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It seems Generation doesn't know how much Pakistani schoolteachers earn

The least brands can do is make sure their corporate feminism is slightly digestible.
Updated 19 Sep, 2019


It’s summer 2015 in Karachi and the culture of pret fashion is becoming more and more influential. Clothing brands like J., Ideas, Al Karam and Satrangi have launched entire pret collections for Ashura: translating another tragedy into a means of capitalisation.

I was a part of the content team at a well-known digital agency at the time, so my job was to come up with titles for a black and white collection but without mentioning that it was targeted for Ashura.

They asked me to paint it in colourful French vocabulary that would sound fancy but also not be comprehensible for many. I ended up calling the collection ‘Monochrome’ but still wasn’t very proud of it.

Since then, pret clothing has become the only way of life for the upper middle class Pakistani woman — unless she can’t find her size, which is often.

Names like Generation then tapped into that market and revamped themselves as the ideal place for women to buy plus-size, ready-made clothing from.

We had heard of our mothers loving Generation, but it took us a while to understand their very unique aesthetic and start admiring it.

Very recently, Generation, did a whole marketing campaign towards the education sector. The art and marketing team must have been under a lot of pressure after a couple of very successful social media campaigns revolving around issues like water scarcity, disability, body image issues and no-make up faces.

So, Generation did what it does best: think out of the box.

The campaign features a school teacher wearing three-piece suits that cost between almost Rs7,000 and Rs9,000. This sparked a debate on social media, where people disclosed salaries they had earned over the years as teachers.

Ultimately, it can be concluded that teachers’ salaries in Pakistan are not sufficient enough to be able to buy a single outfit worth Rs7,000 when the average salary of a Pakistani teacher is around Rs19,000, according to popular consensus from those who spoke up.

The images also feature a box full of chalk and a blackboard in the background — which further goes on to indicate that the school is not a very affluent one because very few elite schools have chalkboards anymore.

This photoshoot appears to be, at best, a misrepresentation of a schoolteacher’s life. It seems to fetishise the aesthetic of a blackboard and a woman whose hair has gone gray in the process of teaching. More than that, most women working in schools like that still don’t get paid their worth.

It’s a classic example of a brand positioning its product to capitalise on a working class aesthetic while the price point clearly falls into the upper-middle category. It says, “Hey, we want to be inclusive, but will still have a price range that isn’t.”

Khadija Rehman, the creative director for Generation, was quite surprised when I mentioned to her what audiences took away from the photoshoot. “We did not really think of the imagery this way, we were just doing a ‘back-to-school’ campaign like a lot of brands do around this time of the year, internationally.”

Upon mentioning the Twitter backlash, she accepted that maybe the positioning might’ve been a bit misplaced, but a high-end three-piece suit would cost around the amount even if one purchases them from lawn collections.

Growing up in a family of teachers, this image struck me because it’s so distant from the reality of female teachers in Pakistan.

A mother of two, after a Master’s degree, earning Rs35,000 in one of the elite schools of Pakistan, paying Rs5,000 for her commute in a city where a woman’s mobility is extremely restricted, getting groceries and managing the house would not have the luxury of spending that amount of money on clothes.

They wait for bachat committees to splurge or, rather, just end up at Raabi Centre, Hyderi or Qurtaba Market to get similar clothes stitched and maintain an affordable aesthetic too.

Earlier this summer, Zara Shahjahan, a luxury brand, was called out for its over-the-top price labels and basic designs whose only recurring aesthetic is a vintage vibe that remains constant from collection to collection.

This can be justified for a brand that only caters to a very niche audience and places itself in the high-end category. Meanwhile, Generation presents itself as an accessible and affordable brand, which is why the price range supposedly aimed at teachers comes in bad taste.

This is not the first time a Pakistani fashion brand has been tone-deaf and offensive to a certain group of individuals. Last year, Sana Safinaz took fashion marketing to a new low by using people of the Maasai tribe in their cultural attire as props for its lawn photoshoot. The entire campaign was so obviously racist and elitist that social media put the brand on blast, but sadly the campaign and the photoshoot were not retracted.

With Generation, I agree, that’s just how the industry works, but my issue is with the romance that underpins the whole campaign: the captions indicate that being a teacher is no fun unless you buy a dress this expensive, or that the stress of being exploited would go away if you just style the same pale outfits and cuts that have been so overdone this year.

An antique wooden table, chalkboard and a vintage hairstyle might give your brand aesthetic, but it doesn’t make an inclusive fashion statement, nor is it fashion-forward. Even though Generation does try to jump on every woke wagon, it has done nothing but incite social media outrage by teachers who have been exploited in a profession that is noble and involves social responsibility.

The least brands like Generation can do is make sure their corporate feminism is slightly digestible.

Comments

isha Sep 19, 2019 02:56pm
does any woman focused brand in Pakistan know what women needs are with respect to clothing sizes, cost, etc ?. so I am not surprised they are this ignorant about the pay of working women
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khalid Sep 19, 2019 03:04pm
How interesting. My sister has been teaching for more than 15 years, has 3 Masters degrees and is paid less than 15,000. How shameful is that?. The schools are nothing but a money-making machine for the owners. Nothing else. I think we should close down all private schools and get the government schools going again, as we used to around 30 years ago.
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Salman Sep 19, 2019 03:15pm
Cruel reality of our country. Teachers in a lot of schools (esp private schools) work super hard, and get paid pittance. From my schooltime, an image of my maths teacher painstakingly writing a long equation on the chalkboard and having her hair and face peppered with chalk dust while her students giggled, remains the most telling memory to remind us what's wrong with our schooling system.
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rakrl Sep 19, 2019 03:19pm
special discounts should be offered to teachers by all high level brands instead of making this respectful profession as a marketing tool... I suggest atleast 35% discount should be offered to teachers upon cloths and foods..@rakrl
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Nadia Aslam Sep 19, 2019 03:22pm
I thought the concept was interesting...at least they talked about the teacher one of the most under rated person in Pakistan...and evone knows that they have lower priced clothes as well...at least they think out of the box..unlike 99% other brands with their flora and fauna prints on thin models
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raza110 Sep 19, 2019 03:40pm
kindly hide the abusive tweets from your post
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Omar Sep 19, 2019 04:50pm
However, I know many teachers who are supplementing income with tuition and taking home around 2 lacs every month.
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Poppy Sep 19, 2019 05:22pm
I belong to the teaching profession, and after working for more than 20 years in this profession and getting a respectable salary (now) ; even I did a double take when I looked at the prices of these suits, some of which I really liked. Generation certainly does not know what most teachers earn these days. Kudos to them, anyhow, for thinking outside the box but guys, be a little realistic! A 7k or a 9k price tag is way too much.
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F Sep 19, 2019 05:27pm
Teachers least pays but students charged more fee, then problem is only the school management making huge profit for themselves but not shifting to teachers either and neither reducing fees and neither improving standards also
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OH Sep 19, 2019 06:20pm
This is an unforrunate fact. Organizations are looking to heartlessly maximize their profits. But our progress has been affected by our way of life. We live in a world of convenience and ready made. My mother used to knit sweaters, do crochet, was an excellent cook (still is), and she drove a car as well. While not even a secondry school graduate she was more charming and a better conversation partner than almost anyone I know. This narrative will start sounding like a praise for mothers (and grand mothers), but very few present day girls can match the woman of the past. Lost in their world of brands. The one who are successful, break the trend and present day norms.
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Mubashir Sep 19, 2019 06:41pm
the debate is unnecessary. The woman doesn't necessarily have to pay for her dress when she has a husband.
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Sidra Sep 19, 2019 07:54pm
I’m a master degree holder and also has English language certificate I started teaching at a school close to my house so I don’t have to pay for rikshaw and my salary was 3000 . Can I even buy a shirt with other expenditures?
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CityDweller Sep 19, 2019 10:32pm
Immense respect and love for all those hard working teachers out there. They are paid a pittance and not in alignment with their contributions to the society. The school teachers pay is not super brilliant in the UK either, however it still attracts some talented folks. Plus generous annual leave.
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Asad Sep 19, 2019 11:48pm
My nephew M.Sc. mathematics from Karachi University teaching in Karachi and getting only 20k salary. In this situation who will study math.
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Ghazala Sep 20, 2019 07:28am
@Mubashir really? What cave are you living in? We’re talking about working women who are independent and rely on themselves.
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Asim Sep 20, 2019 07:51am
@Mubashir woow! Why didn't I think of that? :D
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Sarah Sep 20, 2019 06:07pm
@Mubashir lol wow.. though i am a doctor and "independent" as well but this feministic views of "not relying on husbands and being fiercely independent" annoys me alot! If Islam has given me the luxury of being taken care of by my husband, I'll most definitely avail that! Your comment was funny and situation could use a little levity.
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Saiqa Sep 20, 2019 07:24pm
@Sidra oMG!
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