The Objectification of Women in the Animal Advocacy Movement.

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Q: On p.151 of The Pornography of Meat you reproduce a regularly emailed poem which is preceded by “He places his hands on her breast and she slowly spreads her legs apart”… And when I did it, I felt no shame. All at once the white stuff came. At last I’m finished; it’s all over now, My first time ever, At milking a cow.... Given this sort of thing, and much more, why on earth can’t the PeTA “feminists,” or others see the connections?

 

Carol Adams:

 

Gosh, I'd lose sleep every night if every sexist/speciesist intersection prompted that question! because it's everywhere. Basically, I would argue that in our culture species is gendered; that attitudes about other species is influenced by gender assumptions and by the lowering that is femaleness in our culture. If PETA acknowledged this, then they would have to stop using objectified women in their ads.

 

Every time PETA or anyone else (the recent debate about the Barbi twins and the Cove is another example) uses "sexy" women to raise an issue about animal exploitation tells us something about the absent referent. The absent referent (the cow, the dolphin, etc.) can't even be used to present their own case to be seen as individuals. One of the problems is that there is an evangelical nature to the animal activist movement (animals need us, we must do this for animals) that resists theorizing.

 

There is also a sense that animal liberation is the teleological fulfilment of 20th century activism 20th century reform initiatives and so animal activists don't have to pay attention to other forms of oppressions (that's been done or that's been taken care of or those people can speak for themselves). So, animal activists who use sex fail to theorize, or engage with theory that addresses intersectionality. It would require such a drastic change in how they approaches the issues. But the other problem is why, given the example of the cow being milked you used, don't feminists see that misogyny finds a welcome home in language about and attitudes toward domesticated female animals.