“First, Spider Woman built a loom. Then she taught the women to shear the wool from sheep, to clean and card the wool, to spin the wool into yarn, and to dye the wool with colors from the world. Finally, Spider Woman taught them to weave the yarn into a rug while holding beautiful thoughts in their minds and putting their whole souls into their work.” (Carmean, 2002)
– a Navajo story describing how Spider Woman taught Navajo women to weave.
For thousands of years, humans have recognized a spiritual connection between women and textile art forms such as weaving, sewing, dyeing, and embroidery. Many goddesses throughout history and across cultures have been portrayed as weavers and spinners. To weave is to create and the ancient world revered women for their ability to create life itself. Thus, women were thought of as the weavers of humanity. In our modern capitalist society, instead of treating the ancient relationship between women and weaving as sacred, it is exploited for unjust patriarchal systems that bring harm to women. One of the major culprits of this exploitation is the fast fashion industry.
Women and Fast Fashion
Fast fashion is an industry founded on misogyny. It promotes feelings of embarrassment and shame for wearing old or ‘unfashionable’ clothes. This prescribed embarrassment is what keeps the cycle of fast fashion going as people continually feel the need to discard their old garments and buy new ones. The fast fashion industry mainly targets women who are told from a young age that their appearance should conform to patriarchal expectations, including how they dress.
The other main characteristic of fast fashion is low pricing. Although the affordability of fast fashion may seem like a blessing, the low price comes at the expense of the workers who are predominantly female. Clothing for the fast fashion industry is mostly produced at factories in developing countries such as India, Bangladesh, and China. In Bangladesh, women are forced to work longer for less money because their sex is thought to make them more docile and easily manipulated by their male supervisors. They are often met with verbal and physical abuse and are forced to work in dangerous environments.
Women and the Environment
Fast fashion production also causes permanent damage to the environment through air, ocean, and land pollution. This significantly contributes to climate change which women are disproportionately affected by in comparison to men. For example, in Toronto, climate change has led to more rainstorms during the summer, resulting in the flooding of basement apartments. Because of the worsening wage gap wherein women are paid 24% less than their male counterparts, women constitute more of the lower-income population who can only afford basement apartments in Toronto; thus, more women than men are affected by the flooding caused by climate change. In addition to the female factory workers in developing countries, the fast fashion industry hurts women all around the world while desacralizing and exploiting the ancient connection between women and textiles.
What can I do?
While large-scale systems and companies are behind the fast fashion epidemic, as consumers we must do our part to defund the misogynistic fast fashion industry. Instead of purchasing mass-produced clothes from chain stores, try shopping for second-hand clothing at thrift stores or buying used clothing on apps like Depop and Poshmark, where you can also sell your own clothes. Old clothing can also be upcycled into a fresh new outfit using sew-on or iron-on patches, embroidery, painting, cutting, and more. Other great options include clothing swaps (shout-out to Drop and Cop!) and sustainable clothing brands- if you need suggestions, we have featured many ethical brands on our Instagram page. So, the next time you are shopping for clothes or picking out an outfit, remember that wearing ethical clothing YOU love is a radical act against misogyny and the exploitation of women!
References
Brooks, A. (2019). Clothing poverty : the hidden world of fast fashion and second-hand clothes (Second edition.). Zed Books. http://search.ebscohost.com.subzero.lib.uoguelph.ca/login.aspx?direct=true&db=e000xna&AN=2271977&site=ehost-live&scope=site
Carmean, K. (2002). Spider Woman Walks This Land: Traditional Cultural Properties and the Navajo Nation. United States: AltaMira Press.
Fakhoury, Y. (2019). An Ecofeminist Analysis of the Ready-made Garment Industry in
Bangladesh. Honours Undergraduate Theses. https://stars.library.ucf.edu/honorstheses/536.
Williams, L., Fletcher, A., Hanson, C., Neapole, J., & Pollack, M. (2018). Women and Climate Change Impacts and Action in Canada. https://www.criaw-icref.ca/images/userfiles/files/Women%20and%20Climate%20Change_FINAL.pdf.