Text 1

DON’T BUY THAT SWEATER. IT’S EXPLOITING A WOMAN

BY SHIPRA GUPTA
OCTOBER 6, 2020

It creeps into your feed as you try to avoid more bad news: a richly-colored turtleneck, not a
knock-off of a famous designer, but close enough to the haute couture sweater you saw on a
model in a magazine that was so expensive that you’d have to forgo housing for that month to
put a down payment on it.

But wait, this is reasonably priced – $39. How can something you’ve only dreamt of be so
affordable and so convenient since it appeared in one of your daily swipedowns? It’s such a
bargain you just click “Shop Now” and buy it. It was too good to pass up.

But pass it up you must. Buying that sweater only contributes to the exploitation of garment
workers working in other countries. These workers, predominantly women, account for 13
percent of 3.4 billion of the global workforce but are some of the worst paid in the world, often
laboring long hours in exploitative, unsafe, and poor working conditions.

The global fashion industry mints 1.2 trillion dollars a year yet many of these workers labor
more than 60 hours a week to earn less than two dollars a day, struggling to provide food to
their families; Forget about them affording medical care or pension programs. These workers
clearly are not being compensated fairly for their creative efforts and hard labor. An industry that
celebrates beauty of women on their fashion ramps, hides the ugly reality of ignoring the
women’s rights, social justice, and basic needs of humanity of their workers in third-world
countries.

If the fashion industry assures its workers that if they don’t die of hunger, they die of something
else.

The hazardous working conditions these 430 millions workers face furthers adds to the social
cost borne by the fashion industry. The workers are forced to work in poorly ventilated and
under-developed facilities that result in cancer caused due to cotton dust, synthetic air
particulates, textiles dyes, and solvents, respiratory diseases, adverse reproductive and fetal
outcomes, damage to endocrine functioning, and musculoskeletal health hazards.

Twenty-seven million workers worldwide are currently suffering from work-related illness and
diseases. In 2013, the fashion industry witnessed the historic garment-factory disaster — the
Rana Plaza factory collapse, where more than 1100 workers were killed — but still waits to
learn its lesson to provide safe working conditions to its workers.

Besides, the hypocrisy of this industry deserves condemnation. The same fashion industry that
empowers women with confidence and self-expressions also cultivates a culture that encourages
harassment and abuse of women. Considered as a weaker sex by their supervisors, these female
workers come to work every day worrying about the physical, verbal, or sexual ordeal they
would endure in order to make their ends meet.

Refusing to support these companies isn’t a decision I came to easily. Sometimes the money that
these workers earn — approximately $2 per day — is all they can make; it’s often their only
income even if it’s exploitation wages in adverse conditions. But we need to decide how many
human rights violations we will tolerate for a cute sweater. 100? 2000? 100,000?

I just can’t make some justifications, morally. As people who care for our world, we’ve stood
and taken action for climate change, Black Lives, and voting rights. It simply doesn’t make
sense to say that 430 million working peoples’ lives don’t matter. That’s not who we are.

As consumers we hold power and can help change the dark side of this glamorous world of
fashion. We should raise our voice through actions for the workers who cannot speak for
themselves. We need an active boycott of corporate fashion brands that don’t treat and pay their
workers fairly. Don’t be afraid to tell your favorite brands the social injustice they have
cultivated over decades, whose price the workers continue to pay. It will generate a spark and
make brands think about their workers.

Shipra Gupta is an Associate Professor of Marketing at University of Illinois-Springfield and a

Public Voices Fellow with The OpEd Project.
Source:
https://visiblemagazine.com/dont-buy-that-sweater-its-exploiting-a-woman/

Text 2
Women lose legal fight in Court of Appeal to lower State Pension Age to 60
By : NARPO – The voice of retired police officers
The Court of Appeal has unanimously rejected an appeal by two women against the
decision of the High Court in October 2019 that the mechanisms chosen by the
government to implement changes which equalised the State Pension Age (SPA)
between men and women over the period April 2010 to November 2018 and raised the
SPA from 65 to 66, 67 or 68, depending on age, did not amount to unlawful
discrimination on the grounds of age or sex under either EU law or the Human Rights
Convention (R (on the application of Delve and another) v Secretary of State for Work
and Pensions [2020] EWCA Civ 1199).
The Court of Appeal ruled that it was impossible to say that the government’s
decision to strike the balance where it did between the need to put State Pension
provision on a sustainable footing and the recognition of the hardship that could
result for those affected by the changes was manifestly without reasonable
foundation. Despite the sympathy that the appellate judges, like the members of the
High Court, felt for the appellants and other women in their position, the Court of
Appeal was satisfied that this was not a case where the court could interfere with the
decisions taken through the Parliamentary process.
Lawyers for the appellants, Julie Delve and Karen Glynn, had argued that the
economic burden should have been shifted onto younger women who faced less social
discrimination in the workplace and were likely to earn more and have better
opportunities over the course of their careers. But the Court of Appeal said rising life
expectancy and the growing ratio of retirees to workers meant the government had to
act urgently.
As regards whether there was any legal obligation on the government to notify people
of the change to their pension age, the Court of Appeal held that in any event the
High Court was entitled to conclude on the evidence that the publicity campaign
implemented by the DWP had been adequate and reasonable. In addition, the
application for judicial review had been made substantially out of time and the long
delay in bringing the proceedings would have precluded the grant of any remedy even
if the grounds of challenge had been made out.
Source : https://www.narpo.org/women-state-pension-inequality/

1. Find one similar text from reliable websites, find any similarities & differences between
those texts (mainly the content/opinion)
2. Why are they different?
3. What are the authors’ intentions in writing those texts? Give evidence.
 4. Discuss any issues in both texts related with the social, cultural, economic, and political
contexts. Give evidence from the texts. Which statements/paragraphs that say so?
5. Are both texts informative or persuasive, or both?
6. Which one do you agree most? Why?
Answer
1. https://www.narpo.org/women-state-pension-inequality/
2. The first text is discussing what makes exploitation in women workplace and they don’t
get what they must get in their boss. The women are usually forced to work many times
but their salaries are not commensurate, while in the second text is telling about pension
fund injustice in women age to 60.
3. The author wants to be intention and he/she feels that there is still women workplace
injustice in the world. Both of text are telling about women rights of workplace injustice.
4. In the social faces, the texts inform that women still often have workplace injustice. The
still do in workforce issues from their boss but their salaries are not commensurate than
other workplace. When they will be pension, they don’t get pension fund worthy. The
importance, the women still have problem with their works.
5. The first is persuasive text because almost of fills are persuasion from the author with
some reliable information, while the second is informative because the fact is filled by
some information from the reliable sources.
6. I think the first text will be same what I think. I agree with this statement because the
author wrote the exploitation women phenomena which is proved by the information that
women only got minim salary in their working overtime. My opinion says that these
statements are related in women where they work in garment or other industries.