Clothing Shame
“I’m on the bus at the moment, can you call me back?” Mandy[1] was homeless and when she left a message on the clothing bank’s answer phone she was clearly desperate for help. It seemed strange then that she wanted now to postpone a conversation. The penny always seems to make the loudest noise when its drop is slowest. “Would you like to speak to Rebecca, one of our other volunteers?” I belatedly asked in an embarrassed fluster. “Oh yes please!”
I handed the phone to Rebecca and retreated to the back of the chapel where all our clothing stock is stored. I started to sort some clothes donations into their correct boxes: male, female, summer clothes, winter clothes, tops, trousers, skirts, dresses, S, M, L, XL, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20. But from there I could clearly hear the relaxation in Mandy’s voice as she and Rebecca chatted about everything and nothing and clothes. Rebecca made a note of all the clothes that Mandy wanted, their sizes, their styles and their colours.
“It’s been lovely talking to you Mandy.” She begins to draw the conversation to a close, “Remember that you can change anything if you don’t like it. So where do you want us to deliver your clothes to?”
Carmel Community Clothing was set up in January 2021. We had seen the need for a clothes bank in the South Wales valleys over a year earlier. These post-industrial, which is to say, post-coal towns and villages have certainly been no strangers to deprivation, but with a pre-pandemic child poverty rate of 38% after housing costs[2] they are in the midst of a poverty crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted our preparations to launch Carmel Community Clothing and the lockdown restrictions became the primary factor in our designing of its processes. In the first year of operating, however, we made over 200 deliveries of clothing parcels and helped more than 370 individuals. Our second year of operating has coincided with the UK’s cost of living crisis. A large rise in the cost household fuel in April, with another even larger rise due in the Autumn, soaring food prices and a surge in how much drivers must pay at the pumps mean that demand for services such as food banks and clothes banks is growing.
People in the poorest parts of the country cannot afford to buy food, what hope do they have, therefore, to clothe their families? Mothers frequently phone us asking for clothes for their children and need to be persuaded that it really is OK for them to request clothes for themselves also. The culture of self-sacrifice has become so ingrained in their identity as mothers that they no longer recognise that to have clothes is one of their basic rights.[3]
As anyone who, like me, grew up in relative poverty can attest, you stand out when you are poor. Your clothes announce your status in society. Your clothes mock you, move you to the back of the room and intimidate you into silence. Your clothes strip you of your place in the world.
Our inspiration when we set up Carmel Community Clothing was the words of Jesus in Matthew 25:36, ‘I was naked and you clothed me’ (ESV). But as we have gained in experience in the work and as we have met more people in poverty and listened to their stories it has become increasingly obvious to us that providing people with clothes is simply not enough.
Ruth Lister argues that poverty must be defined not in terms of material resources alone, but in a way that considers a person’s capacity to participate in society. Her argument draws on Len Doyal and Ian Gough’s theory of human needs in which they spotlight physical health and autonomy of agency as ‘universal pre-requisites for successful … participation in a social form of life.’[4] If, therefore, our conceptualisation of poverty allows for a person’s ability to take their place in society, shame must be seen as a contributing factor to poverty and not merely as an unfortunate side-effect. Shame is a part of what we mean when we talk about poverty. And, as Lister further points out, ‘[C]lothing, as a key signifier of relative poverty, represents a visible badge of shame and humiliation.’[5]
Having clothes to wear, therefore, does not alleviate the experience of poverty. A person needs the right kind of clothes in order to take their rightful place in society. Lister states:
From a cultural perspective, consumption represents not just a potential site of relative deprivation but also a signifier of identity […] When brand and label take on more significance than the item itself, meeting the most basic needs for clothing and shoes cannot be achieved cheaply. It is not a question just of what items people are able to buy, but also their quality (for example, new or second-hand, branded or own brand) and their source (for instance, mainstream retailer or alternative informal channels such as car-boot sales).
Ruth Lister, Poverty (Polity Press, 2021), 31.
As we hand out clothes to individuals and families experiencing poverty in the South Wales valleys it is important that we give clothes that invite their wearers to take their place within society. We cannot rely on Matthew 25:36 for our theological framework any longer. It is better, I would argue, to look to the descriptions in Scripture of how God welcomes the oppressed and the victims of injustice. An example of such a description is found in Psalm 113:7-8, which says:
He raises the poor from the dust
Psalm 113: 7-8 (ESV).
and lifts the needy from the ash heap,
to make them sit with princes,
with the princes of his people.
The same generosity is described in the story of the lost son (Luke 15:11-32). When the prodigal returns, his shame permitting him to dare only to hope to become a household servant, the father gives him the best robe to wear, and he slaughters the best calf for the feast. The cure for shame is grace, lavish grace that elevates the individual and invites them to take their place of honour in the world. Lavish grace affirms the image of God and persuades the shame-clad person that abundant life is God’s gift to them. As with the lost son, grace persuades us all that we have a home in this world. That’s the theory at least. The reality is almost always far more complicated, far more messy. It’s made so by the contingencies of life and the imperfections of our demonstrations God’s grace. Sometimes shame finishes its vile work before grace gets much of a chance to do any good. And sometimes it’s all too tragic to bear.
Rebecca and I spent that afternoon putting together a small wardrobe of clothes for Mandy, wishing all the while that she could have been with us to choose her own clothes and feeling greater responsibility to give the best that we had in stock. The following morning another volunteer took the clothes to the hotel where Mandy had been housed by the local authority when the pandemic struck. In hindsight he recalled the ashen look on the receptionist’s face as he approached her, but in the moment he innocently asked if Mandy was there. The receptionist struggled to contain her emotions as she told him that Mandy had died that night.
References
[1] All names have been changed to preserve anonymity.
[2] Rhondda Cyon Taf County Borough Council, “Report of the Director of Public Health, Protection & Community Services,” (26/09/2019).
[3]The Universal Declaration on Human Rights, Article 25; International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Article 11.
[4] Ruth Lister, Poverty (Polity Press, 2021), 36.
[5] Ibid., 115.
© Owen Griffiths, 2022.
This work is licensed under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).
Cover Image: © Owen Griffiths, 2022.
Owen Griffiths is the minister of Carmel Church in the Rhondda Valley, South Wales, a psychotherapist and the chair of BIAPT.
