Eating Our Own

The dark truth behind American Apparel was recently brought to my attention (to my despair) as I was doing research on sexual violence in the media. Turns out I’ve been duped again and am apparently very behind since others have known this since 2003. As someone who firmly believes that we vote with our dollars and that the way we spend our money is an opportunity to live out our beliefs, I had been buying American Apparel for years because their clothes are non-sweatshop, made in the US, and (frankly) fit well. To be honest, I had never much looked into other company policies or checked into their advertising. I didn’t think I needed to; almost every liberal or progressive entity I support buys their shirts. Perhaps I took too much for granted... And maybe those so-called progressive entities did, too, because they’re still selling AA clothing with their precious names and political slogans plastered on the front.

It seems that American Apparel is no different than the other clothing companies I deplore in terms of misogynistic advertising – extreme objectification of women and all. A look at their online photo gallery shows a lot of seductive, scantily clad women in American Apparel clothing. Nothing’s wrong with scantily clad women, of course… women are beautiful. However, most of them are in submissive poses or have submissive looks on their faces. My favorite, however, can be found here. Notice the irony when they talk about not using exploitative labor tactics. So, it’s okay to exploit women’s sexuality to sell clothes but not to exploit their labor to make them? Sickening. I also found this one which I want to believe is not actually a real AA ad because it’s so blatantly untrue and offensive. In fact, it’s bullshit. However, the part about most domestic violence being initiated by women is apparently a real quote from their CEO. Talk about entitled and unenlightened.

For an excellent look at the company, see this site. It covers the good, the bad, and the otherwise. I strongly urge you to check out the section on sexual harassment and the quotes from him. Fascinating reading. He’s nothing if not very fond of himself.

What’s really interesting is the conversation I had with a worker/owner at my favorite local juice bar (who prints their t's on AA shirts). [I'm not sure if he was a worker or an owner but he made it sound like the t-shirt decisions were up to him.] He overheard my partner and I discussing the above issues. Here’s how it went:

Juice guy: Oh, are you talking about American Apparel? About how the owner’s sexist?

Me: Uh, yeah. And apparently he’s anti-union, too.

Juice guy: Yeah, but it’s still better than a lot of companies. I mean, why’s it always gotta be the left picking on the left. We’re tearing ourselves apart. We’re our own worst enemy.

Me: Uh….

And that’s pretty much the bulk of the conversation. It took me a little while to digest what he said, and then I was PISSED. On the face of it, I don’t disagree that sometimes the left is its own worst enemy. However, if the CEO of AA had been overtly racist, would we still be defending him? Would we even give it a second thought before organizing a mass boycott? Somehow I doubt it. We kind of excuse sexism (which is kind of a calm term for this, really.) If you ask me, what we have here is not the left attacking the left, but the left trying to keep conservative ass-holes from claiming to have progressive policies from exploiting our politics and beliefs for their own gain. If the company’s advertising is truly misogynistic (I would argue that it is), their CEO is a sexist who harasses female staff (read it for yourself), and they are anti-union, how can we still pretend that this man is “on the left”?

And why so little media coverage? I think it would have gotten much more media coverage if he’d been blatantly homophobic. At least that would have been sensational enough for the media to cover. Violence against women, sexism, misogyny… they’re just not newsworthy. I haven’t seen mention of American Apparel’s problems on any mainstream media source, only on smaller, more progressive internet media sites.

I know that as a society we tolerate violence against women to an alarming degree... This isn't new to me, and I know that the juice bar guy would just say that I'm contributing to the left's problem by calling him on his shit. I think he's wrong. We have to hold each other accountable for our beliefs and our actions. His ho-hum attitude about supporting and organization that appears to be sexist (or steeped in misogyny) is not okay. His unwillingness to take a stand on behalf of women is not okay. He's a man, so he can do so without much threat to his psyche. I am a woman before I am anything on the political continuum. And I will not tolerate excusing these attitudes.

So, what’s to be done?

That’s where the brilliance of internet communication comes into play: e-activism. After reading the report on American Apparel, I concluded that I can no longer support the company. For me, that also means that I have an obligation to inform the other individuals, causes, companies, etc. from which I have purchased American Apparel t-shirts (with related logos, slogans, etc.) about what I have learned and my stance. In fact, I sent an e-mail (with the link to the article) to the store for Ani Difranco’s Righteous Babe Records, and they responded within 5 minutes saying they’d look into it. I hope they were serious. I will now work my way down my long list of contacts and see if I can make some change.

I, for one, will be trying to move toward No Sweat clothing… until I hear some bad news about them.