The dirty secret behind fashion industry that piles up waste, and exploits women worldwide.
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“If clothes are supposed to empower women, why do they leave landfills overflowing and workers exploited?” That was a question that popped up in my head when I read the news about the reality of fashion waste and labor injustice behind fast fashion.
What’s ironic about the fashion industry right now is how it gets packaged as “empowering” and “liberating,” when at the same time, it’s one of the biggest sources of waste on the planet.
I can’t help but feel the tension here. Clothes have always been one of the few ways women could actually breathe a little louder and say who we are, when so much else in the world was telling us to stay quiet. But the cruel twist is that fashion has slowly been turned into a machine that exploits everything — our planet, the garment workers (most of them women, and mainly in Asia), and honestly, us as the consumers.
We’re constantly told that buying the new dress or jacket is an act of empowerment, a way to express who we are, to feel beautiful, to reinvent ourselves. What’s harder to admit is that this narrative is…