Christian Century: Shopping for justice: The trouble with good intentions
Julie Clawson needed a new bra. Most of the time Clawson, a Chicago-area pastor, would have just gone to the store, plunked down some cash and headed home with a new bra. But she had been reading about globalization, and her conscience made her wonder where her money was going and what was being done with it. So she decided to try an experiment. She decided to find a "justice bra"—to make a purchase that could do no wrong.
"The bra had to be made from an organically grown material. No synthetics made from petroleum, no pesticides . . . and no unsustainable practices," she wrote on the God's Politics blog. The bra must contain no toxic dyes, and it had to be "fairly made. From the farmers who grew the fibers, to the weavers who spun the fabric, to the tailors who assembled it, each person (adults, not children) along the way had to have been paid a living wage . . . not been coerced to work, and treated humanely."
Did such a bra exist? After searching for a couple weeks, Clawson found one. An online retailer based in Canada had a U.S.-made organic cotton bra that met her "justice bra" standards at a price of about $30—not much more than she would have spent at the mall.
Most of our clothes—and many other products we use each day—are made overseas. It's not just underwear that raises justice issues. In recent years, the living and working conditions of those making American clothes have come under greater scrutiny. …
…And it's not at all clear that Clawson really achieved the greatest justice by buying the "justice bra." At best, Clawson could hope for a long-term effect: if enough people think like her, then maybe working conditions around the globe could improve as demand for unjust bras wanes. At worst, buying an American-made bra from a Canadian company made some poor sweatshop worker a little worse off.
Is Clawson's willingness to pay $30 for justly made underwear typical of most Americans? The Wal-Mart store in Lake Zurich, Illinois, has a wide selection of bras ranging from $8 to $15. Undoubtedly, these fail Clawson's justice criteria. But they were probably made by poor-country workers doing jobs they prefer over their other options. And the low price allows low-income Americans to stretch their hard-earned dollars farther. So which bra does more justice?
Related: See my book review of the authors' book: Good Intentions: Nine Hot-Button Issues Viewed Through the Lens of Faith
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