Flippant Friday: My undies
Jan. 5th, 2007 03:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sabotabbyIf global warming keeps turning Toronto winters into Vancouver springs, I may not need long underwear for those cold, cold demos and vigils. But I'm not betting on this good weather lasting all winter. So I need to buy long underwear, or leggings, or something.
Now, I'm not into consumer activism*, but I never miss an opportunity for a poll. I would like to only own union- or co-op-made clothing, but it's often prohibitively expensive. And since you almost always need to order that stuff online, it's a pain to get sizing right. I buy union-made clothes where possible, but quite often it isn't.
My longjohn/legging options generally come down to two places: Chocky's, which is cheap as hell and stocks kneesocks with skulls on them and other sweatshop gems, and American Apparel**, which is mostly affordable and brags about how they pay their sewers living wages. Kinda. The owner also gropes his workers and models, apparently. On the one hand, we have atrocious economic exploitation, on the other, somewhat better labour standards, but atrocious sexual exploitation.
I leave it up to you, LJ friends, to cast your vote on my unethical clothing choices.***
[Poll #901179]
* I take part in boycotts, but only when they're part of a campaign and thus have the potential to be somewhat effective.
** Not these leggings, though:
What were they thinking? How does someone think that looks good?
*** And under capitalism, pretty much any consumer choice you make is unethical. I'm curious about which is the greater of the two evils. I suppose the greatest evil of all is the gold lamé leggings, but let's not go there.
Now, I'm not into consumer activism*, but I never miss an opportunity for a poll. I would like to only own union- or co-op-made clothing, but it's often prohibitively expensive. And since you almost always need to order that stuff online, it's a pain to get sizing right. I buy union-made clothes where possible, but quite often it isn't.
My longjohn/legging options generally come down to two places: Chocky's, which is cheap as hell and stocks kneesocks with skulls on them and other sweatshop gems, and American Apparel**, which is mostly affordable and brags about how they pay their sewers living wages. Kinda. The owner also gropes his workers and models, apparently. On the one hand, we have atrocious economic exploitation, on the other, somewhat better labour standards, but atrocious sexual exploitation.
I leave it up to you, LJ friends, to cast your vote on my unethical clothing choices.***
[Poll #901179]
* I take part in boycotts, but only when they're part of a campaign and thus have the potential to be somewhat effective.
** Not these leggings, though:
What were they thinking? How does someone think that looks good?
*** And under capitalism, pretty much any consumer choice you make is unethical. I'm curious about which is the greater of the two evils. I suppose the greatest evil of all is the gold lamé leggings, but let's not go there.
