The Politics of Clothes

From: jim blair (jeblair_at_XXXfacstaff.wisc.edu)
Date: 07/13/04 

Date: Mon, 12 Jul 2004 21:38:10 -0500

The Politics of Clothes.

The February 6, 2004 issue of Isthmus (a local Madison weekly) had as its
lead article
"Wearing your Conscience on Your Sleeve", on how to dress in conformity to
the current
ideas of political correctness. This reminded me of discussions during
the 1970's on the
same subject, and I was struck by how the criteria for proper dress has
changed since then.

The recent article was concerned with where clothes are made and by who.
The lament
was that today shoppers can't find union-made-in America unless they look
long and hard
and are willing to pay premium prices. Otherwise they will likely end up
with things that
were made in China, Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, Russia, Philippines,
Pakistan, Bulgaria,
Singapore, Lesotho, Dominican Republic, or other such places. And this is
BAD because
those clothes are cheap, because they are made in "sweatshops" by people who
are paid low
wages by US standards.

It was suggested that clothes made by foreigners might pass PC inspection if
they carry a
FAIR TRADE label, but the selection of these is very limited.

The only reference to WHAT clothes should be made of as opposed to where
they were
made was that hemp is the preferred cloth, because it can be grown with
less harm to the
environment. This is in sharp contrast to the PC ideas of the 70's during
the decade of
the "energy crisis" and concern for the "environment" (remember those?).

In those discussions, WHERE was of no concern, the issue was WHAT.
Conservationists
made a point of wearing cotton shirts, typically blue, and polyester was
considered BAD
because it is made from petroleum. That is until someone did an improved
energy and
resource balance comparison of different kinds of clothes and demonstrated
that cotton
is actually the worst. It uses lots of energy and pesticides to grow. The
original
cotton-is-better claim was based on the energy needed to produce a given
weight of
cotton and of polyester. But a given weight of polyester makes 3 times as
many
shirts as that weight of cotton because the cotton shirts are heavier. When
that is
factored in, cotton falls behind.

And (if dryers are used) cotton consumes a lot more energy in the wash/dry
cycle, as
compared to polyester, and the shirts wear out after fewer wash cycles.
These
considerations expand a small cotton disadvantage into a large loss. Best
was
a combination of mostly synthetic fabric (Rayon and polyester) with some
cotton.

So much for cloth. But is those days when Earth and Environment were the
primary
concerns, fur and leather were the clothing of choice. They were "natural",
recyclable,
biodegradable, didn't require petroleum to make, didn't release CO2, and
after Richard
Nixon defended his wife's cloth coat over the furs of the rich, it was save
for Democrats
 to wear fir.

Of course that was before PETA and the Animal Rights movement.

If ideas about what constitutes "wearing your conscience" can change so much
in
just 30 year, how can anyone predict what will be considered PC in 2035?

                     ,,,,,,,
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                       (_)
jim blair (jeblair@wisc.edu) Madison Wisconsin USA.
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Relevant Pages

  • Re: Wearing your conscience.
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  • Re: Wearing your conscience.
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