The Privilege of Ethics

Ethical consumption is usually framed as a free choice, but some are freer than others.

Written by Steven Tadlock, Ph.D. candidate at Toulouse School of Management (France)

Can everyone afford to be ethical?

Michelle never set out to study fast fashion. Ethical consumption was not her field. Her research was about experiences, and the project that became this paper started almost by accident. During a follow-up interview with an informant who had become a friend, the conversation began to drift. The friend, starting a new job, was describing how hard it was to find professional clothes in her size. She had found her salvation on Shein, the ultra-fast-fashion platform that is affordable, accessible, and often ethically condemned. When Michelle raised that contradiction, her friend gave an answer that became the seed of the project.

She said something that really struck a chord, and that was:

“When you are fat, you cannot afford to be ethical.” That was when it became a lightbulb moment, and I started thinking a lot. ... Can all consumers afford the same level of ethics?

— Michelle Yang

The question sent Michelle on a quest through the literature to discover the answer. Researchers have dubbed this puzzle the intention-behavior gap. That is, people mean to consume in line with their values but don’t follow through for a variety of reasons, such as that the ethical option costs more. Yet this answer makes two assumptions: that the responsibility for choice rests on the individual consumer, and that every consumer shares a common starting point. For her friend, as with many marginalized consumers, they do not share the starting point. The problem is not that these consumers are unwilling to consume ethically, but that the market has never given them the chance to do so.

In the marketplace, plus-size consumers are marginalized in a specific but very real way. They are not shut out of the market in general. They buy laptops, cars, and phones like anyone else, because demand does not vary with body size. Clothing is different. In fashion, larger bodies are overlooked in standard sizing, so the ordinary act of finding something professional and well-fitting becomes a genuine struggle. Clothing is not the only place where larger bodies meet narrow standards, but it is one of the tightest, and it is the focus of Michelle’s research.

Layers of responsibility

From the outset, marginalized consumers face marketplace inequality sharply, because the market gives them fewer options. If ethical choice depends on access, and access is unequal, then ethical responsibility cannot fall equally on everyone. Michelle describes how one informant frames ethical choice as “layers of responsibility.”  In her telling, those with few options are absolved of several layers of ethical obligation, while those with abundant options carry more. The informant knows Shein is controversial, but for a plus-size person Shein is a practical necessity, often the only way to look professional and capable. However, where the informant enjoys the privilege of choice, she engages in conventional ethical behaviors, like driving a hybrid vehicle. Thus, marketplace ethics cannot be universal. Because markets encode ethics in a complex fashion, ethical responsibility varies with a consumer’s resources and the choices they face.

It is never universal, because our life is divided into so many components. You can’t always point fingers at someone and say, “You are not ethical in this aspect.” But what about all the other ethical aspects that I have done?

— Michelle Yang

Privilege shapes not just which ethical options are within reach, but who is credited as ethical. Consider thrift shopping. Buying second-hand is celebrated as a responsible, sustainable choice, yet the same behavior carries contrary meanings depending on the performer. For a middle-class shopper, Michelle notes, thrifting is a lifestyle choice; for a low-income shopper, it is a necessity. The affluent thrifter performs sustainability and is admired for it; the low-income shopper arrives at the identical outcome out of necessity but receives no moral credit. Privilege governs both ends of the transaction: who can afford the ethical choice, and who is recognized as virtuous for making it.

More than making do

It would be easy to cast plus-size people as victims here, trapped into compromises because of lack of choice, but Michelle’s findings reveal something closer to empowerment. For many of her informants, buying from Shein is not so much a guilty concession as it is an act of empowerment. A blouse and a blazer that fit can push back against lifelong stigma, and assumptions that plus-size people are lazy, incapable, or unprofessional.

The level of esteem, even the level of confidence, that is generated through buying at Shein is so empowering. It is really transformative for them.

— Michelle Yang

This self-affirmation transcends dressing for the workplace. Where mainstream brands offer plus-size ranges without much care for style, Shein offers clothes plus-size consumers want to wear. This sense of inclusion runs from the everyday to the exceptional. Michelle’s informants describe finding talismanic objects mainstream marketers deny them: the young woman’s prom dress, the bride’s  perfect wedding gown. Being able to dress for those moments, Michelle notes, lets people experience them with more joy and confidence, which is what makes Shein a symbol of inclusion.

A lesson for researchers

Theorizing from the margins can be a challenge. Michelle's advice to researchers who want to work with marginalized communities starts with reflexivity. For her, reflexivity means two things: putting yourself in your informants' shoes and recognizing your own privilege. Academics, she points out, usually study marginalization from the outside, comfortable in the market positions their informants are denied, and rarely pausing to examine that privilege. Reflexivity helps us reshape the work by giving greater weight to people whose lived experience can answer questions we cannot answer alone. To her own students, she poses a single question: "Are you doing research on people, or are you doing research with people?"

Part of doing research with people is learning their language. Early in her fieldwork, Michelle was corrected by an interviewee for using the term "plus-size." The interviewee explained that the term, like the ill-fitting clothes, is a reminder of being different. "Just call me fat," she said. "That is how my body is, and fat is not a bad word."

Reflexivity should also shape methods. Michelle’s early interviews followed a rigid guide, but as she became more aware of her privilege, she moved away from it. Now she begins with a few prompts and lets the conversation unfold. This has eased her informants’ suspicions and her own anxiety about causing harm. The throughline, she insists, is sincerity. Reflexivity meant to show you care is still performance. The goal is to humanize our research and the people in it.

Read the paper

Interested in the full story? Read the article here.

Want to cite the paper?

Yang, Michelle I.C., and Julien Cayla (2026), "Ethics at the margins: How consumers defend decisions in a constrained market context," International Journal of Research in Marketing, 43, 228–246.

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Meet Michelle Yang

Tell us a bit about your research.

I work in Consumer Culture Theory. I'm originally from Taiwan, did my PhD at Monash University, and I'm now an associate professor in marketing in Japan. I'm especially drawn to consumer culture in Asia, because modernity unfolds so differently across Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. It's never one universal story. Over the past six years my work has settled around a few themes: experiential consumption, tourism and identity, and the role of the body in how we experience the world.

If you were not in academia, what would you be?

Probably a wedding planner! Between planning my own wedding and hosting a conference, I've realized I have a real talent for organizing events. I keep telling my co-author and mentor, Julien Cayla, that if I ever get tired of academia I'll start my own events company. It's all about delivering really good experiences for people—which, come to think of it, isn't so far from what I study.

What drives you to do the research you do?

Humanizing research. I don't think we humanize it enough. We're trained to think about scientific rigor, but research is humanistic too, and that's how you build a bridge to marginalized consumers and make their voices heard. This project in particular was humbling. It taught me an enormous amount about my own privilege, and about how the demand to "be ethical" lands very differently depending on where you stand.

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This article was written by

Steven Tadlock

Ph.D. candidate at Toulouse School of Management