Anti-Animal Bloggers

September 27, 2008 | 1 Comment

Listen up, I write about feminism whenever I feel like it. I don’t wait until NOW does something I don’t like in order to bring up pro-women discussion on my blog. In fact, if I were to ONLY discuss feminism in the context of “I hate what NOW is doing”, I would merely bolster the anti-feminists (rather than carefully critique the mainstream feminists). I’d be an anti-feminist.

You can do the same. You can choose to blog about animal rights whenever you choose. You don’t have to wait for PETA to do something you dislike. The fact that you ONLY choose to blog about animal rights when PETA does something you dislike makes YOU anti-animal.

Get honest with yourself and your readers.

—

You want to get me to hate on PETA along with you by accusing that I “encourage isms, and reduce people to the status of ‘other,’” well it won’t work. I have already criticized PETA. And I’ve already put my thoughts on the matter of controversial animal advocacy in black and white, numerous times. Samplings:

Does the End Justify the Means?

PETA is well known for outrageous stunts that attract grand media attention. Their success is due to their ability to generate publicity. Publicity is what it’s all about: information distribution. The more people who hear, read, and see the torturous nature of factory farming, fur farming, and vivisection the more they’ll demand compassion.

In the US, sexualization helps promote anything. Naked protesters always get news coverage. We’re a bunch of prudes, us Americans, and we can’t help but be fascinated by nudity. Good marketing demands some use of sexualization.

The problem, however, comes when the message is distorted. PETA’s Fur is Dead: “I’d rather go naked than wear fur” campaign makes sense. The message isn’t lost. But when it comes to milk or KFC sexualization is just an attention grabber. And as an attention grabber, it grabs more attention in the wrong direction.

Larson complains about PETA’s pornographic ads in her article, saying they’re sexploitative and oppressive. She argues that the ads send a dangerous message that shifts men’s power over animals to power over women.

The ads, however, can be viewed as criticism of both animal and women’s objectification, a sort of tongue-in-cheek critique, a post-post-mod understanding or consciousness. I embrace this viewpoint; that’s how I’ve accepted these PETA ads in the past. They’re killing two (clay) birds with one stone. But that view requires an educated, enlightened, and sympathetic audience, not the actual audience. [...]

Ultimately, we must be more careful with our messages. Even when social standards contradict, messages of liberation, whomever they’re for, ought not to confuse. (source)

and

In some small way these ads blur the Madonna/whore dichotomy. These aren’t ads for Playboy or Hustler, these are ads for charity, activism, morality. To use sexuality to promote morality is an interesting twist that has the potential to spread more than just the idea that circuses are immoral. It has the potential to spread the idea that women’s bodies are their own and they’ll use them how they please.

The main argument for these types of ads is: Naked bodies get noticed. Sex is probably the easiest way to market something. Stick a pretty female face on almost any product and it sells better. Show a nude body and get attention.

But again, there’s one of the standard feminists criticisms of porn and the pornification of mainstream media: the images represented are not varied enough. One of the reasons we recognize it as porn is that the story it tells is always the same one. It’s not a liberation of female sexuality if it doesn’t truly represent female sexuality. A proper representation of female sexuality would be much more varied, less traditionally pretty, less staged, less seemingly exploitative. [...]

The rich, old, powerful, white guy who only just realized the systematic oppression of women after watching his daughter harassed at high school isn’t going to automatically apply that lesson to other groups of oppressed people and certainly not to animals. He’s more likely to see racy PeTA ads and think they’re exploitative of women than think “wow, there’s a connection between feminism and animal rights.” He just won’t get the animal rights message at all. For him, the ad only serves to promote mainstream anti-women ideas.

and

PETA’s fat shaming is unacceptable. The campaign should not be “Fight The Fat” and instead should be “Prevent Disease.” While there is a causal link between meat-eating and obesity for many people, there are plenty of fat vegetarians and vegans.[...]
Statements like “fight the fat” are direct attacks on all fat people: meat-eaters AND vegans alike. It’s as though PETA’s campaign thinks “playground mockery” is acceptable when it’s done against fat kids. Well, it’s not. Bullying is wrong. Fat shaming is not OK.
[...]PETA’s ad campaign could very easily be interpreted, particularly to children reading the billboards, to mean ‘fight the fat kids’ and ‘bully the burger-eater.’ PETA should be a bit more careful.(source)

and

“some people argue that there is such a thing as bad publicity. They think vegan education should be as free of any negativity as possible, including associations with sex, violence, or insanity because of the negative social stigma and public controversy.
“But you know what? This is the real world. And the real world includes a few nutjobs. Personally, I don’t really mind them on my team. They’re welcome here. They make things interesting :) (source)

and

“There’s a point where reproducing sexist ads for the purpose of sharing, teaching, and analyzing them for feminist theory simply becomes marketing the ads themselves. For example, I guarantee more Feministing readers clicked the link and learned something from PETA than wrote PETA a letter asking them to use fewer nude or nearly nude campaigns. In fact, I bet if you did a poll of Feministing readers you’d find out that a large portion of them are sexist and/or misogynist men who simply use the site to help find materials they can get off on. They don’t read the analysis, they just look at the pictures.” (source)

and

She put quotes around the word demonstration because she doesn’t think it is truly a demonstration. She thinks it’s a sexist stunt and only a sexist stunt, nothing more. She trivializes the activists by refusing to acknowledge their political speech as speech. She thinks animal rights is just a joke, not something we should seriously consider, so when women get inside cages to protest battery hen cages for egg production, Vanessa won’t call that political activism. [...]

No wonder all she can see is sexism. She truly can’t see the actual message at all. She’s so blinded by her own judgments that she can’t form a serious analysis. Feministing criticism of PETA is too shallow. It winds up silencing women’s voices and ignoring their political and social activism.

Ironically, this shallowness is the best reason that PETA should re-evaluate this type of activism. The sad fact is that most people are too shallow. They don’t ‘get it.’ (source)

and

Liken a woman to a living pig and it’s sexist and evil. But liken a woman to a dead pig and it’s funny and artistic.
Fucking hypocrites. When it comes to ‘women as meat’ analogies PETA is pretty tame.

and

This is not porn; this is political expression. If you are turned on (or turned off) that’s your issue, not hers. She is not intending to arouse and pleasure; she is intending to educate and inspire.
[...] Exactly what kind of feminism thinks women shouldn’t be allowed to use their bodies in legal ways for political and moral expression? What kind of feminism calls active, political women exploited and oppressed and then refuses to listen to them? What kind of feminism says a woman’s political expression is dehumanizing?
Not my kind of feminism.(source)

and… then there was that time when the NY Times interviewed me. Did I say, “Bravo, PETA!” or “I love vegan strip clubs!” NO. I said:

“I think it’s really important that when reviewing and analyzing images of women, we take into account their perspective of what they’re trying to say,”

Posted by Elaine Vigneault | Filed Under Animals, Feminism, vegan, veganism
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PETA’s letter to Ben and Jerry

September 27, 2008 | Leave a Comment

I’ve accentuated the important parts of the letter here:

September 23, 2008

Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, Cofounders
Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Inc.

Dear Mr. Cohen and Mr. Greenfield,

On behalf of PETA and our more than 2 million members and supporters, I’d like to bring your attention to an innovative new idea from Switzerland that would bring a unique twist to Ben and Jerry’s. Storchen restaurant is set to unveil a menu that includes soups, stews, and sauces made with at least 75 percent breast milk procured from human donors who are paid in exchange for their milk. If Ben and Jerry’s replaced the cow’s milk in its ice cream with breast milk, your customers–and cows–would reap the benefits.

Using cow’s milk for your ice cream is a hazard to your customer’s health. Dairy products have been linked to juvenile diabetes, allergies, constipation, obesity, and prostate and ovarian cancer. The late Dr. Benjamin Spock, America’s leading authority on child care, spoke out against feeding cow’s milk to children, saying it may play a role in anemia, allergies, and juvenile diabetes and in the long term, will set kids up for obesity and heart disease–America’s number one cause of death.

Animals will also benefit from the switch to breast milk.

Like all mammals, cows only produce milk during and after pregnancy, so to be able to constantly milk them, cows are forcefully impregnated every nine months. After several years of living in filthy conditions and being forced to produce 10 times more milk than they would naturally, their exhausted bodies are turned into hamburgers or ground up for soup.

And of course, the veal industry could not survive without the dairy industry. Because male calves can’t produce milk, dairy farmers take them from their mothers immediately after birth and sell them to veal farms, where they endure 14 to17 weeks of torment chained inside a crate so small that they can’t even turn around.

The breast is best! Won’t you give cows and their babies a break and our health a boost by switching from cow’s milk to breast milk in Ben and Jerry’s ice cream? Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Tracy Reiman
Executive Vice President
PETA

And thus you see, the human breastmilk was just a hook. They weren’t being serious. No one was honestly suggesting that B&J’s should hook women up to pumps and use their milk to make ice cream. Get real.

Oh, and PETA wasn’t hurting any women by discussing breastmilk’s nutritional value to human babies. Hello? Remember all those babies in China who DIED because they got cow’s milk instead of breastmilk?

Everyone who missed the point of PETA’s letter and who accused PETA of being sexist for discussing human breastmilk was being intellectually dishonest, anti-animal, and anti-PETA.

Posted by Elaine Vigneault | Filed Under Feminism, Sexuality, animal-rights, veganism
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Guide To Analyzing PETA’s Nude Activism

September 2, 2008 | 2 Comments

In order to help some theorists better defend their positions, I’ve created this handy-dandy guide for discussing the use of nude or nearly nude demonstrations and campaigns within the animal rights movement:

Clearly define your terms.

Suggested terms to defined: pornography, commodification, objectification, sexual objectification, sexism. You cannot assume that just because you look at an image and think it represents pornography that others will share your perspective. Even if/when you show them the image they may not agree with you.

For example, Nathan says PETA has a “willingness to reinforce sexist attitudes by embracing the strategic objectification of human females” and he links to these images as proof: Amanda Beard, Jenna Jameson, Eva Mendes. However, in my definition of ‘objectification’ these images are not good examples and in fact prove the opposite of Nathan’s claim. Objectification means reducing someone to an object, dehumanizing that person. Classic examples include: 1) pornographic images of women with their heads missing and 2) the routine use of the military to identify boot camp trainees by number rather than name. A key component is often a loss of identity. Objectification is when people are treated as interchangeable, disposable, replaceable objects. But the examples Nathan chose did not in anyway dehumanize the models. Because these were celebrities, their names and identities were a vital part of the campaigns.* Because Nathan didn’t clearly define his terms, his examples supported the opposite of his claim.

Remember your gender.

If you’re a man, you simply haven’t experienced sexism in the same way as women have. You cannot claim to completely understand it. Do not ignore your gender and act as if it doesn’t matter - it does. You can’t ignore your power and influence. You must acknowledge your privilege. If you’re a woman, remember that other women have different experiences based on their race, class, age, appearance, religion and so forth. We’re not all the same, so even though you have a better understanding of sexism because you’ve experienced it, you probably haven’t experienced the same kinds of sexism as other women have. When we analyze images, we should acknowledge our baggage and our privilege as well as the ways in which we might misinterpret the images.

Intent matters.

When we view something, our reaction is only a piece of the puzzle. If you see something and automatically identify that as pornography that might say more about you and how you view the world than about the person who created the image. Just because something turns you on (or off) doesn’t mean it was meant to be sexual. Often, the intent of nude or nearly nude activism is to get attention, because nudity is uncommon. Do not conflate nudity with sexuality. If you make the case that something resembles pornography, you MUST explain why.

Don’t take short-cuts.

You can’t assume your reader agrees with your position. You can’t assume your reader has your background, your experiences, or your understandings. You must carefully make your case, without leaping from one concept to the next.

For example, Gary claims, “For many years, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has promoted sexist campaigns. This started with their ‘I’d rather go naked than wear fur’ campaign in the early 1990s and has ‘progressed’ through a series of increasing cheap and puerile promotions, culminating in its most recent PETA’s State of the Union Undress,” But he hasn’t clearly explained how nudity relates to sexism. “I’d rather go naked than wear fur” is simply a true statement for many people and not at all sexist. The State of the Union Undress is a strip-tease and, depending on your view, is either an example of free-speech or pornography (or both**). His argument, in its current state, appeals more to prudes than to feminists.

Moreover, do your research. If you claim, “Consider that they don’t use images of male nudes, nor do they use images of women with varying body sizes,” then how do you explain the men here? Your analysis needs to be a) accurate and b) reflect the other parties involved. In this case, there’s another party that’s partially responsible for this perceived sexism: the mainstream media is responsible for NOT showcasing the times when PETA uses men and women of varying body sizes.

Take care not to be hypocritical.

If you think objectification is wrong, don’t treat women as objects. That means, use their names when possible. Quote them, link to them, support them. DO NOT post images of them and then criticize them without even taking into account what they say their intent was. Don’t assume anything about the entire group of women who go nude for animals. Even if you think some have been pressured or coerced (either overtly or through internalized sexism) you simply cannot assume they’re all victims. Likewise, just because some women defend their actions and claim it was a free choice doesn’t mean all women who participated made a free choice. It’s critically important to recognize women’s autonomy, individuality, and agency. And it’s critically important to listen to them.

Make specific recommendations for change.

Always conclude with a specific call to action. Don’t merely criticize without offering alternatives; suggest ways PETA can do better. Even if you can’t think of specific actions or goals, suggest an open discourse on the issue so that other people can participate and create change. (FYI disabling comments is not a good way to do that. If you disable comments, point readers to a place where they can discuss the issue all together.)

This is just a beginning. I’m sure if someone wanted me to write a book on this topic I could. :)

— Notes —

* One could argue that the entire notion of ‘celebrity’ is dehumanizing and commodifying, certainly celebrity through pornography, as in the case of Jenna Jameson. But that’s not what Nathan’s done here. That’s not the approach he or others have taken when criticizing PETA’s use of nude or nearly nude people for animal rights campaigns.

** In my opinion, ‘pornography’ is differentiated from ‘erotica’ and from ’sexualized or nude political speech’ by two distinguishing characteristics: 1) the only intent of porn is to sexually arouse and stimulate, 2) porn is a product that can be bought, sold, traded, that is, porn is a commodity. Erotica also intends to stimulate and is also often a commodity, but isn’t necessarily a commodity. Erotica is more closely related to art than to pornography. Nude political speech is not necessarily sexualized or pornographic. And both ‘nude political speech’ and ’sexualized political speech’ differ from pornography because the intent is to express a political idea, not to sell a product. There is a big difference between selling a DVD and “selling” an idea.

Posted by Elaine Vigneault | Filed Under Animals, Feminism, Miscellaneous, Sexuality, veganism
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Obesity Myth

August 25, 2008 | 2 Comments

From my mom’s review of The Obesity Myth:

It is healthier (from a mortality standpoint) to be 75 pounds overweight than 5 pounds underweight, if you are moderately active. Moderately active translates to four or five brisk 1/2-hour walks per week.
Two persons of the same weight and height can respond to the same food in entirely different ways.
Dieting is the problem, not the solution. Persons who go on calorie-restricted diets lose weight, then regain it, and gain more. The more often they diet the more they ultimately gain. There are few exceptions.
There is no difference in mortality between persons of average weight and persons of higher weight in terms of overall health, when you control for levels of activity and type of food they eat.

Read her review of The Obesity Myth here >>

Posted by Elaine Vigneault | Filed Under Books, Feminism, Food, Health, Fitness, & Beauty
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Full Frontal Factory Farming

May 18, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Shown above: women in yellow bikinis in cages during a PETA protest against battery cages for egg-laying hens.

Shown above: egg-laying hens in battery cages. (source: Compassion Over Killing)

Vanessa at Feministing has stooped to a new low in her constant criticism of PETA:

Should we be surprised this is the work of PETA? It just never ends. And you have to love their press release on the “demonstration”:

She put quotes around the word demonstration because she doesn’t think it is truly a demonstration. She thinks it’s a sexist stunt and only a sexist stunt, nothing more. She trivializes the activists by refusing to acknowledge their political speech as speech. She thinks animal rights is just a joke, not something we should seriously consider, so when women get inside cages to protest battery hen cages for egg production, Vanessa won’t call that political activism. And she certainly won’t admit the personal agency of the women involved.

No wonder all she can see is sexism. She truly can’t see the actual message at all. She’s so blinded by her own judgments that she can’t form a serious analysis. Feministing criticism of PETA is too shallow. It winds up silencing women’s voices and ignoring their political and social activism.

Ironically, this shallowness is the best reason that PETA should re-evaluate this type of activism. The sad fact is that most people are too shallow. They don’t ‘get it.’ They can’t see the forest through the trees and they can’t understand animal rights when they’re blinded by perceived misogyny or sexiness. (Granted, many people simply refuse to see the truth no matter how you present it to them. They’ll justify their exploitation of animals through any means possible.) The few people who are open to a paradigm shift and are receptive to animal advocacy deserve a clear message without any distraction. Sexualization distracts and confuses so maybe it shouldn’t be used.

However, it sure does work to drum up publicity. Feministing, for example, can’t stop writing about it. In fact, the only time they ever write about animal rights issues are when they’re criticizing animal rights advocates. It’s obvious these campaigns work to get attention and that’s exactly why PETA keeps doing them.

Let’s get a few things straight here:

Objectification is the act of treating someone as an object. That is, objectification is refusing to acknowledge the individuality, the personality, the sentience of another. Example of objectification: “interchangeable bleached blondes with fake tits“.
There are lots of different kinds of objectification - it’s not only about sexual objectification. Sexual objectification is treating someone as a sexual object, not as an individual. But sexualizing something is not necessarily objectifying it. They are different. Example of non-sexual objectification: the way all factory farmed animals are treated.
Sexualization is turning something that’s not sexual into something that is sexual. It’s making something sexy. There are lots of ways to make something sexy and some are better than others. Making something sexy doesn’t necessarily demean, trivialize, objectify, dehumanize, or otherwise harm women. It all depends on the context. Examples of sexualization: “My Bush Would Make A Better President”, “Will Give Blow Job For Impeachment.”
Consent is damn important. Agency is damn important. Personal, bodily autonomy is damn important. When women express their autonomy and freely choose to advocate for animals by doing whatever they want with their own bodies, their choices ought to be respected.
Context is important. When pornographers show naked women in cages the meaning is different than when PETA shows naked women in cages. PETA’s message that cages are inhumane and wrong is damn important here and contextualizes the images to say something along the lines of, “no non-consenting, sentient being belongs in a cage.”

I have a suggestion for Vanessa and anyone else who dislikes nearly nude women in cages type of activism: Next time you’re tempted to write about this, don’t. Instead of posting the PETA image and committing the same offense you criticize PETA for doing - using women’s bodies to promote a political agenda - use an image of the animal that the women are representing instead. Show PETA that you don’t need sexualized images of women to inspire you to write about animal issues.

Instead, the next time your write about reproductive rights, remind readers that female animals raised for food are routinely forcibly impregnated. The next time you write about how mothers should be allowed to breastfeed in public, remind readers that calves rarely get to suckle their mother’s milk because they’re turned into veal and their mother’s milk goes to humans instead. Next time you write about birth rape, remind readers of the institutionalized birthing process of a sow’s gestation crate. Make your feminism about all females, not just the human ones.

Posted by Elaine Vigneault | Filed Under Animals, Feminism, Food, Politics, Sexuality, veganism
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