Do you already own anything by Nike that you no longer want to wear

[ChristinaXYZ]

Sharron Davis has just posted an idea - if you're really angry with Nike and no longer want to wear the stuff you've already got then send it back to them. I would love the thought of their offices being swamped.

The tweet is here:

https://twitter.com/sharrond62/status/1645015519072854017

A reply in the thread notes this as Nike UK headquarters

Film House, 142 Wardour St, London W1F 8DD

Anticipating someone pointing out the cost of living and wasting of clothes - if you're not going to wear something any more you've three choices, throw it out, charity shop or send Nike stuff to Nike in protest.

UK charity shops are so swamped with unsold clothes that it ends up abroad being their rubbish to deal with - so I reckon you can send your stuff back to Nike with a clear conscience.

And anticpating further criticism - I am not trying to Nike shame anyone who cannot afford to replace their running or gym gear - or just wants to wear what they already own. Nor am I trying to tell you not to buy Nike if it is the only thing you like or you don't care about the furore. Wear what you like, buy what you like!

But if you are angry, and don't want your Nike gear anymore then the above address is just a thought.

There are many ways to make Nike aware of women’s issues with their decision. And I suspect many people will take a multiple pronged approach.

As they say, if the shoe fits ….

You didn’t understand at all because you’re still insisting the point of the list was to tell women to focus on other things. You got that wrong. It wasn’t.

Next, you keep bizarrely repeating “women can do multiple things at once”. Yes, I know. I posted a long list of issues we are currently working on all at once.

Women can do things in an environmentally irresponsible way or do them in an an environmentally responsible way.

Saying “women can do multiple things at once” isn’t even a defence for women can’t complain about Nike and protect the planet because women CAN do multiple things at once. Women CAN complain about Nike AND protect the planet. There is no good reason to post old Nike things to local Nike offices. It’s not the only way to make a point.

Taking your stated concern about emissions at face value, every internet click you make contributes to the 3.7% of global greenhouse emissions, according to some estimates. It is similar to the amount produced by the airline industry globally . And, increasing all the time. Not just the equivalent of one flight to Ibiza, nor one ship from Morocco; the entire airline industry globally.

You did start off with a stated concern about the polar bears and the burning forests, yet here you are clicking merrily away, and adding to the increase of emissions.

I don't know what posters on here are going to do. Many have said they will boycott, and others have said they will cover up the logo. I didn't know Nike directly discriminated against female athletes. I knew there was talk of sweat shop labour being used, which is why I was so happy with my New Balance shoes which were made in the uk. I do know that child labour (and miners working in horrendous conditions) are used to collect materials for electronic goods such as smartphones, and others for computers. Yet here we all are, you included, operating devices that are the result of what amounts to abuse of workers (along with creating greenhouse emissions). So, I'd adjust that halo if I were you.

@Helleofabore definitely. I will never buy Nike again. I'm pissed off as I loved their runners for my dd's & myself but I can't every justify giving them my hard earned cash after the mockery they made of women.

Maths are useful when assessing things like individual contributions to CO2 emissions.

The number of internet clicks per week is what? At least a quintillion. A person can click away all year and it would not even come close to the carbon footprint of sending a single parcel through the post.

That would be assuming using electricity generated with fossil fuels.

But I’m not. I’m 100% on green electricity from my solar panels. Yes, every click I make is zero carbon. I’m not contributing to the 3.7% you quote up there.

The polar bears was an example of an extinction pending due to the climate crisis. The climate crisis is my concern. The forest fire was an example of how much extra CO2 this protest could become equivalent to in order to make the carbon footprint more concrete to visualise.

“Yet here we all are, you included, operating devices that are the result of what amounts to abuse of workers (along with creating greenhouse emissions). So, I'd adjust that halo if I were you.”
I don’t understand your argument here- it sounds like because certain emissions are currently unavoidable, we should just give up on all our ethics, not cut where we can and fuck the planet?

Thanks for this

I think the chip chip chip away at the political validity of female voices that Dylan represents affects every single one of the items on your list. Every single cause you list gets harder to fight for if women (in the original female meaning), the group you want to fight for, cannot be politically or socially differentiated from men (in the original male meaning), a group who either don't suffer at all, or suffer in a significantly different way, the problems you flag.

If I were to draw a diagram, everything you list would be a horizontal line of boxes and underneath ALL of them would be a single long thin box labelled "political and social recognition that female voices and perspectives are valid".

Political and social recognition of female validity may not seem more urgent than the individual boxes but it is foundational to fighting for any of them.

Companies like Nike are fundamentally social engineers. It's naive to think they simply react to society. They influence society. Big brands have known for decades that the most efficient way to monetise a trend is to create it in the first place. Political parties and movements wish they had as much influence as big consumer brands like Nike. Fuck, the major political parties of pretty much any twenty first century democracy would love to have the brand loyalty and influence Nike can command. They would, and do, literally spend millions in pursuit of it.

So yeah, it fucking matters when Nike decides womanhood is a mixed sex lifestyle choice.

Take the 'tick' off and send that back?

Is the feeback working? It was disabled yesterday.

@L3ThirtySeven That would be assuming using electricity generated with fossil fuels.

But I’m not. I’m 100% on green electricity from my solar panels. Yes, every click I make is zero carbon. I’m not contributing to the 3.7% you quote up there.

Don't be disingenuous; your solar panels don't run the vast data centres around the world which the internet relies upon. These centres consume large amounts of electricity, water (not recycled) for their cooling systems, and generate great heat. Now the US has reduced the amount of data centres on it's own territory, because it has offloaded those to other places around the world. And, data centres are increasing, with construction having environmental impacts too. So, yes every click you make adds to that beam in your own eye.

Anyways, this seems to be a completely ridiculous Aunt Sally.

@FlirtsWithRhinos I agree with you. I can't imagine Nike thinking they'd get away with someone Rachel Dolezal prancing around like that, doing the day XXX of being something she is not.

Libby Purves has written a really good column about this in today’s Times

is putting women last and money first www.thetimes.co.uk/article/nike-is-putting-women-last-and-money-first-k0s30mpdv Libby Purves Times article

very well expressed! @FlirtsWithRhinos

@Cailleach1
The problem with this is your lack of maths analysis.

I can quite literally access data for hours a day for five years and it still would have a smaller carbon footprint than sending one single parcel through the post. The fact I am using 100% renewable energy reduces my digital CO2 footprint by 80%, so an entire year of my using a smartphone creates 42g CO2e (per ICT carbon analysis done by Ericsson)

Per Royal Mail, a domestic parcel creates on average 220g CO2e.

This is equivalent to me surfing the web on my phone for five years.

(Also, you are literally creating 5x more CO2 than I am by posting here so if I have a “beam in my eye” you have an entire forest, but the reality is that you only have a speck and I have a tinier speck)

Fact is that sending parcels in the post to Nike to make a statement is environmentally irresponsible and completely unnecessary.

If you must protest Nike, then for the sake of the planet and future generations of women- all the girls alive now and depending on we women to be adults- find another way. There have been lots of great suggestions like boycotting, snipping off the logos, covering the logos, donating to charity, sending a complaint email to Nike or to the advertising standards.

“You didn’t understand at all because you’re still insisting the point of the list was to tell women to focus on other things. You got that wrong. It wasn’t”

Have I misunderstood the relevance of your post asking the following?

(The relevance, not the specific question.)

”It’s not important at all. We simply disagree on the importance of it.
Please do let me know where you think this issue is in the following list:”

What is the effect of your question but to make Mumped and other women feel humiliated because they may not fit this action in to be as important others.

Personally, this issue has direct impact on some of those issues but the normalisation of this individual as being a ‘woman’ does impact many on that list. If your question about the importance of the influencer action wasn’t intended to point out that there are more important things for women to be working towards in feminism and this isn’t important in your opinion so women shouldn’t be doing them, why did you then post this at the end?

“It’s nothing. It’s not worth the mental space you are giving it.”

You seem to have either forgotten when you have posted or do you think you are trying to persuade others that you never intended to make the shaming point that feminists should not be giving this issue mental space and to focus back on the list?

You asked mumped

”where you think this issue is in the following list:”?

As you clarified in another post saying:

”My list was a list for a poster to tell me where this “important feminist issue” with Nike thing fits in amongst well known important feminist issues (which she ignored). “

What was your next step? To argue the rest of the list was hugely important, (we know!), and that mumped should focus on them instead? No? What then?

Hence me saying it doesn’t matter if women see this as being of equal importance or not as others or anything in this list, because women want to discuss Nike’s actions. And some even, shock, choose to add to the environmental impact on the earth by posting an item to an office or take items back to stores, feel it is important to them. And even if they choose to do this, it will likely have minimal impact on their work with other campaigns.

If you deny it was your intention to shame others for their actions, that is fine. Maybe you did, maybe you didn’t.

I have to conclude that you are trying to say you didn’t intend to shame others for not concentrating on the ‘important’ feminist issues, when that was your intention all along.

That is dishonest.

I also suspect that your focus on the environment is supposed to be an argument that went along similar lines as we have argued before. That women holding rallies in the USA about the impacts of laws allowing males to be considered female in law should be holding rallies for women who have been killed in police action.

The environmental impact argument is along the same lines.

Using shame to silence women and to prevent them taking the action they wish to take.

“Nike decides womanhood is a mixed sex lifestyle choice.”

A clothing company cannot decide or influence what is womanhood. What clothes you wear is a lifestyle choice.

I am visualising all the Victorian men saying the exact same thing about clothing companies daring to make and sell trousers to women at the turn of the 20th century. The same knee jerk reaction that women are somehow threatening their manhood by wearing trousers instead of skirts.

It’s just clothing! Womanhood isn’t defined by wearing a sports bra, ballet tutu or eyeliner any more than manhood isn’t defined by wearing trousers or boy short knickers or combat boots. I’m secure in my womanhood, so I don’t see Nike sports bras being worn by male bodied people as a threat to my or anyone’s womanhood in the slightest.

How convenient you have solar panels. With the battery storage I imagine since it’s all you rely on. Purely out of interest, what’s your heating source?

Well they don't seem to care about actual violence being done to women do they!

But Nike, a company who have a huge cultural reach, are not saying "here is a man looking lovely in a crop top". They are validating Dylan's assertion that Dylan is a woman.

" I don’t see Nike sports bras being worn by male bodied people as a threat to my or anyone’s womanhood in the slightest"

Naive. I have not said a culturally influential company accepting and promoting the belief that male people can be women is a threat to your "womanhood" in terms of how you define yourself. I've said it's adding to a cumulative threat to the cultural and political ability of women (in the original female sense) to speak for themselves and their needs as a separate group to male people.

Don't see the problem? Then give me one, just one, group noun for adult human females that everyone accepts is female-only which can be used in political discourse without being delegitimised by TRAs using phrases like "transphobic dog whistle".

You do know that the element silicon and polymer silicone are not the same thing!

Oh dear!

@Helleofabore
Yes you misunderstood my post as you posted that I was telling women to focus on other things. I clearly wasn’t. You were wrong. I was saying that this issue is imho not at all important. An issue can be an unimportant issue. If all issues are important, then no issues are important.

Bit of a stretch to claim my asking someone who says this is an “important feminist issue” where it fits for them in terms of priority is “humiliating” them. It’s a fair question to ask what order do you put these issues in because, as you know, women can work on multiple issues at once. 🤣

You’re still wrong, I had no “next step” of telling anyone do this instead of that in terms of feminist issues. But I see it suits you to claim your error was my plan all along because I sense you have an obsessive need to always be right.

I had no intention to shame women for focusing on this issue as opposed to any other issue. I disagreed with a poster calling this issue important.

I have been obviously criticising the OP’s suggestion of posting Nike gear to Nike offices as an environmentally irresponsible form of protest. If you want to interpret that as “shaming” go ahead. I’m fine with that. Anyone who thinks that we don’t need to consider the impact of our actions on the planet should be ashamed of themselves. What is the point of any activism if you’re going act it in a way that further endangers the life, health and security of girls- tomorrows women?

The only dishonesty here is you pretending you were right because you are claiming that you know what I was going to do next. And surprise! What I was apparently going to do, but never did, is exactly what you wrongly accused me of. How convenient a way to never be wrong. If you’re wrong, pretend the other person was going to do it anyway and call them dishonest. 🥹 How adorable.

I’ve been very clear as to my intentions on this thread that one- this isn’t an issue that I see as important and two-if women want to protest to Nike go right ahead but please do not post things to Nike because it is environmentally irresponsible and please protest in any of the many other more green ways.

I’ve never argued with you before so have no idea what you’re saying about rallies in the US.

A group of women is called a gossip. That’s the plural noun. Has a dark humour to it.

Yes I do. But the poster I was responding to said silicon isn’t biodegradable so you should direct your question to them as they mixed the two up.

I just typo’d the e off mate, as you can see for yourself when you’ve built up enough leccy in your little battery to go back and click the links I provided.

HTH

@L3ThirtySeven I think you've made your point about the possible environmental impact of protesters posting back Nike products. Thank you for this opinion/ advice on this , also get that you see no problem with the sports bra advert, absolutely fine you're entitled to your opinion obviously.
What other purpose do you now have on this thread ?

Yeah… ok.

Please be very specific then about why you posted the invitation of ”Please do let me know where you think this issue is in the following list:?”

Do tell us clearly what the intention was behind that invitation.

I imagine if you had not posted that invitation in the following post, your post would have been what you have made out. A statement of what you consider important.

That one sentence ”Please do let me know where you think this issue is in the following list:?” changed your post.

So, please tell us what that sentence was intended to do, and we can let you know if that is what you communicated successfully, or not.

Your post in question:

It’s not important at all. We simply disagree on the importance of it.
Please do let me know where you think this issue is in the following list:

• womens maternity wards
• violence against women
• attacks on women’s rights activists
• womens MH units
• womens prisons
• womens rape crisis centers
• womens DV refuges
• womens personal care when disabled/elderly
• womens gyms/changing rooms/showers
• womens sports
• sexism and the gender pay gap
• pregnancy discrimination
• dying in childbirth
• drugs not tested on women
• gender pension gap
• motherhood career penalty
• CMS not being enforced
• unfair divorce settlements
• unfair sentencing by justice system
• misogynistic police force
• jobs restricted to women
• awards restricted to women
• bursaries/fellowships for women
• crime statistics collected by sex not gender

A home video of a transwoman being ultra-feminine and prancing about while wearing a Nike sports bra posted online? It’s nothing. It’s not worth the mental space you are giving it.