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Happy International Women’s Day! To celebrate one of the best days of the year, we’ve rounded up some dynamic and responsible women-owned brands rated “Good” or “Great” on our directory.
Feminism and sustainable fashion
As many of us can attest, fast fashion is inherently anti-feminist, a constant violator of human rights, and terrible for the planet. Since the 1990’s and the dawn of globalisation, most of our garments have been grown, sewn, and crafted outside of our home countries where a majority of the garment workforce are women, usually women of colour, too often exploited and underpaid.
Along with severe underpayment, many of these women also face harassment, insults, and pressure to continue working in less than adequate conditions—all for the sake of a $10 SHEIN top that will tear as soon as you wash it.
If you’ve seen The True Cost, or any other film documenting fast fashion’s horrors, you know that the buck doesn’t stop here—that fast fashion also disempowers women by promoting unrealistic beauty standards, lining the pockets of majority male C-Suites, encouraging excessive spending, and causing other environmental injustices.
Luckily, we’re here to report that in this story, there is definitely no “knight in shining armour,” but instead an empowered entrepreneurial community of women committed to changing the fashion industry in their own unique, innovative ways.
Before diving in, if you’re interested in understanding the intersectionality between environmentalism and feminism a bit more, the resources below will help you get started:
- How Fast Fashion Factories Trap Women and Girls in Poverty (And How We Can Help)
- Why Fast Fashion Is a Feminist Issue
- Intersectional Ecofeminist Communication: A New Paradigm for Environmental Communication
- Intersectional Environmentalist
Now, without further ado, we’re pleased to introduce to you 33 of our favourite female sustainability superheroes.