The reason most fast fashion workers are women is because of the lack of opportunity in their countries, as well as the patriarchal societies in which they live. According to Gisela Burckhardt, director of FEMNET, an NGO fighting for women’s rights in Asia’s garment industry, the fast fashion factories primarily seek to hire women because they are seen as more docile and unwilling to organize or fight for better conditions and wages. And because the fast fashion companies want to sell their clothing for cheap prices, the only way the production factories can maintain the bottom line is by paying the workers less, making them work inhumanely long hours, and setting unrealistically high production quotes. Whereas the management is mostly male, the majority female workers have little say in their working conditions, hours or wages, and any reluctance or inability to meet ridiculous quotas results in shouting, violence and rampant abuse.

