Saturday, May 3, 2014

The Unknown Harm

Within society people want women to be perfect: have the perfect body, the perfect hair, and the perfect clothes. But everything comes at a cost in today’s age. In order to get healthy, sweatshop-free, and chemical-free clothing you need to pay the extra fee. When people typically think of what is ethical and what is not ethical to wear they typically think of sweatshop brands and animal cruelty, however harming the environment and harming ourselves creates unethical clothing conditions as well.
Greenpeace.org has an article named Toxic Threads that name off different brands and the toxic chemicals that are used to manufacture their clothing. Such brands are Emporio Armani, Benetton, Calvin Klein, Gap, and Victoria’s Secret. These chemicals not only harm the environment when they are made but they also harm the person who is wearing them such as a Gap Children’s raincoat that contains nonylphenol ethoxylate which when broken down in the environment cause hormone disrupting chemicals to be produced or Victoria’s Secret Women’s Underwear which contains a high level of a toxic phthalates which can damage fertility for a woman or an unborn child within the fetus. This organization (GreenPeace) is currently enforcing a statement saying that any company using toxic and harmful chemicals must be clear of them by 2020.
                When one thinks about harming an unborn child you would often think about having an abortion, doing drugs, or drinking alcohol, but did you ever think that just because a women wants to wear what’s considered to be “sexy” underwear she could be harming the baby just as much? We all want to be just like a Victoria’s Secret Angel, with just the perfect amount of sex appeal, but when it begins to harm others do we really want to promote a company that can cause true harm. The essay “Slaves to Fashion” by: Lauren Ashwell and Rae Langton talks about the moral bonds that a fashionista holds. This essay states how people typically feel bad for the hard core fashionistas because they don’t know the true harm that they are causing. When it comes to things like what I have just explain however I believe that very few people know about it. Victoria’s Secret is one of the most known lingerie stores in the United States but do people really know what they are buying?
                I view my two biggest primary values in life are security and tradition. I am a person who wants to feel secure with where I am and with whatever I am doing. This is how I perform my best. I need to have the people around me who make me feel most comfortable with who I am and I need to know that if I fall I will be caught and helped right back up. With security comes a chance to become your best self. I believe I feel so much for the Victoria’s Secret issue because that poor unborn child isn’t secure just because of its mother wanting to feel sexy. I am also a big person when it comes to tradition. Traditions are what I base my life around, what people have done in the past centuries I want to look forward to doing, to getting married, and having children. But its not just the traditions of our ancestors that intrigues me it’s the small family traditions as well. I love being able to count on my family to be celebrating a first birthday or getting together for dessert holidays. When we become selfish and take those away from others we aren’t letting them shape themselves. A baby needs to learn how to grow up with its family surrounding and not have to worry about being sick because of a company.

Ethical Questions:
1.       When thinking of clothing should we have to be worried about our future children when wearing them?
2.       Should we have to worry about the environment just because we are wearing a specific brand?
                 

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