06-02-2025
In the Fashion Industry, Gender-Based Violence Can Be Part of the Job
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This story discusses sexual assault and gender-based violence.
'Just because I carry it well doesn't mean it's not heavy.' This saying is emblazoned on tie-dye T-shirts worn by dozens of young women working in Accra, Ghana. They are the Kayayei, a term used for female head porters who carry large, often dangerously heavy, loads of clothing on their heads through the narrow pathways of resell markets. Many of these women come from around the country to work in the city's thriving secondhand centers.
'No matter how heavy it is, they carry it,' says Hajara Musah Chambas, who goes by Nabia, of the Or Foundation. If these women were to split bundles to try to lighten the load, she explains, they would lose money. 'She's not going to be able to pay her rent.' Over time, the weight of the clothing can cause permanent damage to the spine and complications can lead to death.
The phrase on their shirts is both a literal reference to the work of a head porter and a metaphor: The load many of these women carry, especially the younger ones, is more than just their livelihoods. Because of their vulnerable housing situation, where they live in homes with no locks or bathrooms, they are often subject to violence from landlords and other men. 'The kind of trauma these women are carrying in addition to the weight is [wild]," says Nabia. "Sometimes you talk to them, and they're just like, 'Hmm' — they don't have anything to say to you. They can't even express how they feel because no one even takes a second to understand.'
This is just one of the many examples of gender-based violence that permeates the fashion industry. For consumers, the industry promises to help you feel your best; for workers, it's a better life and a way to provide; and for models, it's upward mobility and adjacency to a glamorous world. But as with many vows, the promises fashion makes to millions of people around the world are fraught. And for the young women who prop up every segment of the fashion industry, those promises are often completely broken.
From the production of clothing to the marketing of products to their polluting end, young women in the most vulnerable positions are not protected by the industry that is making billions off their work. Cameron Russell, model and author of How to Make Herself Agreeable to Everyone, likens this problem to consent. In each position — whether models, Kayayei, or garment workers — can you truly consent to something when you are told one thing but experience something else, something completely exploitative?
'I started modeling when I was 16 and was always surprised by the strange duality of the success I experienced," Russell tells Teen Vogue. "While on the one hand I was getting bigger, more lucrative jobs, the expectation as I rose in the ranks was to go with the flow. Play the part. Conform. Please. Be grateful and nothing else.'
Russell continues, 'Experiencing this 'success' myself was so jarring at first that it led to my curiosity about why the fashion industry — which, by appearances, seems to celebrate femininity, women, and even expansive expressions of gender — felt that it also relied heavily on a very silent, gendered workforce.'
On the clothing production side, 80% of 60 million garment workers worldwide are women, and in some of the largest producing countries, like Bangladesh, that number can be higher. These workers — who produce the clothes for your favorite fashion brands — make well below a living wage and are often subjected to subpar working conditions.
These workers are also the system's base, but they are not represented in management, where men hold the majority of positions in most factories. This unequal dynamic has led to a culture of gender-based violence that is often used in retaliatory ways. In a 2018 study of Cambodian garment workers, 87% of workers said they experienced verbal harassment or unwanted touching based on their gender. In Indonesia, the same year, 71% said they experienced gender-based violence at work.
And it isn't just the positions often hidden by the industry that are subject to this system. We often think of big names like Gigi Hadid when we picture fashion models, but in reality many models are still teenagers who have moved away from their families and gone into debt in pursuit of a big break. This leads to scenarios where models don't have protection or the power to push back on objectification. In a 2020 study published by the Model Alliance, half of the models surveyed about their experience at New York Fashion Week said they were subject to 'invasive photography and on some occasions, changing-room photos were circulated via social media without their consent.'
'I think it's very convenient that the industry says, 'Look, all these women chose this job,'' Russell says. 'Well, in Bangladesh, 90% of export earnings come from ready-made garments — there aren't many alternatives. And in the United States, we're all inside pretty broken systems, so no matter what, we will have to try to change things from inside.'
That is exactly the kind of coalition building among people throughout the fashion industry that, with amplification, can create shifts. Models like Russell and Sara Ziff have raised awareness of the issues on their side, creating legislation such as the Fashion Workers Act, which protects models from exploitative practices and recently became law in New York State. Now organizers are working together to push for transparency throughout the industry so that, at every step, there is a path to fight back, specifically by holding brands accountable for the gender disparity that happens at every level of the business.
In a report published by Asia Floor Wage Alliance and Global Labor Justice, organizations that represent the interests of workers, they highlighted the importance of brands that will support them in fighting back. In 2022, for example, the Dindigul Agreement was created and signed by H&M to address issues in the factories where it produces garments. Similarly, organizations like Billoomi Fashion, a private-label clothing manufacturer, have committed to ethical production and fair treatment of their workers up front — an important step to shift norms in the industry.
'[The more] we realize how core fashion is to sustaining ourselves and others, the more of it we reclaim from the industry,' Russell says, '[including] the strength of workers' movements and their attention to gender — and the way we see women leading and caring for one another in almost all the successful efforts to build a healthy fashion ecosystem.'
Originally Appeared on Teen Vogue
Read more stories in Teen Vogue's The Last Stop package:
The Teen Vogue Sustainable Fashion and Beauty Glossary
Too Much Shopping Could Be Hurting Your Mental Health
What Really Happens to Your Used Clothing
In the Fashion Industry, Gender-Based Violence Can Be Part of the Job
