starvation wages, unpaid overtime and high workloads under extreme pressure.

We have previously established that unreasonable targets and underbid contracts, that characterise fast fashion’s manufacturing model, force factory owners and management to abandon their duty to respect human rights. But their methods to refuse legally required benefits to women in their workforce is particularly deplorable when the matters of pregnancy and maternity are investigated. Workers are often denied maternity leave, child care, and breaks to breastfeed. The Workers Rights Consortium have found widespread issues with managers firing pregnant workers, and, astoundingly, factories where all female employees are forced to take pregnancy tests before their hire is confirmed. Few, if any, adjustments are made for workers during pregnancy – to their work station, their hours, even their expected levels of production. In one report, which listened to garment workers in Hondurus, women reported that if they did request to change positions, management would retaliate by ensuring their maternity leave pay was reduced to reflect minimum wage instead of her production wage. Another study, in Bangladesh, found that a significant number of child care centres, based in factories, were only opened when fashion buyers were visiting, to give the impression that legal obligations were being adhered to.

Gender Based Violence (GBV) is defined as “violence directed against a person because of their gender.” It is widely recognised that both women and men experience gender based violence, but the majority of victims are women and girls. If we look at this definition, and consider the aforementioned issue of women being deliberately employed because of their perceived weaknesses and defencelessness, it can be therefore be concluded that violence in this industry is predominantly gender-based. Physical and verbal abuse is widely reported across the sector. Supervisors and other members of management will regularly shout, insult and criticize workers. Reports have also found many women are physically abused, some being hit, pushed, kicked and punched, and beatings commonplace in some places when production targets are not met. Others will deliberately not touch the workers to avoid evidence for police, instead throwing materials or equipment at the women or kicking away their chairs. Workers have also told of assaults and attacks taking place on their way to or from work, and in their employer-provided housing.

This violence regularly takes an even darker and more disturbing turn, in the form of sexual harassment, abuse, and rape. Women regularly experience inappropriate touching and verbal sexual harassment in their workplace, with managers also reported to insinuate their facilitation of better labour conditions, in exchange for sexual favours. Upon her new employment being made official, one worker was told “Be good to me and things will go well for you.” Coercion into sexual relationships is found to happen, with one report from Indonesia telling of women being threatened with their jobs, and therefore their livelihoods, if they do not engage in sexual acts with management. In Bangladesh, women were threatened with rape following their demonstrations against low wages. In each report, women consistently tell of their suppression and silencing, through management’s threats to their job, or through further threats to their personal safety.

The fashion industry needs to stop and listen to the women making their clothes. Women’s Rights are Human Rights. As a top priority, it is so important for us, as fashion revolutionaries, to work for their right to freedom of association. The Worker Rights Consortium state, “Gender based violence and harrassment flourish in environments where workers are not free to exercise their rights to freedom of association and where factory management actively suppresses these rights.” The ability for workers, and particularly women, to unionise would be transformative for this industry. Trade unions provide effective and legitimate ways for workers to stand together and fight in defence of their inherent rights. They are not alone. Devastatingly, IndustriALL report that over 90% of workers in the global garment industry have no possibility to negotiate their wages or conditions.

What can we do right now? Your voice can change everything. Ask brands #WhoMadeMyClothes, and ask if the women making them were paid below a living wage, if they worked unpaid overtime, if they were physically or verbally abused, sexually harassed? Was their right to freedom of association, to unionise, respected? Email, tweet, post on instagram, write a letter. We need to use our power, as people with a voice, to challenge brands. We need to demand their commitment to better, fairer practices. Demand that they play their part in repairing a broken industry.

We also need to challenge ourselves, and not simply through our ‘consumer’ practices, but raise our political voices too. Through this series, I hope to have helped you grasp the idea of international human rights, and the ways in which our fast fashion industry is structured to enable exploitation and abuse, particularly for women. So use this knowledge! I urge you to write to policy makers and challenge this fractured system. We must collectively confront global powers, and demand that accountability and responsibility is taken by both businesses and governments.

“And where the words of women are crying to be heard, we must each of us recognize our responsibility to seek those words out, to read them and share them and examine them in their pertinence to our lives.”

- Audre Lorde