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I’d Rather You Listen To Me With My Clothes On, But Since You Won’t…

January 1, 2008

Gary L. Francione writes some good stuff about animal rights. Recently he wrote about the intersection of feminism and animal rights. I think his essay is a good effort and rightly explains his thoughts, but his essay has serious flaws. Specifically, he misses the nuance of the movements; he ignores the shades of gray.

For example, he wrote:

“The postmodern feminist position has the effect of making people more comfortable about the exploitation of women. If a woman decides to become a sex worker, that is regarded as an empowering choice that feminists should support. Postmodern feminism rejects making any negative normative judgments about these exploitative institutions or how they affect women in lower socio-economic classes who do not have the privileges of the postmodern feminists, who are, by and large, white, middle-class, and well-educated.

“[...] It is not surprising that PETA embraces the postmodern approach to feminism and encourages women to engage in exploitative actions “for the animals.” We have had decades of PETA sexist stunts ranging from “I’d rather go naked than [fill in the blank with just about anything]” to a “State of the Union Undress” with full frontal nudity. The postmodern feminists can always be counted on to serve as PETA’s cheering squad in the event that radical feminists point out that a movement that opposes the commodification of nonhumans should also object to the commodification of humans.”

Francione’s mistakes:

1. Categorizing feminisms and feminists into only two groups: radical feminism (2nd wave) and postmodern feminism (3rd wave), rather than a broad range of ideas and a spectrum of thought.
2. Narrowly interpreting the objectification of women as solely sexual and applying the lens of objectification to sex work only.
3. Interpretting all forms of nudity as sex work and sexual oppression.
4. Ignoring the role of choice.

Feminism is a social movement composed of a wide spectrum of people and ideas.

There are more feminist concepts than simply those that fit into narrow definitions of radical feminism and postmodern feminism. Most serious feminist theorists will identify with some aspects from a variety of feminisms from ecofeminism to riot grrl feminism to radical feminism to housewife feminism to sex-positivist feminism and so on. Read this article for a better idea >>

It’s a movement and as such the people and the ideas are in constant flux. We’re changing not just the world, but ourselves along the way, learning new things and growing all the time. Feminists are people working to end sexism and misogyny. They have varied methods and ideas as to how to accomplish those goals as well as varied concepts of what exactly constitutes sexism and misogyny, but they share the same goals. They all work towards ending oppression based on sex and gender.*

Indeed, postmodern feminism is best characterized by this concept of plural feminisms rather than one, true Feminism. That, and postmodern feminism identifies meaning through context. It’s truth with a lowercase T. Sex-positive/pro-sex feminism is the term Francione describes, not postmodern feminism.

The animal rights movement is the same. The people within the movement have varied experiences and ideas, they are a diverse group, who are constantly changing, evolving, learning, growing. But they work towards a common goal: ending the oppression of nonhuman animals. They have various ideas about what constitutes oppression and how best to eliminate it.

Those differences of opinion can be neatly categorized and understood by using labels such as “animal welfare” versus “animal rights” or “radical feminism” versus “postmodern feminism” but all of that ignores the nuances, the gray areas, the intersections, the reality.

The Objectification Of Women: What Happens in Vegas Doesn’t Stay In Vegas

Francione is correct to assert that sex work can be degrading to women. He is right to say that sex work objectifies women and commodifies their bodies and their affection.

“[...P]ostmodern feminists have created a brand of “happy” commodification for women just as the welfarists have created the phenomenon of “happy” meat and animal products. The postmodern feminists often conveniently ignore the fact that women involved in the sex industry are raped, beaten, and addicted to drugs just as the welfarists conveniently ignore that animal products–including those produced under the most “humane” circumstances–involve horrible animal suffering. And both groups ignore that the commodification of women and animals, irrespective of treatment, is inherently objectionable.”

What Francione (and some radical feminists) conveniently ignore is the fact that women and girls are raped, beaten, and addicted to drugs as part and parcel of their commodification in other industries and situations, such as farm labor, housekeeping, sweatshop labor, war.

The question is, would you be so offended by PETA ads featuring combat clothing as you are by PETA ads featuring lack of clothing?

(Maybe you would.)

Commodification is everywhere. Artistic and political expressions that represent commodification are not necessarily repeating or encouraging commodification, particularly when seated in a movement for social change and particularly when met with violent resistance from those within the movements. PETA deserves criticism and resistance, but not without looking inward and recognizing our own faults and prejudices.

There is a reason PETA receives so much heat for their nude campaigns and not for their clothed campaigns. That reason isn’t just because PETA perpetuates the objectification of women; it’s because PETA exposes the objectification of women. The public reactions to nude PETA campaigns tend to be far more sexist and misogynist than the campaigns themselves.

Moreover, sex-positive feminism isn’t pro-pornography any more than radical feminism is pro-capitalism. Simply put, sex-positive feminism isn’t anti-pornography. There is a significant difference between defining one’s self as being pro-porn or defining one’s self as not being anti-porn.

Here is a diagram of what that might mean:

So, for example, a feminist can be pro-pornography for those women capable of freely choosing to participate in sex work while being anti-pornography (and other exploitative work) for women incapable of choosing to participate. And that feminist could be for sexual expression in ways that promote consent, free choice, female pleasure all the while being against sexual expression in ways that promote violence, rape, and exploitation.

There is nothing inherently evil about nudity or sex.

The above statement is the crux of sex-positive feminism. It is not about pro-porn or pro sex work. It is about reclaiming sexuality as a positive, pleasurable human need and desire.

What’s dangerous about the naked PETA ads isn’t the nudity; it’s the fact that we recognize it as porn. And why do we recognize it that way? We recognize PETA nude ads as porn because of our cultural understanding of what naked female bodies mean, as well as, PETA’s choices of which naked bodies to expose and how.

In our sexist, misogynistic culture, naked female bodies rarely mean anything other than heterosexual sex. Occasionally naked bodies are considered artistic expression or humor, but they are rarely seen as political or moral expression. This is one reason why when feminists view nude PETA ads and protests they recognize the ads or protests as sexist. Another reason is because of the male gaze. PETA tends to use the male gaze when photographing or filming ads.

The most deserved criticism of PETA is that they’re in bed with pornographers like Playboy. But when we criticize the nudity without mentioning the association PETA has with Playboy, we’re not addressing that specific problem. We’re criticizing nudity as a form of political expression.

The last reason we recognize PETA nudity as porn or as women’s objectification is that PETA nudity tends to come only in one flavor: vanilla. The naked bodies we see tend to be thin, white, and female. But I think that is changing. I think their naked campaigns are getting more diverse in size, color, shape, sex, age, ability and whatnot as more people get comfortable in their own skin and as nudity becomes more acceptable.

For example:

The reason PETA goes naked is simple: it’s effective. It’s cheap, effective publicity. PETA shouldn’t be faulted for taking advantage unless it’s at someone’s expense. Instead of taking potshots at PETA, we should work towards the day when naked demonstrations receive no more attention than clothed demonstrations.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kv2k1P_M7s[/youtube]

Every time someone says PETA exploits women and objectifies and commodifies woman’s bodies, we should respond by acknowledging the larger social context that makes that statement true. In the long run, PETA may well be urging more social change than simply animal rights; by bringing nakedness and our responses to nakedness to the forefront, PETA may be serving the feminist agenda, too. Because, well, we’re not just talking about nonhuman animals, are we? PETA’s gotten us to talk about feminism, too.

Feminism is Pro-Choice

The major thing that’s wrong with the sex industry is that many women and girls involved have not freely chosen to be involved. But the naked people involved in PETA ads have freely chosen** to participate. That is key: they’ve freely chosen this form of demonstration.

If there is pressure to go naked, I’d argue most of it is due to the larger social context. If Paris and Britney can get naked for nothing and if GirlsGoneWild urges drunk women to go naked for hats and t-shirts and if the Girls Next Door get naked for capitalism then what’s wrong with a little nudity for animals? How about we change our social understanding of nudity from ’sex is sin’ to ’sex is expression’?

In conclusion, PETA isn’t a perfect organization and PETA deserves criticism. But when we deliver that criticism, let’s do it in the most productive and least harmful*** way possible. Let’s acknowledge the sexism and misogyny we see in it’s full context.

—

* This is not to say all people who call themselves feminists actually are feminists. Or that all people who are called feminists share the goals mentioned here. This is to say that if there is one, true definition of feminism, it is the social movement with the goal of ending sexism and misogyny. (However, of course, others may disagree.)

**I assume they’ve chosen to participate, though I’m sure some could have been coerced by PETA or PETA supporters or by news camera-people or amateur pornographers.

***I’m not suggesting Francione’s essay was harmful. But some criticism of PETA is harmful: the kind that invalidates the choices of individual nude people, the kind of criticism that attacks PETA and the models personally, the kind that ignores the context and places all the blame on PETA rather than on other entities involved, the kind of criticism that encourages censorship, etc.

Update: This post and the comments to it is also worth a read.

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