Oh, Jennie Chancey, you're a disgusting human being

[mirele]

Now I'm not sure what to think. According to the Fair Wage Guide (http://www.fairtradecalculator.com/), Jennie is actually paying the women she employs twice what a fair living wage would be in urban Kenya, assuming a wage of $10 US a day and that they're not paying for materials. This seems to contradict the other source I found (bdsnetwork.cbs.dk/Latest%20BDS/Living_wages_in_Africa_1.ppt), which stated that a fair wage for supporting a family of 3-4 would be in the low $300s US range per month. Anyone with knowledge of African economics have any insight into this? Maybe assuming a larger family makes the livable wage higher? (I dislike Jennie Chancey, but I don't want to claim she's paying an indecent wage if fair trade standards dictate otherwise.)

But is she paying a wage, or by piecework? With piecework, you can get paid less than a fair wage because the time involved to make a garment could be more than is budgeted--especially if you're new at this.

[silvia]

But is she paying a wage, or by piecework? With piecework, you can get paid less than a fair wage because the time involved to make a garment could be more than is budgeted--especially if you're new at this.

Good question--I'm not clear on this. There seem to be contradictory/ confusing accounts out there.

[Elle]

That's part of the problem. She's given so many stories that who knows what they're making. As for materials, she said no up front costs, which means the costs are likely repaid after they earned money. If they had no money for supplies, fronting the money to be repaid later would be possible. But who knows, she's given so many tales. Since she said they make ALMOST three times MINIMUM, then gave a range most independent seamstresses make (3x the low end, since she talked minimums, is just a bit more than 25% less than $10), instead of the minimum, which she used in her etsy listings. She's also said they bill her at 100% of their rates. Are we to believe poor widows have set rates higher than average, especially 3-4 times that? Or are they paid the local retail per dress? Which wouldn't make sense if they're going to sell locally at some point unless wages will go down. Wages are all over the board. She could be paying $2 a day if it's piece work or them billing their real normal rates for work, on up to $10. She's dodged talking about the discrepancies, which shoots her credibility.

A guild member (not her guild, the one I've worked with) said 6-8 living children is common for slum widow thanks to a culture that knows little about birth control aside from condoms can help prevent AIDS, which is an unaffordable luxury.

[silvia]

That's part of the problem. She's given so many stories that who knows what they're making. As for materials, she said no up front costs, which means the costs are likely repaid after they earned money. If they had no money for supplies, fronting the money to be repaid later would be possible. But who knows, she's given so many tales. Since she said they make ALMOST three times MINIMUM, then gave a range most independent seamstresses make (3x the low end, since she talked minimums, is just a bit more than 25% less than $10), instead of the minimum, which she used in her etsy listings. She's also said they bill her at 100% of their rates. Are we to believe poor widows have set rates higher than average, especially 3-4 times that? Or are they paid the local retail per dress? Which wouldn't make sense if they're going to sell locally at some point unless wages will go down. Wages are all over the board. She could be paying $2 a day if it's piece work or them billing their real normal rates for work, on up to $10. She's dodged talking about the discrepancies, which shoots her credibility.

A guild member (not her guild, the one I've worked with) said 6-8 living children is common for slum widow thanks to a culture that knows little about birth control aside from condoms can help prevent AIDS, which is an unaffordable luxury.

Yes, I would certainly like to see Jennie address the discrepancies you've pointed out. If she is actually paying these women a fair wage, she should have nothing to be ashamed of.

[ottergirl]

I checked out the pictures on the Facebook page someone linked to and now I am, I'd say, nearly 100 percent sure I saw her! Just wished I'd realized that before I was well past her. Now when we go to the mall I actually look closely at the muzungus (foreigners) in the hopes of another sighting. I'm not sure if I'd have the courage to whip out my phone and snap a photo, though.

I am in no way an authority about anything Kenyan, especially not money matters (numbers are so not my field). But I can say that certainly for the people I know (who are better off than those living in Kibera), 300 shillings a day is an average wage for all sorts of basic jobs -- housekeepers, gardeners, working in a maintenance shop, etc. I just checked with my husband and he said that a qualified worker at our compound maintenance shop could make between 10,000 to maybe up to 14,000 shillings a month. The contract workers are in the 300 shilling range.

A month or so back he asked one of the workers at a green grocer's how much she made and she said about 8000 shillings a month, a little over a hundred dollars. He was quite surprised, as this is rather an upscale place where lots of foreigners shop. Of course, we don't known if that was before or after the tips she receives. When you shop there regularly the workers will help you select your fruits and vegetables and then bag them and carry them to the car for you. So, she could actually bring in more than that a month.

I know a number of numbers have been thrown around as possible wages for the women sewing clothes. My husband commented that if they are, indeed, making over 200 dollars a month, they are doing quite well. At first he said "that's high pay". Then, he modified and said, "Well, not high, but quite good for where there are."

One thing I've learned here is that matters are rarely straight-forward. Someone mentioned about helping people move to places with electricity and that reminded me of something we were told by one of the more highly-paid local staff where we work. His home didn't have electricity. He explained that while they could afford to do so, they also really couldn't afford to do so, because if they ran a line to their home than the neighbors would tap into it and use their electricity, upping their bill beyond their ability to pay.

Another reality for me is that compared to many of the Kenyans I know -- my students -- I am quite poor. Many of them are used to having maids do all their work, have massive homes, get more spending money than I earn in Kenyan shillings a month (we do get some U.S. pay), and can afford to take overseas vacations every year. Several fly home to their home country for the weekend when they get an extra day off. It has been surprising to learn just how wealthy they are. We have lots of kids of business people (they own hotels), government ministers, ambassadors, etc.

[silvia]

Thanks for the insight, ottergirl. Your description helps put the various numbers I have seen in context. And I have to say, I think Jennie genuinely believes she is improving these women's lives and prospects--and may actually be, in some cases, though she's misguided in making her workers rely directly on her instead of guiding them toward self-sufficiency. Jennie's personal beliefs are highly repugnant, toxic, and misogynistic, there's no arguing that. But I don't think she maliciously set out to start a Kenyan sweatshop chiefly so that she could pocket the proceeds.

[Elle]

I just got a call back from one of the workers I know who spends the majority of her time in Kenyan slums, and she said the problem with living wages is that a lot of the time they're based on 2 workers in the household because it's really common for people's kids to do what they can to being in money too, so living wages are sometimes given in terms of what 2 people would each need to make, and so that can make the living wage for a family seem lower than it is since sometimes you have to double it to get the household income for a living wage. She compared it to going on a cruise and getting the rates for a room at $600 for a double occupancy - the cost of the room isn't $600, it's what each person would have to pay, and so it's really a way to make it seem like less money is needed.

She said $200 is considered "quote-good-unquote" pay, that it's more than some of them can expect to make otherwise, but isn't really going to be adequate to provide a comfortable living, especially for the widows who have more than a few children. It's a higher standard of poor-living, but it's still poor-living and isn't going to get those families out of the slums and or do anything to address the cost of utilities in cleaner areas.

I asked about the pay, like $10 a day versus piece work, and three times minimum. She said three times any minimum in poor areas is much less than $10, so those two pays can not happen at the same time, and she said too that you need to realize that work week is considered 52-54 weeks there, and that those women could be at work 11 hours a day or more. Breaks aren't paid, meal times aren't paid, so a woman or any worker would start at 8am and be still at work until 9pm if that worker took breaks to had something to eat to take a meal break. If $10 a day is the pay, that doesn't mean that they're actually making that if they can't work 52-54 hours a week. This is a good point that I hadn't thought of - as moms in the US with fewer children, it can be very hard to find the time to work 40 hours, so are those moms with many more children actually working the full 10.5-11 hours a day to get that $10 pay, or are they working fewer hours, which would be reasonable sine they have children they need to actually get to see sometimes, and receiving less for not working the full day?

I told her how Jennie's the one selling the dresses, but has also stated that the dresses may be sold at local market to tourists, but that she has said they're paid the retail cost per dress for making them, and she asked if that meant they were being paid the low retail they could expect in their village or if they were being paid the higher retail tourist would pay, and if they were being paid the lower, how were the proceeds being used to further help the community, because the estimated profits on one small batch of those dresses could go a very long way toward getting the Kiberian village cleaned up and for less money that moving everyone out of there. Her biggest concern even than the exploit of labor is that independence and self-sufficiency can't be achieved when they're being taught to rely on a wealthy foreign master to do the selling of their goods to the world market, and that even going to a market for tourists would mean carrying a large amount of cash on them, which could make those women targets of crime, unless one of their masters accompanies them each time.

There were other things I wanted to ask her about, but she's only in the New York a couple weeks before heading back to Kenya to a new village, and it was taking me forever to write down notes for all this.

Whether Jennie set out to make money on the back so those women, I don't think that's why she moved there, but from early on, she started working on this. Her very first in-Kenya newsletter talked about the goal of those women producing her patterns as finished dresses for her to sell as ready-to-wear, and she is personally making money off their work. I would NOT have an issue IF she was paying herself the same hourly rate those women are getting, but for a person who is wealthy by first-world standards to have such a high mark-up, there's personal gain that's substantial compared to what those women receive. That's when it becomes exploitation of workers who have no other options, at least that they know of, and who are ignorant about how much gain is being made on their work.

And the discrepancies in the pay scale and how they're paid, billing her or employed by her, is really troubling. It beats me at this point if she even realizes her hypocrisy and awful ways or if it's become so much a part of her that she no longer notices and so has herself convinced she's doing wonderful things when she's really harming. She wouldn't be the first hardcore fundy to think that being so devout meant that she could so no wrong and that everything she did is ordained by god and that the rest of us just can't understand that there isn't anything wrong even though most of us would see it as wrong. Look at Westboro, convinced they're doing good things by spreading hate, and I don't think the Catholic church sees the hypocrisy in the head honchos living some of the most luxurious lives in the world while many of the donors struggle to eat, but rather think they're doing good for people. A lot of the religious powerful end up corrupt and don't realize it, or if they do, ignore it. I think at this point she thinks she's doing a great thing and can't see how she's really not because she is so often praised and has it reinforced by her worshippers. It's sad, because she has the financial means to make a world of difference in the lives of those women, but is pocketing money and likely charging them later for the supplies (not "at no cost to them," but "at no up-front cost") while being disconnected enough from reality to not see how she's really hurting as much, if not more than, helping.

[silvia]

Thanks for the new report, Elle. And I hope it doesn't seem like I'm criticizing your concern about this issue by asking lots of questions--I'm not at all, and I think Jennie needs to be held accountable for her entire operation. The main frustrating thing here is that there are so many unanswered questions about how much the women are actually getting paid (due to the conflicting stories), about how many hours they are working, and about whether their pay is enough to comfortably support them and their families (which are probably of varying sizes). Of course, we also have no idea how much Jennie herself is making. It would be a sign of good faith for her to disclose this, but I don't think she's likely to.

And I totally agree that, as you said, "independence and self-sufficiency can't be achieved when they're being taught to rely on a wealthy foreign master to do the selling of their goods to the world market." To me, this is one of the most troubling aspects of the whole operation. To lift people out of poverty over the long term, you have to give them the tools to continue new ventures on their own.

[hoipolloi]

It beats me at this point if she even realizes her hypocrisy and awful ways or if it's become so much a part of her that she no longer notices and so has herself convinced she's doing wonderful things when she's really harming. She wouldn't be the first hardcore fundy to think that being so devout meant that she could so no wrong and that everything she did is ordained by god and that the rest of us just can't understand that there isn't anything wrong even though most of us would see it as wrong. Look at Westboro, convinced they're doing good things by spreading hate, and I don't think the Catholic church sees the hypocrisy in the head honchos living some of the most luxurious lives in the world while many of the donors struggle to eat, but rather think they're doing good for people. A lot of the religious powerful end up corrupt and don't realize it, or if they do, ignore it. I think at this point she thinks she's doing a great thing and can't see how she's really not because she is so often praised and has it reinforced by her worshippers. It's sad, because she has the financial means to make a world of difference in the lives of those women, but is pocketing money and likely charging them later for the supplies (not "at no cost to them," but "at no up-front cost") while being disconnected enough from reality to not see how she's really hurting as much, if not more than, helping.

Thanks for sharing your friend's insights. Jennie & Company (e.g., the sycophants who commented on the FB entry) are oblivious to any harm they're doing.

If, by chance, they actually had their eyes opened to all the negatives, they'd still play the religious trump card, and say (as her sycophants on FB did) that Jennie's "whole heart is into spreading the Gospel - it's [sic] saving power and its beauty."

Of course, if any of these local women don't succeed at this business venture, you know these same "Christians" will blame the women for not being godly enough or simply "not doing it right."

[silvia]

Also, it's sketchy that Jennie pulled the Etsy shop, possibly in response to the concerns being raised here. Was it simply because she didn't want to get dinged for breaking the reselling rule, or was it because she realized aspects of the business look questionable to outsiders and she didn't want to deal with criticism? (And do we have screencaps of any of the vanquished Etsy pages?)

[emmiedahl]

Shouldn't there be tax records of this whole mess?

[Elle]

Silvia, did you miss out on Boatwoodgate? A woman is having furniture made from boat wood by workers in Bali hired by an the supplier (she didn't even hire the workers directly), and despite the incredibly mountain of evidence, from the official documents showing she is importing finished furniture instead of the supplies, to the supplier speaking out that she hasn't made ANY of the furniture and his workers do, Etsy has declared her only offense to be not calling her shop a "collective." While Jennie's technically reselling, she could get around it by calling herself a collective.

What she can't do is edit the listings of the sold items, and sold listings are available to view indefinitely. She can edit current listings, but anyone can still see the text of the sold items to see what she said about their pay. The only reason I can think of to remove the entire shop is to prevent people from seeing what she wrote in the listings for sold items. I'm going to see if there are any mirrors that might have the info saved.

I don't think you're criticizing by asking questions. The opposite, actually. Nothing wrong with wanting to know more, and sometimes questions can bring up something I (or anyone questioned) don't know, so soothing to look into more.

Emmie, I have no idea what tax records there would be. She and her family (except for the newest baby) are American citizens, she runs a business based in America (her patterns are printed and shipped from America), but she owns and operates a business in Africa that ships the items to America to be sold. There are publicly available tax documents for the foundation her husband heads up (and another one of the heads travels to Africa "several times a year" - an awful lot for a non-profit to spend on airfare). But I don't have any idea what there would be for her little guild, which country she'd have to file in.

[Wolfie]

Emmie, I have no idea what tax records there would be. She and her family (except for the newest baby) are American citizens, she runs a business based in America (her patterns are printed and shipped from America), but she owns and operates a business in Africa that ships the items to America to be sold. There are publicly available tax documents for the foundation her husband heads up (and another one of the heads travels to Africa "several times a year" - an awful lot for a non-profit to spend on airfare). But I don't have any idea what there would be for her little guild, which country she'd have to file in.

Why wouldn't the newest baby be a citizen? It might not have the paperwork yet- but I can't imagine why she wouldn't get it done within a few months of birth.

[fundiefan2012]

This is sickening. I was up to my neck in fundie-ism in my teens, and worshipped the ground Jennie walked on. I even exchanged emails with her at one point, and she invited me to come live with them and help with the children and housework (I had nowhere to live, but neither was she going to pay me anything). I ended up declining...and found a nice couple who took me in.

All that to say, she SEEMS nice, but she's also really smart and able to portray things exactly like she wants to.

[silvia]

Silvia, did you miss out on Boatwoodgate? A woman is having furniture made from boat wood by workers in Bali hired by an the supplier (she didn't even hire the workers directly), and despite the incredibly mountain of evidence, from the official documents showing she is importing finished furniture instead of the supplies, to the supplier speaking out that she hasn't made ANY of the furniture and his workers do, Etsy has declared her only offense to be not calling her shop a "collective." While Jennie's technically reselling, she could get around it by calling herself a collective.

What she can't do is edit the listings of the sold items, and sold listings are available to view indefinitely. She can edit current listings, but anyone can still see the text of the sold items to see what she said about their pay. The only reason I can think of to remove the entire shop is to prevent people from seeing what she wrote in the listings for sold items. I'm going to see if there are any mirrors that might have the info saved.

I missed the Bali/ boat wood scandal. Yeah, it would be pretty easy for Jennie to call her venture a collective. I wish I had better google-fu so I could retrieve some of those vanished etsy listings--the main page of her shop is still cached, but I don't know how to access cached pages for individual sold items.

[silvia]

Well, I found one cached listing http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/s ... =firefox-a . Regarding the women's pay, all it says is, "Seamstresses have been provided with all the materials paid at a retail rate for their work rather than wholesale." Whatever that means. (And, uh, she was charging $69.95 for what looks like a very basic dress.)

[mirele]

Hunh, I didn't realize that Jennie had pulled the Etsy shop. If she was completely on the up and up, she wouldn't have done that, would she?

But seriously, while she could have called herself a collective and gotten away with it, there was one other problem with what she was doing--she was having the dresses drop-shipped from South Carolina, rather than directly from Kenya. That is also a violation of Etsy rules, and there was a big brouhaha a couple of months ago over a seller getting suspended because some of her products came via drop-shipment.

Speaking of that Bali boat furniture fiasco, there was a protest yesterday, a lot of shops put themselves on "vacation"--http://www.protesty.com

ETA web page about seller being suspended for drop-shipping: http://www.handmadeology.com/etsy-shop- ... d-to-know/

[Flyinthesoup]

Sorry, my computer and my brain are having some issues! :P Sorry about posting in this thread, I was copying information from this thread to take to the other thread......

My apologies. I can't figure out how to delete...sorry.

[Funtimental]

See the pattern company's site; the Facebook page links to a behind the scenes video "Girl in Nairobi" on You Tube. "My new 1958 Party Dress pattern just begged for a fun, unique shoot to launch it. This behind-the-scenes video of the shoot gives you a peek at what's coming! We were inspired by Ruth Orkin's iconic "American Girl in Italy," shot in 1951. We hope she'd enjoy the homage." At the end of the video she credits her husband Matt "who dreamed up the idea in the first place".

I've always found Orkin's image rather distubring.

[BigTushieLady]

Me too--it's not exactly a happy picture. The way the one man leers at her, the way the other men just seem to be there to stare at her, and the uncomfortable look on her face make the atmosphere in the image seem predatory.

You have to wonder what Jennie saw in it.

[ladyamylynn]

Me too--it's not exactly a happy picture. The way the one man leers at her, the way the other men just seem to be there to stare at her, and the uncomfortable look on her face make the atmosphere in the image seem predatory.

You have to wonder what Jennie saw in it.

I had never seen the photo. Looking at it now, I can't possibly imagine how a recreation of it in Kenya by the Chanceys will fail to be offensive in the extreme.

ETA their version is nauseating.

[Guest Anonymous]

I had never seen the photo. Looking at it now, I can't possibly imagine how a recreation of it in Kenya by the Chanceys will fail to be offensive in the extreme.

ETA their version is nauseating.

Either of those photographs could easily be titled "The Male Gaze." Also, way to take all of the charm out of a 1950's style dress by frumpifying the length of it.

[hoipolloi]

Wow. Just wow.

The original picture is creepy as hell although it's a great photo but the Chanceys' recreation is indeed nauseating, and a poorly composed photo to boot.

[julie paradox]

I'd never seen the photo, which this link would find surprising:

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/44182286/ ... peaks-out/

Now off to exercise google-fu a little harder by finding Jennie's version... ok, it was the fourth video on the youtube search

[Shasta ODonegal]

For a self-loathing fundy girl-bride, what's not to like? To her thinking (or lack of it) the model is the only female and all the male attention is on her while she gets to appear offended and above it all. It would never occur to her that there is nothing charming about Orkin's orignal. Then again, maybe she is going for subtle slut-shaming here.

I think this is a peek at Miss Raquel all grown up.