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Not My Kind Of Feminism

April 4, 2008

Shown: Dixie Chicks use their bodies to demonstrate their 1st Amendment rights. Some women will use their bodies to make strong political statements, because they refuse to be silenced. If that offends you, that’s your problem, not theirs.

Crap like this makes my blood boil.

In Peta’s world, it seems that it is perfectly acceptable to reduce women to the status of animals, or meat: one Peta image shows a woman being clubbed “to death” by a man; another shows a woman wrapped in cling film to resemble cuts of meat in a supermarket. Perhaps the most egregious example of Peta’s work occurred in London on Mother’s Day this year, when it staged an event that was ostensibly to raise awareness about farrowing-crate confinement, a technique used in factory farming, in which sows are squeezed into narrow metal stalls barely larger than their own bodies. A heavily pregnant member of Peta’s staff lent her body to the cause - naked except for a pair of pink underpants - by kneeling on all fours in a metal cage. Another pregnant Peta worker gave out leaflets to passersby, with the words, “Unhappy Mother’s Day for Pigs. Go Vegetarian”. The image was disturbingly reminiscent of some of the nastier pornography I have seen. As Jill Filipovic, of the website Feministe.us, noted, this stunt showed that Peta promotes “animal rights at the expense of women’s rights - and that’s not only simplistic, but it’s bad for everyone involved. If you want to draw attention to the plight of animals by humanising them, go for it. But you don’t have to dehumanise women in the process.”

The image that “was disturbingly reminiscent” of nasty porn was this:

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.

Dear Julie Bindel and Jill Filipovic,

Actually, it’s not reminiscent of pornography; it’s reminiscent of gestation crates. It was a demonstration about factory farming and if you actually listened to the message instead of slapping labels on people without talking to them, maybe you’d understand that.

I’ve said it a million times, but I’ll say it again. You can’t just look at the image and come to your own conclusion about what that says to you. You, as a meat-eater, have a certain world view that affects what you see. You set up an artificial hierarchy that deems animals as inferior to humans. When you see humans willingly act like animals for the purposes of expressing deeply-held moral and political beliefs you can only understand them by listening to them. You cannot understand their message simply by viewing their naked bodies. Their shocking demonstrations are invitation to talk. You are expected to do more than stare like a titillated voyeur. You are expected to think, to use your brain. When all you do is look (and then complain about the demonstration, sometimes even posting pictures of it on your blog) YOU’RE the one objectifying the women, not PETA!!! You’re the one dehumanizing them!!! You’re the one silencing their voices and only paying attention to their naked bodies!!! LISTEN TO THE WOMEN YOU CLAIM TO PROTECT. Listen to them.

Here’s what Neomie, the nearly naked pregnant woman in a gestation crate wrote:

[...] Actually I wasn’t cold, and more importantly it was my choice to do it. I did this demo on my own will; I took my clothes off and went in this crate because I wanted to. I’m lucky enough to have the choice to use my body to speak up for the animals and to raise awareness about the conditions the sows are kept in.Other animals are made of flesh, blood, and bone. They have the same five physiological senses that humans do, and the same range of emotions. They love their babies and want the best for them. But farmed animals are treated no better than dirt, and it’s immoral.

Mother animals on factory farms are treated like machines: For example, mother pigs are crammed into tiny crates that are not much larger than their bodies for more than a month at a time, and all mother farmed animals are never able to cuddle and raise their young or fulfill any of their basic maternal desires. When they are no longer able to have babies, mother farmed animals are killed for pet food and soup—their bodies are too trashed for anything else.

I went to a slaughterhouse once, and I have seen for myself pigs arriving in overcrowded trucks, with broken legs, bleeding wounds and such a sad look in their eyes. When the driver opened the doors of the truck, a lot of dead pigs fell on the floor, they didn’t even make the journey to the slaughter house!

I will never forget these sad eyes I made eye contact with (see for yourself here: http://www.noemieventura.com/galleries/meet_your_meat/?pic=20 and here: http://www.noemieventura.com/galleries/meet_your_meat/?pic=21).

The person unloading the truck was using an electrocuting stick to force them to go out and was kicking them and punching them. There is no excuse for such extreme cruelty. These animals are living such miserable conditions and more than that, after a stressful and painful existence we are stealing their lives.

So honestly, compares to what these animals have to go through, staying nearly naked in a crate for an hour is nothing![...]

The only kind diet is a vegetarian diet.

Thanks all for your attention,

Noemie.

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.

PS - If you want to see some seriously disturbing pictures of animal and human rights violations, visit her bilingual blog. I’m a little queasy after having seen these photos.

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