62p An Hour

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Fashion

The high street brand Whistles, fashion magazine Elle, and long-running feminist campaign group The Fawcett Society are currently caught in a fashion scandal after the publication of Mail on Sunday allegations that their collaborative ‘This Is What A Feminist Looks Like’ T-shirts are made in a Mauritian sweatshop by women earning 62p an hour (Source: Hoskins 2014, np link).

Campaign t-shirts worn by Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg were made by workers who were paid just 62p an hour, according to the Mail on Sunday. The newspaper visited the factory in Mauritius and found that there were up to 16 workers sleeping in the same room. (Source: May 2014, np link)

They are the T-shirts designed to make a political statement about women’s rights – but the female workers making them are paid just 62p an hour in an Indian Ocean ‘sweatshop’. Between shifts women making garments emblazoned with the slogan ‘This is what a feminist looks like’ sleep in spartan dormitories, 16 to a room. And critics say the low wages and long hours at the Mauritian factories amount to exploitation. The shirts have been worn by Ed Miliband, Nick Clegg and Harriet Harman, all keen to display their feminist credentials – even though the Deputy Prime Minister last night admitted he had ‘no idea’ where the garments were made. But The Mail on Sunday has toured a factory producing the T-shirts, where workers earn just 6,000 rupees a month – equivalent to £120. The figure is just a quarter of the country’s average monthly wage, and around half of what a waiter earns. Each ‘feminist’ T-shirt costs just £9 to make, but high street chain Whistles sells them for £45 each – a figure it would take the women a week and a half to earn (Source: Ellery 2014, np link).

One factory worker told the Mail On Sunday: ‘We do not see ourselves as feminists. We see ourselves as trapped’ (Source: Harley 2014, np link).

Watching Karl [Lagerfeld] send his stylish suffragettes down the Chanel catwalk this morning, waving placards demanding equality (the man himself held one with the words ‘Ladies First’), we decided it was time to let you in on a top-secret #ELLEfeminism project: The Feminism Issue. We asked, and you have spoken: when our Rebranding Feminism project reached over 130 million people on social media, we knew there were issues you wanted to talk about. So we are currently adding the finishing touches to a very special edition of the magazine, out 30 October, dedicated to empowered and empowering women. For it, we are partnering with the Fawcett Society (founded by – aptly, given Karl’s catwalk statement – suffragist Millicent Fawcett, which has been campaigning for women’s rights since 1866) to revive its historic ‘This is what a feminist looks like’ campaign; with the UN on its #HeForShe initiative; and senior politicians. More will be revealed later this week but, suffice to say, you’ll be able to wear your feminism on your chest (Source: Buccelatto 2014, np link).

[According to Ava Lee, The Fawcett Society’s policty and campaigns officer …:] ‘The partnership took us out of our comfort zone. Fashion and feminism aren’t the most straight forward of bed fellows, and here at Fawcett we had long conversations about the risks of working with a women’s magazine, with the narrow beauty ideals and aspirational lifestyle that they present.  After much hard thought we came to the conclusion that while we understand and agree with many of the valid criticisms that certain feminists will have of what fashion magazines reflect and perpetuate, it was an opportunity that we, as a small campaigning organisation, wanted to grasp.’ The society appears to have been flattered by the approach from ELLE and beguiled by the prospect of all the profits from the pricey t-shirts, bags, and mobile phone covers. But most of all, it seems it wanted exposure – a slice of the action (Source: Anon 2014, np link)

Hailing from India, Bangladesh, Vietnam and Sri Lanka, the girls [working in the factory where these t-shirts were made] sign a four year contract with Compagnie Mauricienne de Textile (CMT), the company which owns the factories, and are unable to see their families during that time. Most send their earnings home to their families, as the rupees are worth more in their native countries than they are in Mauritius. Whilst on-site they sleep 16 to a room and leaving the site during the working week is frowned upon in case they return ‘hung-over’ (Source: Feed 2014, np link)

The company was heavily criticised in 2007 when it was discovered that women were being paid just £4 a day to produce garments for Sir Philip Green’s Kate Moss collection at Topshop. It was also under fire for paying differing rates to workers of different nationalities and promising migrant better wages than they actually received, but since then the company has altered its policies, now paying the Mauritian minimum wage to all workers, regardless of nationality, and sets out the correct wages before the workers sign their contracts (Source: Feed 2014, np link)

[T]he Daily Mail article implied this really wasn’t what women’s empowerment looks like at all. It’s not. But it is what global trade looks like. Firstly, the workers’ reported wage of 6,000 rupees (£119) per month is comfortably above the legal minimum wage in Mauritius (roughly 2,400 – 3,200 rupees per month depending on location). In fact it’s close to the average monthly income of all Mauritian women (pdf) (7,000 rupees per month), probably a better ratio than British garment workers might expect. Secondly, the reported 45 hour week is allowed by all international labour standards codes, even with an additional twelve hours overtime on top. Lastly, sleeping in multiple dormitories is common practice for garment workers – particularly migrant workers. From the pictures printed, yes they are basic, but they aren’t the worst we’ve seen. Without a factory visit we can’t be sure, but it seems likely the CMT factory manufacturing the feminist T-shirts would probably pass most ethical compliance audits or – if it failed – not fail by much. We can’t describe this as a ‘sweatshop’. It’s a perfectly ordinary garment factory of the type that most of our clothes originate from. Yet no-one can deny that there is huge inequality here. Injustice even (Source: Hodgson 2014, np link).

Now THIS is a perfect example of women in the world who are LITTERALLY oppressed sometimes with no roof over their heads or barely any proper clothes. THESE are the countries where feminism is STRICTLY needed even if temporary enough to grant women full rights and privileges. But instead, here in these 1st world countries you have a massive number of feminists who would rather sit on their assess and bitch, cry, whine, and complain about how the merely-existent patriarachy is dominating them or how all men are misogynists and chauvinist pigs, or how they despise males so much that some of them want to destroy an entire gender just to satisfy themselves (Source: Lord Iheanacho 2014, np link).

I haven’t bought an item new in years. I have literally bought everything second hand for years. Why? Because I’m fucking poor. Do I get to complain about the conditions of other workers around the world? Am I allowed  (Source: GEhotpants101 2014, np link)?

I was about to write a sanctimonious column about the awfulness of those ‘This is what a feminist looks like’ T-shirts allegedly being made in Mauritian sweatshops by women on just 62 pence an hour, but then I decided to check the label inside my own t-shirt and discovered it had also been manufactured on the Indian Ocean island, and realised I probably didn’t have a leg to stand on. My legs, for the record, are cloaked in trousers that were made in Turkey. My pants, Sri Lanka (Source: Gordon 2014, np link).

But after the Mail on Sunday’s bombshell report was published, London store Whistles took the shirt off the racks on Monday, though Fawcett continues to stand by the product (Source: Goldberg 2014, np link).

We are shocked by the allegations made in relation to the ‘This is what a feminist looks like’ t shirt which Whistles has produced in partnership with Elle UK and The Fawcett Society. The allegations regarding the production of t-shirts in the CMT factory in Mauritius are extremely serious and we are investigating them as a matter of urgency. Our lawyers have engaged with the Mail on Sunday in relation to the publication of the allegations. We are committed to ensuring that our products are safe for consumers’ use and manufactured under safe, fair and humane working conditions. We place a high priority on environmental, social and ethical issues. We carry out regular audits of our suppliers in line with our high CSR standards and can share the following information regarding the CMT factory in Mauritius. CMT has Oeekotex accreditation, which fully conforms to the highest standards in quality & environmental policy, whilst having world class policies for sustainable development, social, ethical and environmental compliance (Source: @thisiswhistles 2014, np link)

This scandal, exposing the reality of the production of ‘feminist fashion’ and its inexplicable link with exploitation, exposes the weaknesses in the commodity feminism approach: its total inability to change social conditions (Source: Hoskins 2014, np link).

[T]here may yet be a happy ending. People don’t like to see charities bullied, and even if the publicity hasn’t been quite what Fawcett hoped, it may find increased levels of public support. And maybe the Mail on Sunday’s ‘investigation’ will get people thinking about inequality here and in the Third World. You never know (Source: Anon 2014, np link).