I'm often assured that "toxic masculinity" doesn't mean an inherent criticism of masculinity, and is a phrase that many institutions seem to think is a productive way to talk about problems they perceive as being male gendered.
I find it interesting to consider whether it would also be productive to refer to fast fashion as "toxic femininity", as it's often literally so, given pesticides, plastics, fertilisers.
I will not perhaps be the first to do this, however.
We teach them that they can't wear white after a certain time the year, and then black after a certain time. Why? Just because. We teach them never to wear the same outfit as their friend at the same party. We teach that they always have to wear perfect clothes.
There are examples of people fighting these things (such as ripped jeans) but they're the rebels, not the norm.
So yeah, I think that in regards to most clothing issues, "toxic femininity" definitely applies.
For fast fashion... I don't know. I have never paid attention to that scene, so I don't know how much it affects men.
Also, I should note that "toxic masculinity" generally only refers to behaviors that straight men show, and not gay men. And is often badly applied.
I’ve never understood why this isn’t called toxic femininity. If society’s standards of femininity cause women to become anorexic, that standard of femininity is clearly toxic. Just like how a standard of masculinity that causes men to take steroids and damage their bodies would rightly be considered toxic by everyone.
I think the reason is that there’s a kind of cat-coupling. When you say “I visited the famous golden gate bridge”, you don’t mean “among all the golden gate bridges, I visited the one that was famous”. You mean “I visited the golden gate bridge, and by the way the golden gate bridge is famous”.
When you say “toxic masculinity” even if you mean “the subset of masculinity which is toxic”, it’s possible to interpret that as “masculinity, and by the way masculinity is toxic”.
Feminist academics, being mostly female, have no emotional response to the idea that saying all masculinity is toxic, so the possible misinterpretation doesn’t bother them. But they might have a response to someone saying all femininity is toxic, so they wisely chose a term that was less likely to be misinterpreted (“internalized misogyny”). More diversity in their field would have prevented them from making the same mistake w.r.t. toxic masculinity.
Because language itself is also subject to societal bias - it's turtles all the way down.
Men are by default the transgressor - they are actively aggressive and when good things happen to men it's because they went out and fought for it and got it done and when bad things happen to or because of a man it's because of a flaw in the man, a failure to actively improve ones self. These are both not true pictures of reality, of course, but the man is always the one depicted with the active tense, for better and worse.
Women are by default the passive transgressee - when something bad happens to a woman it's often because they are the victim of a system or person that was stronger than them - they could hardly be expected to do otherwise. Similarly when something good happens it's often lucky, thanks to the support system of the people around them, or even worse painted as an 'inspirational' exception that is novel only for it's improbability.
The truth is somewhere in there, but with all the layers of human abstraction on top of it it's hard to prise it apart, but one thing is for sure - our language informs how we think in a very concrete way.
Perhaps it would then also be helpful to use toxic misandry instead of toxic masculinity because as you mention people can take it to mean that men by nature are toxic.
Toxic masculinity isn't misandry, so, no, it wouldn't be helpful. Both toxic masculinity and internalized misogyny are aspects of partriarchal socialization; they aren't symmetrical with regard to sex or gender.
Men's fashion or even just basic clothing choices are very restricted as well and have their own rules. In that case it's not fast fashion, but the toxic fashion industry goes well beyond feminity.
The difference I'd highlight to you is that women are taught these things to get a husband and fulfill their traditional roles in a patriarchal society. They are baby incubators as far as that system is concerned.
Men are taught to be aggressive or not show emotions not because it will get them a wife and family, but because in Western society the chain of command goes: God -> Father -> Mother -> Children
In fact many of our cultural cornerstones rest on this baked in assumption, like The Iliad. The entire plot is set into motion by a tantrum wherein Achilles does not want to hand over a captive woman he views as his property. Thousands die in that pissing contest with a human being as the prize.
Now imagine we say Helen of Troy is displaying toxic femininity by investing so much in her appearance. Well, the reason she does is because it's the only source of her worth (besides making children of course) to a patriarchal society such as that of Ancient Greece
I challenge this. Men are taught to be strong, aggressive, and not show emotion precisely because it's seen as how strong men behave, and being a strong man is seen as a way to get a wife and family.
> In fact many of our cultural cornerstones rest on this baked in assumption, like The Iliad.
"So speaking glorious Hektor reached out to take his son. But the child shrank back crying against the breast of his girdled nurse, terrified at the sight of his own father...Hektor took the helmet straight from his head and laid it gleaming on the ground. Then he kissed his dear son and dandled him in his arms..."
One could also make the argument that it is a patriarchal attitude to suggest women are so lacking in agency, that a popular interest amongst woman could be reducible solely to the interest of pleasing men.
But jokes aside I think it generally applies here, we don't live in an equal society so women don't experience the level of agency men do, even in the presence of wealth.
There are immense pressures for women to like certain things, dress certain ways, etc. Men have their own pressures, but they have more agency when choosing how to dress specifically. Can you think of a single woman CEO that can get away with dressing like Mark Zuckerberg or Jack Dorsey, for example?
Yet - women wearing mens clothing choices is very normal.
I’m not saying men have it worse or anything btw - just giving vision to the other side which is ignored often. Men have simplistic wardrobes out of habit but also because they literally are so limited in what they can wear. Choose your bottom - pants, pants, jeans, or pants. Choose your top - polo, button down, or t-shirt. Those are your options. You can try to add layers like a scarf, sweater, suit jacket, etc. but mens fashion is inherently way more limited due to gender norms. It’s not a surprise that you see CEOs wearing the same thing everyday because they’re like, “well, what else can I fucking wear? I can’t wear different dresses everyday with different cuts and patterns and designs. It’s not masculine. I’ll be ridiculed.” So they go with what is exceptionally boring and repeatable because very few people will even notice to begin with…
Even when men just accessorize - it becomes a costume and a joke. Prime example - Bezos wore a cowboy hat. Now it’s a costume you can buy off Amazon because of the cowboy hat. It should really show you how men cannot wear almost anything outside the norms without heavy critique. So they go with what is safest and normalized and just wear that every single day.
I have never met a man who cared about what color of anything they wear.
I have never heard a man even notice makeup, other than being too much.
And the big one--shoes. Men don't notice shoes. We just gasp at the price. I have a sister who because a multimillionaire making/selling shoes to women. She knew how they felt about shoes, and exploited it. Oh yea, throw in hand bags. I have never heard a male utter this sentance, "But did you see her handbag?"
Female fashion is not due to men. Men got a break on this one war. You can argue the mini-skirt was man's doing, but that's pretty much it.
(This is just for America. I have no clue to the rest of the world.)
I currently have a bag full of mens clothes to take to the tailor to repair: holes in pockets, elbow holes, loose buttons.
Luckily there are alternatives, in the Netherlands I found [1] (apologies, also in Dutch), and there are many more of such companies. The crazy thing is that it's really not that expensive and they even make the clothing high quality so I have to shop less (I hate shopping). (Ok, so I never really was the target for fast fashion.) I'm open to other suggestions for responsible (quality) clothing.
I now own previously unworn Armini jeans, previously unworn Drykorn's, Scotch & Soda etc. About € 5 each. Actually I am dressed better than ever before.
Pro-tip : don't buy used shoes.
And you will feel this primarily in your knees very soon.
Thanks for the NPO tip: definitely going to watch it :)
Edit: Are there also brands specifically aiming at quality? So that denim pants just last a lot longer for example? Paying more feels even better if I'm really buying quality. The Skot polo I bought seems to be really good fabric and well made, they also touted that, that really adds a lot to the whole value proposition, for me.
Another edit: This is also a nice initiative which could perhaps be leveraged more, specifically by ethical companies: [0]
If you'd like to have a longer conversation about this, feel free to contact me at arjan [at] fairbee.com
We're also looking at different ways to ship, especially the last mile, trying to use electric cargo bikes instead of vans, and bundling packages across other shops as well via izipack for instance.
edit: one thing about the quality we're running into is it's hard to get across online how different the hoodies we have (from Athrty for example) look from the hoodies you'd buy at H&M for instance. As soon as you have them in your hands you can tell the difference, but on pictures that's way less apparent.
I would pay €25-40 if a shirt is really good...
Although I suppose there's a separate externality to creating friable material. The issue of discarding too much should be addressed with higher prices at the dump.
But you could be right: carbon pricing down to the edge on all things might actually be good economics if we can work out how to make it run. Please don't say blockchain
sure - long enough for you to run around Central City robbing every bank.
Which brings us right back to (very) fast fashion.
Whether in inputs (unethical labor practices, questionable material composition, hazardous inputs handling, manipulative marketing tactics and artificial scarcity) or in outputs (planned obsolescence, unsustainable consumption, disposal, discounting full product life-cycle), socio+ecological costs are ignored to maximize profits while keeping prices fairly low.
It's good to democratize access to more and fancier options but if this comes by cheating and a dishonest accounting of costs, it's not worth it (full cost accounting will be better in the long run, having to account for product full life cycle might spur investment and innovations in say, mechanical disposal automation or plasma arc gasification).
If the dump costs more, people create unlicensed dumps. Thus the cost remains external.
Taxes (and thereby price adjustments) can achieve some social goals. Empirically so, not assumed.
Both the "state" and "us" are social constructs, and are simultaneously both essentially the same concept and entirely separate concepts. The nice thing is that we don't need theory here, we can just try it and find out if it helps, then try something else if it fails.
And water waste. [0]
Most people have no idea how water intensive the textile dyeing of their clothes really is.
Buy high quality clothes and wear them as long as possible.
[0] https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/putting-brakes-f...
So one (Shein) might be less bad per unit style but encourages more rapid churn. The other traditional model claims fast, but is slower, but has higher upfront build and ship consequences.
I don't think this detracts from your broader point, though -- your specific example just happened to be the unusual exception to an otherwise good rule.
TJ Maxx is interesting in that it is fast fashion but it provides a useful outlet for clothes that would otherwise have been trashed.
So immediately it is a positive since it ensures more clothes are worn than they would have been otherwise.
In the long run, however, by providing those clothes value beyond their original life TJ Maxx helps prop up the finances of fast fashion, so maybe it’s a net negative? It’s not clear to me.
Sure, it's perhaps a bit niche. But there's a thriving open source community at https://FreeSewing.org/
Full disclosure: I am the FreeSewing maintainer
I suspect wherever you buy the clothes from they likely come from the same sweatshops and factories in Asia just with different markup.
Many people say Zara is fast fashion, yet I sit in the Zara clothes that have lasted me 2-3 years. We are fortunate to be able to produce high quality clothing incredibly cheaply due to the wonders of modern manufacturing and the brutal exploitation of foreign labour - yet that won't stop people throwing it in the bin to get the next shiny thing an 'influencer' has shilled.
A bit farther along you can find arbitrage type businesses reselling lots or whole sale and warehouse overstock, army/navy/surplus, vintage boutiques upselling estates or whatever wont sell in retail stores for whatever reason. This is an easy option, but the price is higher since someone is curating a selection or otherwise squeezing a profit from what might've been refuse.
A lot of the old-school sources (flea, thrift) have been experiencing additional inventory pressure caused by another great option which is depop, etsy, ebay, or other online shops (even goodwill has an online auction site[0]). Tons of practical, uncommon, and cool thrift finds are available online at the general cost of people farming thrift and flea markets for popular sizes, driving up prices and reducing popular sized stocks. But this also keeps tons of old weird stuff in peoples closets out of the garbage by granting a more obvious value proposition. GenZ people seem to be embracing this quite a bit. It sounds like a fun side-hustle for a college student.
Frankly, if you are buying regular wardrobe, I'd make the fairly obvious recommendation of just simply buying practical, usable, and good quality. If what you buy works well and lasts a reasonable period, thats a great definition of value to follow towards the best manufacturers. Maybe buy it from a store you like and don't worry about it if we've stopped the urge to buy a little bit of trash because we feel weird at 2am. We is me.
Most of the fast fashion cheap stuff is uselessly flimsy, but maybe it would work alright for a costume or some kind of bedroom scenario. I guess in one respect fast fashion is useful insofar as its hard to find some of that weird one-off junk-stuff in a thrift store or even the mall, because nobody will buy it. Its ugly and the fabric is itchy.
That said, it's generally limited to the segment of people who are aware of fast-fashion, have their own reasons to disdain it, can afford the substantial premium of sticking to slow fashion, and are willing to follow through. This is perhaps a smaller market than might be wished for.
Frankly there isn't much alternative.
How does all of that waste compare to all of the waste involved in making your comment? Not just the infra required to host it and distribute it, but the devices required for you to make it. Kind of turning a blind eye to the amount of "cost shifting of waste streams to developing nations" that electronic devices create.
Fast fashion clothing often falls apart after a single wash and at the latest after two. They are meant to worn once and then to be disposed. I agree that some electronics like smartphones should be made to last for more than 2 years but fast fashion creates much, much more plastic waste on its own. We already know how to make longer lasting, more environment friendly clothing, so it's not like we couldn't do any better.
So your comment seems to be quite the hyperbole.
Is that hyperbole? Or is it really that bad? I always thought fast fashion meant stuff like those cheap Amazon brands (!Solid etc.) that only last around a year…
Anecdotally, it seems like women’s fast fashion falls apart a lot faster than men’s apparel from the same brands. And some brands are a lot worse than others (e.g. Forever 21 is a lot worse than H&M)
I bought a F21 shirt exactly once and on the third wash there were numerous holes in it.
Extremely poorly? Computers, especially servers and the kind of clients that HN users tend to favour, are built to be robust and last years if not decades; many HN folk are proud of how long theirs last. The kind of computer that gets thrown away quickly is the fashion-driven kind, and that's not a coincidence.
His waste comment is compared to a baseline of something more durable.
Not to say Shein isn't responding well to an economic niche. Just, that it has an externalised cost: disposal of clothes on a fashion whim is not a good thing.