Why vegetarian feminists are upset with PETA

by Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux, founder and editor of Equal Writes

You wouldn't think that feminism and animal rights activism would be mutually exclusive ventures, but even if they offered me a job, I would never work for PETA (and in this frosty economy, no less!). This is not because I love fur, leather shoes, or pepperoni pizza - with the possible exception of my vintage cowboy boots, I could, and do, live happily without all three. In fact, I'm a lifelong vegetarian. I've never eaten beef or pork (except for the occasional hot dog when I was 5, before my father told me that they eat cat in Africa and I made the Lisa Simpson connection between lambs and lamb chops), and I stopped eating all meat when I was 10, so I think I have pretty good vegetarian street cred. I cried in the middle of a cafe earlier this year while reading a Michael Pollan article about cattle raised for beef (read it - it made me go vegan for three months before I got anemia from my college dining halls) - it's incredibly easy to get me worked up about animal rights issues, and if there were more than 24 hours in the day, I would be devoting time to animal rights activism.

But I'm also a lifelong feminist, and I have been increasingly shocked and horrified by PETA's casual exploitation of gender stereotypes and objectification of the female body in an effort to raise support for its activism. If you've seen any of PETA's ads, you know what I'm talking about. This commercial was banned from the Super Bowl, for obvious reasons (surely there are ways to convince people to go vegetarian without showing a scantily clad woman preparing to fuck a bunch of asparagus), but PETA has repeatedly launched advertisements which throw respect for women (or, for that matter, for men) out the window in the name of animal liberation. Just a few examples: Alicia Silverstone stripped naked for a PETA ad, with the tagline "I'm a vegetarian" above her obviously airbrushed body. The strippers of Rick's Cabaret posed nude for another ad campaign, which declared "We'd rather go topless than wear fur." In a demonstration last year, PETA used a pregnant woman in a cage as part of a demonstration against mistreated pigs. And just to prove that they could perpetuate damaging male stereotypes as well as sexualizing women, PETA produced an ad last year featuring Mickey Rourke, who inveighed upon viewers to "have the cojones to fix your dog." Sometimes they like to use a psuedo-feminist, "love your body" type of rhetoric to mask the fact that they're blatantly exploiting women's bodies (tagline: "Be comfortable in your own skin: don't wear fur"). But usually, PETA throws itself behind campaigns that unashamedly objectify women in the service of "justice."

This is similar to problems that I have with other methods used to encourage people - usually women - to go vegan. On Princeton's feminist and gender issues blog, Equal Writes (shameless plug: I'm a co-editor), I wrote a post about the "Skinny Bitch" book series, which play on women's insecurities about their bodies to shame them into changing their diet. Another post on this blog points out the obvious problems in encouraging girls to stop eating meat because it will "make you fat" (another one from PETA - it boggles my mind that they're not called out more often for this shit). The really aggravating thing for me, though, is that vegetarianism is in many ways a healthier diet. So why tell women that veganism is the way for them to become a "skinny bitch" rather than a "healthy woman"? Because it's easier to play on women's existing negative self-image. Our culture has done a great job of laying the groundwork for anyone to shame women into eating proscriptively, and rather than helping women feel better about their bodies - and at the same time, work for animal rights - PETA and other activists take the low road.

The problem, at the most fundamental level, is that we're not acknowledging intersectionality. This is not something that's limited to animal rights activists - American Apparel is a great example of a company which uses women's bodies to sell clothes that were made under decent working conditions - apparently, we can't have happy workers and desexualized models (for a more in-depth rant, I've written two posts, linked here and here, about American Apparel on Equal Writes). Why can't we humanize animals in the attempt to make people care about the way that they're mistreated, rather than dehumanizing women?

Animals, women and workers are frequently denied full rights as living creatures. But using women to gain rights for animals is not really progress. And what does it say about the movement itself if the only way to convince people to treat animals with respect and dignity is to sex it up? Why not show images of slaughterhouses, rather than assuring us that greased-up naked women don't eat meat (and please, just because Playboy does it, doesn't make it ok - they're not trying to take some kind of moral high ground)? Why not tell people that it's actually healthier to eat less meat, rather than telling women that it's the only way they'll get skinny? It's desperate and tacky and offensive to promote justice for one cause at the expense of another. And it makes it impossible for me to respect an organization that logically I should love.

I'd also like to note that PETA's advertisements have recently strayed into the realm of racism (beyond the fact that the vast majority of their nekkid models are white). Last year, there were discussions of renting ad space on the border fence between the U.S. and Mexico, for billboards that equated a carnivorous diet with the border patrol. The billboards, in English and Spanish, would offer the caution: "If the Border Patrol Doesn't Get You, the Chicken and Burgers Will - Go Vegan." I'm not sure what the status is with these ads, but the very idea that this is an acceptable strategy is totally unbelievable. The images on the billboards are definitely racist, and content aside, what the hell is the idea behind giving the U.S. government money to support its fucked-up immigration policies?

I'd love to see the day when animal rights activists acknowledge the connections between abuse of animals and abuse of women. But I will never get behind any organization that so flippantly disregards health, self-esteem, and the female body. Thanks, PETA, for trying to promote your issues through misogyny and racism. And until it's willing to take the road of basic decency and stop using tired stereotypes and "sexy" advertising tropes, I'll keeping throwing up in my mouth at the mention of its name. I don't know how many converts PETA's gotten from these ad campaigns, but it's definitely lost my support.

PETA, Pets, and Extinction

I’ve always been surprised by the number of people who criticize PETA for operating animal shelters which euthanize animals. There are certainly many grounds on which to criticize PETA, but I’ve never thought the fact that they kill unwanted pets which no one is capable of providing for is a particularly good one. Ultimately, euthanizing animals which cannot reasonably be treated to a meaningful and pleasurable life is clearly consistent with the utilitarian philosophy from which many animal rights activists draw inspiration (note, for example, Peter Singer’s strident support for human euthanasia and infanticide, alongside his concern for animals). Frankly, the “hypocrisy” of PETA euthanizing animals is far less than the hypocrisy of the many “animal-lovers” who eat meat but love their pets enough to cry foul when PETA chooses the least-bad option to address the systematic problem of pet overpopulation.

A recent poster on this blog, however, offered a more intriguing allegation: that PETA’s euthanasia policy is part of a broader attempt to make pets extinct.

There are a few reasons why the elimination of pets might be bad news for humans. First off, there are the obvious uses of companion animals for assisting blind and deaf individuals. Most of us have heard about the medical and psychological studies that have shown that having pets makes human beings healthier. These are, of course, scientific attempts to codify common sense: most of us know that in a world where humans are often atomized and isolated from one another, pets provided much needed friendship, affection, and unconditional love.

My family “owns” two dogs, and I can certainly see simply from my own experience that all of the above are true. Nonetheless, I still find compelling the arguments of those who have suggested that domesticated animals are actually bad for humans in a broad sense. Jim Mason – who co-authored “The Way We Eat” with Singer in 2006 – wrote an earlier book, “An Unnatural Order,” that suggests that the subjugation of animals was, in a sense, a rehearsal for our later domination of the earth and one another. According to Mason, by dominating and domesticating animals, we create in ourselves a mindset that allows us to dominate more than just animals. It’s a complicated argument, but it’s worth considering, and it is consistent with less far-flung connections that have been demonstrated between abuses of animals and abuses of humans.

The point of being an animal rights activist, though, is that our sphere of ethical consideration is wider than just humans. And so, however we decided to weight the above evidence as to whether dogs and cats are “good” for humans, we ought also to ask whether it’s good for dogs and cats. In this respect, I have to agree with Gary Francione that if there were two dogs left on the planet, I would not let them breed.

I’m sure many of us who have derived a great deal of pleasure from the company of animals – myself included – shudder at the above statement. But when we really look at the root of the issue, I think the problem with the very idea of domesticated animals becomes clear. Fundamentally, PETA has to euthanize thousands of animals because we have bred entire species of beings that are completely helpless. Dogs and cats may seem happy, but – without being inside their heads – I imagine that their lives lack the fulfillment that would come from a free life in the wild. They are utterly dependent on others, and I submit that this means their lives can never be that much more valuable than that of a particularly well-treated human slave.

I sincerely doubt that PETA actually wants to rid the world of pets. PETA’s thinking tends to be short term and focused on the immediate alleviation of animal suffering (hence their support for things like Proposition 2 in California). I doubt something as far fetched as the elimination of pet ownership will ever make it onto their radar screen. But I do think that reconsidering our relationship with pets is important, if nothing but for the role such animals play in our broader mindset.

Vulcan Vegetarians

In case the new Star Trek movie hasn't already caught your interest, consider that Vulcans are committed to a vegetarian diet and way of life. This most notably includes Spock, a vegan, originally portrayed by vegetarian actor Leonard Nimoy. Vulcans are ethical vegetarians, and their philosophy of non-violence states that "It is illogical to kill without reason."

Vegetarian and Vulcan enthusiasts alike can even sport these "Live Veg and Prosper" shirts from Peta, based on the famous Vulcan saying.

Are we all terrorists?

As many of you have perhaps already heard, the animal rights’ community reached a new milestone this week when Daniel Andreas San Diego was placed on the FBI’s Most Wanted list (you can read about it here). San Diego is the first “domestic terrorist” to make the list, as well as the first animal rights activist. Without engaging the complex question of whether or not direct action to liberate animals is justified, I have two points to make.

The first, of course, is that the placement of San Diego on the FBI most wanted list is completely ridiculous. In the press conference they held for the announcement, Special Agent Charlene Thornton stated that “Mr. San Diego and those like him are every bit as great a threat to the peace and security of the United States as any foreign terrorist.” This assertion is patently inane. San Diego planted two bombs in a deserted office building and set them off at a time when the building was assuredly unoccupied, causing minor damage and no injuries.

The issue of whether or not actions like Diego’s are effective or justifiable is a prickly one, but whether you think this guy is a deranged misanthrope or a modern-day abolitionist, it’s clear he’s no Osama Bin Laden. While I realize that we’re not all utilitarians here, I think that most of us would be willing to agree that killing three-thousand people is worse than killing zero. Even making a comparison closer to home, it is clear San Diego is not on par with, say, Timothy McVeigh, or any other right wing militia group that has no compunctions about killing human and non-humans alike. That point, though, has been made more effectively by others. Will Potter, at greenisthenewred.com, has spent years chronicling how anti-property “violence” by environmental and animal rights activists has been blown completely out of proportion. Indeed, Potter suggests that the timing of the announcement about San Diego was probably politically motivated.

The more significant thing I want to argue here, though, is a bit less obvious. It starts with another article about alleged terrorists that details how the United States used the torture technique “waterboarding” 266 times on two Arab terrorist suspects. While San Diego and the two victims in this case – Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed – might share the label “terrorist,” as I pointed out above the similarities pretty much end there. Moreover, we in the animal rights community aren’t really supposed to care about cases like Zubaydah and Mohammed’s. After all, groups like PETA – through partnerships with conservative groups and right-wing pundits like Pat Buchanan – have consistently rejected the idea that social justice issues that do not involve animals fall into their purview. Indifference to these issues is not just a product of a few organizations, though: sociological research into the animal rights movement has consistently found animal rights activists to be some of the most single-minded single-issue activists out there.

What I think that San Diego’s case shows, though, is that animal rights activists can ignore the happenings of society at large only at their own peril. Commentators like Will Potter at greenisthenewred.com are keen to argue that the animal rights and environmental movements are being singled out and targeted, through legislation like the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act. Honestly, though, I think Potter is wrong. What happened to San Diego – as well as groups like the SHAC 7 who were involved in more explicitly non-violent behavior – is emblematic of a society that is deeply repressive at large.

I am often told that vegans need to present themselves as non-threatening. While to some extent this is a warning against vegans covering themselves in tattoos and piercings that are off-putting to everyone else, I think that admonition – which has a lot of currency in the movement – has deeper significance. I believe a lot of animal rights activists want to convince everyone else that we really are just in it for the animals, and we’re not going to challenge anything else. And maybe that’s what some activists want: a vegan “utopia” where animals are left unharmed but everything else – capitalism, consumerism, American international arrogance – remains the same.

Personally, I think such a society would be no utopia at all. We would do well to remember that Nazi Germany had the most pro-animal laws of any modern Western country. As I have argued, animal rights activists like the SHAC 7 are undermined more broadly by our country’s anti-terrorism and anti-crime hysteria. But more than that, I think the principles we ought to stand for – equal consideration, respect, dignity, and sustainability – are under attack both for humans and non-human animals.

I submit, then, that if every single person in the world went vegan tomorrow, we as animal rights activists should not rest a minute, but should immediately dedicate ourselves to other problems. Society needs an overhaul, and I think that animal abuse is only one symptom of much deeper problems.

Quick Bechamel sauce

My kitchen is currently non-existent so apologies for the lack of posting. Here is an easy Bechamel sauce from the ppk website served on WW macaroni and steamed broccoli.

When water is boiling place basket with broccoli over water. Once boiling, add pasta and return brocolli to steamer.

Meanwhile, make this quick and easy sauce. I adjusted the seasoning with extra salt, garlic power, onion powder and paprika with nutmeg like the french do.Very rewarding and filling.