feminism
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5 Books to Read Instead of Watching Eurovision 2024 🇵🇸

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Friday, 3 May 2024

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I love Eurovision - I normally watch it either with family or friends. But this year, like thousands (if not millions) of others, I will not be tuning in due to the hypocrisy of Eurovision refusing the ban Israel from participating despite their continued bombardment of and genocide in Gaza while rightfully banning Russia days after they invaded Ukraine. 

My friend Anna-Marie made a YouTube video discussing 5 books you could read instead of watching Eurovision, and as a booknerd myself this got me thinking about some other books that could be relevant. So, if you think you’re going to be bored while Eurovision is on and need some distraction for solidarity, here are 5 books I recommend that you could read instead. 


There is still time for Eurovision to boycott Israel. I have put together a resource list with information about how you can contact performers, country representatives, hosts, sponsors and show-organisers about the boycott, petitions and other campaigns such as Queers for Palestine who are taking action. You can access that here.


Palestine +100 edited by Basma Ghalayini


I read this book as part of Shado Mag’s book club and I’m so happy I joined this year. This is a short story collection written entirely by Palestinian writers imagining life in Palestine 100 years after the first Nakba, so 2048. These stories are all science fiction, and vary a huge amount - from alternate realities and different dimensions for different states to inhospitable environments and haunting noises. Palestine +100 ultimately asks, will Palestine ever truly be free?



Freedom is a Constant Struggle by Angela Y Davis


Angela Davis is one of my favourite writers and this is the first book that really made me understand the connection between Israel's apartheid regime and police oppression and brutality across the world. This is a collection of Angela Davis’ speeches, interviews, and essays from throughout the years all focusing on the theme of freedom and state violence - from the legacies of previous liberation struggles and movements to the ones we fight now and their interconnectedness.  



Border Nation by Leah Cowan


In Border Nation, Leah Cowan looks at borders – how we interact with them on a daily basis, how they impact our movements, how they are monetized through the prison industrial complex and the colonial history of their formation. This is mostly from a UK perspective, which I think is really valuable as often a lot of these conversations can be US-centric, making it seem like Britain is innocent when we really are not. This book expertly breaks down so many myths around immigration, borders and freedom of movement. A must read. Leah Cowan has a new book coming out soon called Why Would Feminists Trust the Police? and I cannot wait to get my hands on a copy.



Your Silence Will Not Protect You by Audre Lorde


Audre Lorde’s work is unbeatable. This collection encompasses some of her poetry and essays, all of which are beautifully crafted. While this whole collection is valuable and should be read, I would like to highlight two essays in particular that I think are especially relevant to liberation in Palestine: Poetry is Not a Luxury and The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House. Poetry is Not a Luxury looks at how art is essential for survival and now makes me think of the poetry of Gazans and Palestinians fighting for survival over the decades such as ‘If I Must Die’ by Refaat Alareer and ‘Fuck Your Lecture on Craft, My People Are Dying’ by Noor Hindi. 



Kindred by Octavia E. Butler

Okay, major trigger warnings for this book. Sexual assault, violence, racist violence, murder, slavery, suicide and suicidal ideations. It’s a lot. But this book is also one of the best I’ve read recently. Octavia Butler is a mastermind, her writing is just incredible. Another science fiction story, Kindred is set in the 1970s and focuses on Dana, a young black woman who gets pulled back in time to save the life of a white boy in 1815. Turns out this white boy is her ancestor. Kindred is a fascinating look at hierarchies, dehumanisation, power, freedom, struggle and joy, as well as how those unjust systems are maintained. The characters have such complicated relationships and it’s fascinating to see how those change. Octavia Butler is such an incredible writer.



If you liked this post you might like: My Top 10 Non-Fiction Books of 2023


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5 Great Introductory Books to Intersectional Feminism

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Friday, 29 March 2024

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Feminism is a big topic. There’s so much more to it than ‘women should be equal to men’. That’s simply because inequality and injustice manifests in a huge variety of different ways. I’ve spent a lot of time over the years reading, researching, and listening to feminists from all kinds of different backgrounds sharing what feminism means to them or what it should be. To make it easier for you to know where to start, I’ve picked out some of the books that have had the biggest impact on my feminist journey and that I think help you understand the key tenets of intersectional feminism. I would love to hear about more texts I may not have included and may not have read! Our feminist learning journey is never over.

Each of these texts should also be available as audiobooks. If you don’t know about it already, you can borrow audiobooks through your local library service (in the UK) using the app BorrowBox. Support your local libraries and learn more about feminism for free?! Pretty great. 


1. Feminism, Interrupted by Lola Olufemi


I have talked about this book so much already, but I will never shut up about it because frankly I need everyone to read it. When it was first published in 2020, a friend and I have a joke that we should be paid for doing publicity for Feminism, Interrupted as we were talking about it all the time. But there’s a reason for that. 
 
In Feminism, Interrupted Lola Olufemi expertly challenges the narratives of mainstream feminism and reveals how much these narratives are reliant on capitalism and white supremacy. Once you’ve read Feminism, Interrupted you can’t see the state the same ever again. This book is short – only 145 pages – but contains so much and is so easy to read. Lola does not use over-complicated or academic language, simply discussing a range of feminist issues in plain language. And she provides a brilliant resource list at the end to continue your learning too.  


2. Are Prisons Obsolete? By Angela Davis


Another short one, Are Prisons Obsolete? By Angela Davis may be slim but it is mighty. Published in 2003, some of its stats may be outdated but the principles and analysis still very much the same and are still astonishingly relevant. In this book, Angela Davis expertly breaks down the oppressive prison-industrial complex and how the prison system functions as an arm of white supremacy and patriarchy. Quite frankly all of Angela’s work could have been included on this list. She brilliantly connects so many issues together in all her work – from the prison system and police brutality to feminism and Palestinian liberation. I continue to learn so much from Angela Davis.  

The copy of Are Prisons Obsolete? I read was a library book. So here's a picture of another of Davis' books! I recommend them all. 


3.  Feminism is for Everybody by bell hooks


I remember reading this while doing my A Levels, aged 17 or 18. bell hooks became a huge part of my early formation as a feminist, and I am ever thankful for her presence on this earth and her work. hooks sets forward a feminism that is accessible to all regardless of gender, sexuality or race – something that seems basic but is rarely a reality. She highlights that there is no love without justice and that both love and justice should be the founding principles of any kind of effective feminism. As feminism is for everybody, hooks is for everybody. 

4. “No Offence But…” by Gina Martin and others


The most recent [publication on this list. Gina Martin has been a powerful gender equality campaigner for years, and I know I have certainly seen her as someone who sets a great example as a campaigner who is willing to admit their mistakes, learn and grow.  Gina is best known for her campaign to criminalise upskirting – the act of secretly photographing underneath someone’s clothes without their permission. This campaign was successful, but Gina has since moved away from legal campaigns and focusing on cultural changes. 
 
In “No Offence But…” Gina tackles common sayings or rebukes to certain issues – such as “not all men”, “boys will be boys”, and “I don’t do politics” – and invites an incredible group of guest writers to look at other phrases such as “men aren’t doing anything to help feminism”, “I don’t see colour” and “we need fast fashion for poor people”. This book picks apart so many issues so brilliantly and equips us as readers to effectively challenge them in real life. 


5. The Transgender Issue by Shon Faye

Shon Faye’s The Transgender Issue is the fundamental text to understanding trans rights as they currently stand in the UK. It should be required reading. Attacks on trans rights is a crisis we as feminist should not ignore and should challenge those who attack trans people in the name of feminism or women’s ‘safety’. As a cis woman, I have never felt threatened by trans people. I have, however, felt threatened by those who attempt to define me by my reproductive capabilities or my biology (something feminist movements have previously fought against) and by male violence. None of these things have anything to do with trans people or their place in society. 
 
Shon Faye has done her research. She has so much evidence and so many horrifying stats that any reader cannot deny the danger trans people are placed under every day in the UK. This book makes me angry but it also makes me motivated. I hope it motivates you too. 



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I have so many ideas for blog posts I would love to share with you and I hope to post more regularly in 2024. To help me have more time to spend on this blog, it would be amazing if you could buy me a cuppa or two to keep me going! It would mean the world to have your support and would also help keep my cat warm. 


If you liked this post you might like: Book Review: Burnt - Fighting for Climate Justice by Chris Saltmarsh


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10 Organisations to Donate To This Holiday Season

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Friday, 17 December 2021

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Christmas is just around the corner (literally next week) and gift guides have flooded blogs everywhere. It is also the time of year consumption and waste get thrown into overdrive, which we know isn’t great for ourselves or for the planet. There is so much pressure to buy loads of things for people that they most likely to do not need and might not actually want or use, so a donation is a plastic-free, waste-free gift that will likely mean a lot. I love receiving donations as presents, they’re so special especially if they’re for a cause you’re particularly passionate about. I’ve picked a range but many of the charities and organisations I’ve featured here do focus on refugee solidarity, which seems fitting as the Christmas story is one of a child refugee after all.


1. Give Your Best

 
As the first online catalogue of donated clothing where refugee and asylum seeking women can shop for free, Give Your Best combine slow fashion with refugee solidarity. Rather than just being handed whatever clothing is available, Give Your Best gives displaced women back their agency when it comes to clothing choices, as many people will flee their homes with only the clothes on their back. They also focus on items such as maternity clothes which may not have been needed when people initially fled their homes. So far over 500 women have shopped with Give Your Best, an incredible number that will likely on further grow. You can donate your clothes to Give Your Best, but also some of their newly made t-shirts and fundraiser prints would also make great Christmas gifts! If you want to learn more about how Give Your Best runs, check out this guide. 

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2. Bloody Good Period

 
Bloody Good Period are a London based organisation which aims to support refugees and asylum-seekers facing period poverty. They distribute menstrual products for free in London and to organisations support menstruating refugees and asylum seekers all over the UK. But this is only part of their work. Bloody Good Period also seek to tackle menstrual and sexual health stigma so that conversations around periods are normalised, to be a part of making change when it comes to the treatment of people who menstruate, and to make education on sexual and reproductive health more accessible.
 
BGP have run several amazing campaigns over the years, including Blood Good Employers which seeks to change the way workplaces are run so that people who menstruate are not at a disadvantage to people who do not. They also run the campaign Decolonising Menstruation in collaboration with Decolonising Contraception, which you can learn more about here.

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3. Remake

 
If you’ve seen me anywhere online before, you will have most likely heard about Remake. I have a lot of love for Remake as an ambassador and as a writer for them. Remake do a lot of amazing work, including being at the forefront of the Pay Up Fashion campaign which began at the beginning of the pandemic after brands refused to pay for ready-made orders, pushing for the passing of the Garment Worker Protection Act in California, and putting pressure on brands to renew the Bangladesh Accord into the International Accord and ensuring garment workers globally have a base-level of health and safety at work. 
 
Remake are currently on a fundraising drive with a campaign called #GiveYourValues, which is a modification of their phrase Wear Your Values, which relates to having a slow mindset relating to fashion. They are aiming to raise $100,000 by New Year’s Eve, which, if achieved will be matched with an additional $100,000 by the Martini Education Trust. This is an incredible opportunity or Remake to kickstart their 2022 and giving the campaigns and advocacy work next year and extra boost.
 
This money will go towards working with garment worker unions, communicating with and putting pressure on brands, running campaigns, paying writers (like me!), raising awareness of the labour and environmental crisis within the fashion industry, and pushing for justice to finally be achieved from the fallout of the pandemic on garment workers. It’s safe to say it will go a long way. 

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4. Calais Appeal

 
This year, Choose Love are withdrawing funding from most organisations they previously supported working in and around Calais to support asylum seekers (except 2 organisations supporting unaccompanied children) for reasons that aren’t particularly clear. This will have a devastating blow to so many people. Normally I would suggest donating to Choose Love as they make it so easy and support such a wide range of services and support networks for asylum seekers and refugees all over the world. However, this year your donation will likely have more impact going towards those smaller organisations, groups and services directly. 
 
Calais Appeal fundraise to support 7 grassroots organisations working in Calais to support forcibly displaced people. They also shares expertise, resources and collaborate to provide emergency materials for people stuck at the border. Members organisations include Calais Food Collective, Collective Aid, Human Rights Observers, Woodyard, Refugee Women’s Center, Refugee Info Bus and Project Play. With Choose Love withdrawing funding, Calais Appeal is vital to keeping these projects going. No donation is too big or too small to create and maintain cross-border solidarity. 

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5. Green New Deal Rising

 
Green New Deal Rising are a grassroots movement of 16-35 year olds working to implement a Green New Deal in the UK. In the past few weeks they have run a fundraising campaign to get 200 people to donate an hour’s wage to the movement every month, providing a solid base to enhance the work they’re doing and ensure a Green New Deal is at the forefront of the political agenda in 2022 and beyond. That target was smashed over a week before Christmas and a new goal of 300 regular donors has been made. 
 
Despite only being in existence for 4 months, Green New Deal Rising has achieved so much and got the Green New Deal onto the political agenda with a bang. You might have seen some of their viral videos on social media challenging politicians over their climate actions. These have included talking to Rishi Sunak (two times), Keir Starmer (also two times), and Nicola Sturgeon among many, many more. Next year, Green New Deal Rising are hoping to up their game and deliver bigger and more noticeable actions which will only be able to happen if they have the necessary funding. This funding is so vital to getting more and more young people involved – it allows for travel, resources, and even accommodation for certain actions to be paid for, making participation so much more accessible.   

 

6. Black Minds Matter

 
Black Minds Matter connect Black individuals and families with free mental health services by pairing them up with Black therapists. This is so important for so many reasons and there are people out there much better equipped than me to explain why individuals need therapists from similar backgrounds to them. They also have a load of free mental health resources, run various different events, and by the looks of it, Black Minds Matter have loads more planned for 2022, so help make that happen!
 
As well as donating directly you can also buy Black Minds Matter merch which are created in collaboration with Black artists and all of the profits go towards covering the cost of therapy sessions. 

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7. Mermaids

 
Running since 1995, Mermaids do vital work supporting trans children and their families. Donations maintain helpline services, advocacy for trans rights, fund residential weekends, and to create safe spaces for young people to be around others with the same experiences as them. Mermaids have educational resources for parents of trans children on how to best support their child, resources for trans children to learn more and answer any questions they might have. The statistics around trans physical and mental health are shocking, and it is so important to have organisations like Mermaids exist in order to create those support networks and communities and improve awareness among teachers, parents, healthcare professonals and other support services. 
 
Mermaids have faced a lot of ridicule in the press in recent years from high-profile transphobes, so extra support will be so so needed and appreciated. 

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8. North East Solidarity and Teaching (N.E.S.T)

 
Run by students and graduates, N.E.S.T aims to support, empower, and educate refugees and asylum seekers in the North East of England (and as a result of the pandemic, further across the UK and Europe). 
 
This winter, N.E.S.T are running an appeal for funds to help buy toys for the children who use their services as well as care packs containing items such as underwear, shoes, and toiletries for the whole families. While the initial target has been met, N.E.S.T aways needs more funds and the money will go towards supporting one of the many different projects it encompasses. These include Circus Club for kids, homework support, nursery for toddlers and babies, English language lessons, trips around the North East, working with schools, sports sessions, and more specialist social support. The main aspect of N.E.S.T is not the specifics of the projects themselves, but more the sense of community and belonging that it fosters and allows to bloom. It’s a very special project that deserves all the support possible. 

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9. The OR Foundation

 
The ‘or’ in OR Foundation highlights choice and therefore agency, and the ability for us to escape the current violent socio-economic system of corporate colonialism we now see dominating the world. The OR Foundation work in the intersection of environmental justice, education, and fashion development, and aim to find and create alternative systems that are kinder to people and planet and push back against the colonial present and past of the fashion industry. 
 
Their aim is to show the path to a Justice-Led Circular Economy and to help us get there quickly through collective and individual actions, holding those in power to account, educational programming and awareness, supporting sustainable independent designers, research and institutional advocacy to get people at all levels mobilized for change. They work in between Ghana and the USA, and have a focus in the Kantamanto Market in Ghana. They have so many different projects and they are all so important – the work The OR Foundation is doing is so exciting and really at the centre of change being created in the fashion industry.

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10. The Black Curriculum

 
Started in 2019, The Black Curriculum work to decolonize the school curriculum in the UK and ensure that Black history is no longer left out of British history teaching in schools. They provide teaching training, teaching resources, run educational programmes and a whole more. . Their core aims are to provide a sense of belonging to young people across the UK, teach an accessible and educational Black British history curriculum that raises attainment, and to improve social cohesion between young people in the UK. They also run campaigns to mobile young people and get them involved in political actions to decolonize the British curriculum at a national governmental level but also support students to lobby the senior managements in their own schools to create change in how and what they are taught. 


If you like my work and have learned something from it, please consider helping support me (so I have more time to write posts and articles like these!) by buying me a virtual cuppa! 


If you liked this post you might like: 25 Ways to Take Climate Action After the IPCC Report

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Fashion Deep Dive: Shein

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Wednesday, 22 September 2021

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Welcome to the first instalment of my new blog series Fashion Deep Dive, where I delve into the details of mainstream fashion brands looking at their histories, their human rights violations and any other cobwebs they might have hidden away in their cupboards. 

 

First on my hit-list is Shein, the Chinese brand that has risen rapidly in prominence in recent years and is now practically infamous – for all the reasons I will be discussing.  



The brand was founded 2008 in Nanjing, China by Chris Xu (who is thought to be a billionaire and doesn’t give interviews), and was originally called SheInside. Not quite as snappy as Shein I think you’ll agree. However, the original name nevertheless shows the brand’s aims and core ideal customer base: to make young women believe they are in a trendy exclusive club by buying more and more of their clothes. The app’s 7 million users per month and 160% surge in sales in January and June 2021 certainly show that that marketing is working. The brand officially became Shein in 2015 and now includes the brand Romwe as a subsidiary company. 

 

Shein have a history of opaque business practices, from the elusiveness of its CEO to the details of its supply chain. There is very little information about the people who make Shein’s clothes, which usually is a sign they are treated very poorly.The brand received 0 points in Remake’s Sustainability Assessment, which looks in-depth at a range of factors including worker welfare, sustainability of garments, transparency, and diversity of higher level staff. It’s pretty impressive to score absolutely nothing, and Shein trump even Boohoo who received 5 points. 

 

Shein is perhaps the prime example of ultra-fast fashion. On their website, they list 500 – 2,000 items listed every day and the time between the ‘design’ (read: theft) and  shipping to be as little as 3 days. That is ridiculously damaging on so many levels. The sheer amount of new clothing listed on their website every day is frankly nauseating. Think of the number of sizes for one item and the number of each they will have. That’s most likely tens of thousands of garments in total – mostly made out of polyester (aka plastic aka fossil fuels). With such a quick turnaround and at such cheap prices, you can almost guarantee that the (majority women) workers who made these clothes are not paid a living wage and are probably treated quite badly in order to get the clothes out in time (you can find out more about some of the things that occur in fast fashion factories in this blog post). Shein were one of the brands highlighted by Reuters in August 2021 for not making the relevant suppl chain disclosures in relation to the Modern Slavery Act.

 

Shein have made a series of very bad product design decisions. I genuinely don’t understand how these got the okay to be manufactured. For instance, in summer 2020 they tried pass off an Islamic prayer mat as a ‘decorative Greek rug’, completely disregarding the religious significance an connotations of these designs. At around the same time (the same week if I remember correctly), they also listed a swastika necklace. They later took it down and claimed that they used the original Buddhist symbol. In either case it’s not particularly great – trivialising and commercialising a religious symbol or a deeply fascist, anti-semitic, homophobic, racist etc. one. Neither is good, Shein. 

 

In May 2021, they released a phone case with the image of a handcuffed Black man outlined in white chalk on the back. Shein are using products using insensitive images, symbols, and cultural/religious items, created on the back of exploitation of mostly black and brown women purely to increase their own profit. 

 

Shein is perhaps most well-known for its regular theft of designs from small independent businesses and designers – ones that are much more ethical and sustainable than Shein themselves. The issue of design theft has been a huge issue with Shein for several years now, kicking off with a lawsuit filed against them by Levi Strauss & Co for using a trademarked jean stitching in 2018. It now seems like every week a new brand is stolen from and they are frequently owned by Black women. Brands they have stolen from include:

 

 

It feels needless to say that stealing from other brands at any time is obviously bad - however, it becomes even more so when these designs by small ethical and sustainable businesses often owned by marginalised people are stolen so openly by a brand that has never shown any evidence that it cares about its workers and mass produces these carefully crafted ideas with the sole aim of creating profit for its billionaire CEO. These tactics push small ethical and sustainable brands out of businesses, leaving the international fast fashion conglomerates with a monopoly on the fashion market – something that is good for neither their workers or the environment. 

 

Shein have hit the headlines in recent weeks for their new series airing this year where designers compete to win $100,000. A slight kick in the teeth considering Shein have been stealing from independent designers for years. Judges include Khloe Kardashian and designers such as Christian Siriano and Jenna Lyons. Big names adding further legitimacy to system of fashion reliant on exploitation and destruction of marginalised people and planet. It’s not something I’m particularly keen to watch.

 

More recently have stepped into the greenwashing arena with their new eco-line Shein Cares. The word ‘cares’ seems to be the it thing for brands who are super unethical trying to trick the public into thinking they give a damn about the environment (workers are normally left out of these campaigns altogether). Through their Wild Heart Collection, Shein raises money for animal conservation charities such as IFAW and various wildlife reserves in Singapore, but completely fails to recognise the role their overproduction has in damaging the animals they are supposedly aiming to protect. Shein’s campaign has been featured by various well known (and mostly rich, white, thin and straight) influencers who have highlighted what massive tree-huggers Shein apparently are with absolutely zero mention of their workers and supply chain. On their website they state that they will be donating $300,000 to animal welfare organisations as part of this campaign – a drop in the ocean of their estimated $10 billion annual revenue. Given everything we do and don’t know about Shein, these claims are undoubtedly lies made up for marketing purposes. These eco-lines never have good intentions and usually make up a small percentage of brands’ total production.  

 

Similarly, Shein claim to use factories that are ISO certified but ISO don’t actually certified brands. The ISO develop international standards but don’t certify brands themselves. This is deliberately misleading their customers. For more information on Shein’s vagueness about their supply chain vs the actual facts, make sure to read Remake’s article on them from earlier this year. 

 

Shein are the prime example of everything we need to move away from in order to make the fashion industry better everyone. They may claim to care but they do not give a single sh*t about their workers, the environment, designers, or even the animals they are seemingly so desperate to protect. They are a company built on lies, theft, and exploitation.



If you like my work and have learned something from it, please consider helping support me (so I have more time to write posts and articles like these!) by buying me a virtual cuppa! 


If you liked this post you might like: What To Do With Your Old Clothes

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What Do We Mean by Greenwashing and Woke-Washing? | SFS #2

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Wednesday, 25 August 2021

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Welcome to the second instalment in my series Slow Fashion Simplified, where I break down all the different terms in conversations around ethical and sustainable fashion. Today, I'll be looking at the terms greenwashing and woke-washing.

Greenwashing is a term that is used a lot by ethical and sustainable fashion campaigners, particularly when calling out brands. I know I use it a lot myself, but it can be confusing why something is labeled as greenwashing if you’re not an expert. Sometimes it can be blatant, sometimes it can be a lot subtler and more cleverly done. Woke-washing is used in a similar way, but how is it different from greenwashing? Hopefully this hope will help you crack the greenwashing and woke-washing codes! 



What is greenwashing?


The term ‘greenwashing’ was coined in 1986 by Jay Westerveld in an essay about how hotels encourage their customers to reuse their towels, and it essentially means that a company spends more on the marketing of its products as sustainable than on actually making their products sustainable. This is something that crops up time and time again and seems to be getting worse in recent years and months as a consumer awareness of the climate crisis rises. Obviously, greenwashing didn’t just spring into existence in 1986, it has been around for practically as long as we have known about climate change and global warming. Now it’s more prevalent than ever as the climate crisis is getting steadily worse and brands want to avoid accountability for their part in causing it. 

 

In terms of fast fashion, this often takes the form of brands who produce thousands if not millions of garments every month and who barely pay their workers showing off their ‘sustainable credentials’ with recycled polyester and organic cotton eco-collections. They say they are aiming for more sustainable fabrics by 2025/2030 but don’t tell us any information on what those fabrics actually are, what percentage is ‘more’, where they’re sourcing those fabrics or who grew and harvested them. They also won’t mention anything about paying their (mostly women) garment workers a living wage, improving their working conditions, and ensuring that garment workers are part of their policy-making. They won’t mention them because they don’t do them and that is bad PR and doesn’t fit with their goal ‘sustainable’ image because it’s not f*ckng sustainable.

 

It seems like there’s a new case of greenwashing every day lately, and there are some horrific cases out there. Boohoo are even trying to kid us that they give a single sh*t about the environment – seriously? 

 

Probably the most notorious example of greenwashing in the fashion industry however, is H&M. In 2012 they launched their ‘Conscious’ Collection', which aimed to provide consumers with more ethical and sustainable options. This collection has nearly been running for a decade, and yet the only thing that actually seems sustainable about it is that it’s made out of organic cotton, and even that’s not as sustainable as brands like to make it out to be. This collection has been growing to include more and more products each year, the opposite of what is actually needed from a sustainable business: degrowth. There is also no evidence they pay their workers a living wage, they have a history of sexual and gender-based violence in their supply chain, and have yet to renew the Bangladesh Accord on Fire and Safety. In their latest campaign, H&M have been using the child climate activists to appropriate their image and have good results show when someone searches the terms ‘H&M’ and ‘activists’ on Google rather than all of the campaigns against them. 


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But green- and woke-washing are not exclusive to the fashion industry, far from it. Companies like Shell and Amazon are always coming up on my TV with adverts proclaiming how much they’re doing to tackle the climate crisis and develop renewable energy sources, when one is trying to build a new oil field off the coast of Scotland and the other is sending its CEO into space for a 10-minute joy ride. 

 

Governments are also offenders in both of these means of lying. Take the UK Government for example. They claim to be a world leader when it comes to tackling the climate crisis and even though they’re set to approve a new oil field (the one proposed by Shell) and our Prime Minister flew from London to Cornwall for a conference on climate change. The Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, which is set to approve Cambo (that new oil field I keep banging on about), has also been releasing a series of paid-for/promoted tweets highlighting sustainable businesses. Maybe Stop Cambo first yeah? 

 

For more greenwashing campaigns currently trying to hold the wool over your eyes, check out this blog post. 


What about woke-washing?


Woke-washing, sometimes also known as CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) -washing, has become a more popular term in recent years, highlighting similar issues to greenwashing. Instead of brands marketing themselves as supposedly eco-conscious, woke-washing is when a brand markets themselves as a company with a social conscience but doesn’t follow through with the actions to back it up. I kind of wish there was a better name for it, as the word 'woke' has been appropriated from its original meanings/use by Black communities, and is now used in a very cringey way but a lot of white mainstream media. This is the phrase currently popular for describing when brands are lying about their social impact, but CSR-washing is definitely more appropriate for a lot of people to use, and certainly important to acknowledge the trend of brands lying about their part in social justice movements. 

 

Every social issue you can think of has probably been milked to within an inch of its life by almost every fashion brand out there. You have the classic fast fashion ‘feminist’ t-shirts but who pay their largely female workforce poverty wages, the brands which have rainbows everywhere possible during Pride but don’t do anything for the LGBTQ+ workers in their supply chain (check out Who Made My Pride Merch for more on the rights of LGBTQ+ garment workers), and the brands who posted black squares during summer 2020 but have done nothing to restructure their supply chains or head offices to empower people from minoritised ethnicities. 


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Think of the Black Lives Matter t-shirts brands like In The Style brought out last summer. These are a prime example of woke-washing. In The Style made these t-shirts incredibly quickly after George Floyd’s death so that it was incredibly unlikely they were manufactured ethically. Despite these t-shirts making it seem as if In The Style want to dismantle white supremacy, that argument is void wen their entire business model is based on the exploitation of black and brown women.  

 

Similarly, the term ‘GirlBoss’ was popularised by NastyGal founder Sophia Amoruso – suggesting the brand is the pinnacle of feminism! Over the years, NastyGal has had several lawsuits against them for discrimination against pregnant workers, and in 2017 the brand was taken over by the Boohoo Group, a company renowned for their mistreatment of workers and high levels or production. Not sure Sophia Amoruso is the feminist icon she thinks she is. 

 

When it boils down to it, greenwashing and woke-washing just means lying. Brands lie to us all the time to make us think they are better than they are so we will be more likely to give them our money. But unluckily for them, we can see past the bullsh*t. 




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