I think the feminist vegan world is over it. First, is this really a surprise? Second, do we really need to talk about this some more? I’ve noticed a distinct lack of outrage articles regarding PETA’s newest fabulously well-thought-out move. I think we’re all just tired. So, so tired. YAWN.
Here are some articles read instead:
Ending Rape Culture is a Vegan Issue
Moving Beyond Sexism and Speciesism
Think Like a Chicken: Farm Animals and the Feminist Connection
ARE YOU OVER IT?
We know, we know. We’ve been gone for a whole month. Life & death have been keeping us busy and taking us away from the connectionist movement this past month. So, while you’re waiting for a shiny new blog post, why not pop on over to Sistah Vegan’s Vimeo page? A. Breeze Harper has posted quite a few new videos this past month and, as usual, they ROCK.
So what are you waiting for? Watch the videos, invite A. Breeze Harper to speak at an event, and share her work. More than anything, please, please take her words to heart.
P.S. – Click on the pictures above for more links to Breeze’s work.
It’s no secret that we are huge fans of A. Breeze Harper’s work (see the Sistah Vegan Project). Her latest video is simply perfect in describing (what we have been referring to as) a connectionist perspective.
“So when you start talking about people of color, and when you start talking about the mistreatment of animals, within the context of how ‘the other’ has been constructed, within the perception of the white, male, formally educated, class privileged, property owner, you begin to see how othering, distancing, cutting off your capacity to empathize and sympathize, is incredibly important when you want to create a world based on imperialism and capitalism. When you want to objectify, when you want to colonize, and you want to dominate ‘the other’ as resources, as commodities, so you can continue to benefit in that particular position of power.”
Breeze ends the video with a very important, poignant question. Please watch the video and answer the question on the Sistah Vegan blog post.
UCSD's Bystander Campaign: http://ucsdsarc.blogspot.com/
I recently spent a week training on bystander intervention. This is a strategy for the prevention of violence against humans (gendered violence, in this case, and most often) that focuses on creating a culture in which bystanders speak out against and prevent acts of violence. The thinking is that a community in which all of its members hold each other accountable for violent actions and the attitudes and beliefs that lead to them will ultimately become a community in which violence cannot thrive. If we all speak out when we see violence occurring, about to occur, or supported in attitudes and beliefs, then individuals will hesitate to perpetrate acts of violence because they know community members will not tolerate such actions. Moreover, the culture of the community will change to one that supports positive behaviors and simply doesn’t allow violence to occur.
This strategy ultimately counters bystander apathy – the tendency for bystanders to simply stand by, failing to act when something necessitating a response, in this case violent acts, occur in their presence. Years of psychological research have demonstrated the power and existence of this phenomenon, as well as hypothesized reasons for its occurrence.
During the training, as I listened to and watched examples of bystander apathy, learning strategies for engaging individuals in the opposite, bystander action, I thought of the ways we are all bystanders to violence every day. Bystander intervention strategies, in my experience, focus only on preventing violence against humans. They focus on very obvious violence – assaults, crimes, statements, etc. How would the world change if we attended to the less obvious ways in which we are bystanders to violence every day?
Violence against non-human animals is absolutely engrained in our culture. It’s so inherent that we don’t even see it. We literally create entire industries that profit off of forced pregnancy, killing, and other terrifying treatment of nonhuman animals. We make commodities out of living beings, out of bodies. All of which contribute to the very violence we are trying to prevent with strategies such as bystander intervention. Why don’t we see that?
I was a bystander to violence every time I sat next to my fellow training participants during lunch. I was witnessing the final act of violence in a long, horrifying path that a living, feeling, thinking nonhuman animal was forced into that ended with pieces of its body and secretions from its reproductive organs laying on a plate, stirred into coffee, for another’s pleasure. I listened to, and as a vegan was the topic of, conversations that replicated a hierarchy of worthiness, and justified the idea that some have a right to power, violent power, over others.
How would our world look if I had had the courage to speak up when the above occurred? How would things be different if I had been in an environment that was supportive of bystander action in those cases? What if we all could take many steps back, before the body ended up on the plate, before the forced pregnancy, and could prevent these abuses of power before they occurred?
I simply hope for a world that is peaceful and just for all, not a select few who are deemed worthy. We have good, viable strategies to create that world; all we need to do now is open our eyes a little wider.
Ever since I began learning about domestic violence, years and years ago, people have been asserting that domestic violence is cultural. By “cultural,” they mean that there is something inherent to the culture of a particular country, society, or group of people that causes domestic violence to occur. Do you see a problem here? Those who espouse this argument point to “others” and say there is something about “them” that allows for domestic violence to occur. It’s just part of who “they” are – not us. That’s the (often unspoken) crux of the argument – it’s cultural for “them” but not for “us.” The unspoken implication is that we, Americans, are better. Our culture doesn’t really allow for this. WE think it’s wrong but THEY don’t.
Lately I’ve been hearing this a lot in animal rights work. Eating meat is cultural. Something about THEIR culture says it’s okay to kill and consume nonhuman animals. Well, if that’s true for THEM, then it’s true for US. Just like domestic violence, if it’s “cultural” for one culture or group of people, then it’s cultural for us all. A culture of oppression, patriarchy, power-over, and might makes right is the culture we’re talking about. That’s everywhere. To imply that THEIR culture is like that but OURS is not is frankly racist. It’s othering, and it’s not okay.
lauren Ornelas, founder and executive director of the Food Empowerment Project, recently wrote a fantastic blog regarding this very issue. We encourage you to read it and take it to heart. Why can’t we fight racism and speciesism? Why is this an either/or situation? Well, it’s not. These issues are linked and it is inexcusable for us to use one form of oppression (racism) to end another (speciesism). How will we ever achieve a peaceful and just world if we allow any forms of oppression to persist, let alone actively use them?
Really, what can we say about this blog post? This is a connectionist perspective on rape culture. We think it’s perfect. Please read it. Subscribe L.O.V.E.’s blog. Join the movement.
What do you think? Leave a comment!
The current issue of the Journal for Critical Animal Studies is entitled Women of Color in Critical Animal Studies. Of particular note is Amie Breeze Harper’s contribution, which addresses the notion that race is “feeble matter” in veganism. This excellent paper truly connects the dots, critically analyzing the mainstream, white animal rights/vegan movement and its failure, and resistance, to acknowledge and examine the racialized dynamics and contexts that inform our choices and strategies.
Near the end of Harper’s paper, and in her references, we are pleased to see that there are many people connecting the dots, in addition to Harper herself. We also know that there are more connectionists out there. Even so, it’s not enough. While vegans of color connect the dots (unseen, unacknowledged and often bemoaned as “nonexistent” by the mainstream, white vegan world), white vegans need to get over ourselves and look inward. So many of us already think that we are doing so well, we are vegans, we acknowledge that speciesism exists, how could we possibly still be complicit in oppression? We’ve overcome!
The fact is, we haven’t. When people like Harper bring up the possibility of racism in the movement and encourage a critical analysis of whiteness in the movement, we scoff, we bristle, and we defend. In essence, we attempt to silence the voices that challenge us to examine the movement, our approaches and strategies. This is a function of racism – we use our privilege to guarantee our comfort so that we do not have to look at the world, and ourselves, through a racialized lens. This may make us feel good, but it does us no favors. Not only does it support a racist cultural context, but it also guarantees that we will fail. That is the basis of Connect the Dots – all oppressions are interconnected. We will not end one form of oppression without simultaneously working to end all others. They are inextricably linked.
So, seriously, fellow white vegans, let’s get over ourselves. If we aren’t willing to truly examine whiteness in the movement, then we aren’t capable of promoting the well-being of animals, our stated goal. It’s that simple.
Click here for links to Amie Breeze Harper’s other works.
When I wrote my open letter to feminists who hate vegans, I implied that I would later write a letter to vegans who hate feminists. Since that statement, I’ve been mulling it over, biding time and trying to get over my urge to simply write, “serioulsy, WTF!?” That’s my honest reaction every time I encounter misogyny and sexism when in a vegan crowd. I am just blown away. Sometimes I think I should get used to it. Then I remember that, uh, NO WAY. I should never get used to misogyny and sexism. I should never get used to any violence, hatred, and oppression. It’s NOT OKAY, no matter how prevalent. And it’s certainly not okay from individuals who profess to love all beings and operate from a place of nonviolence. Serioulsy, WTF!?
In my struggle to articulate a message more complex than the above, I was thrilled to find that the open letter had already been written for me. This Joint Statement by a Group of Abolitionist Vegan Feminists for International Women’s Week (March 2010) is perfect. So, feminist-hating vegans, read the letter. I’ll post it below as well.
Serioulsy, WTF.
As abolitionist vegans and feminists, we oppose the use of sexist tactics in the animal advocacy movement. Ethical animal rights veganism is part of the logical conclusion of opposition to the exploitation of all sentient beings — both human animals and non-human animals. Opposing speciesism is incompatible with engaging in sexism or any other form of discrimination, such as racism, heterosexism, classism, and other forms of oppression.
Unfortunately, we have witnessed many female activists saying that there is nothing wrong with using “sex” as a tool to get our message across, using various arguments to try to justify this view. Further, other advocates have been unfairly attacked for “sexism” because they are openly critical of sexism and sexist choices in the movement. Neither should be acceptable to advocates who take anti-oppression work seriously.
Some advocates defend the use of sex by accusing us of being “anti-sex” or prudish. Abolitionist vegans are not prudes by any means, however, we see that the way sex is used to sell things in our patriarchal society reinforces a view of women as commodities. For example, just take a look at the way in which PETA uses sex in its campaigns – they reinforce harmful Western beauty standards by mostly using thin, large-breasted women, who tend to be posed to appear vulnerable and alluring to the (heterosexual male) intended viewer, as well as mostly* using men who are muscular and trim and posed to look powerful and self-assured. When sexism is being used to try to “sell” justice for non-human animals, at the expense of reinforcing harmful attitudes towards human women, the irony is clear. The seriousness of the injustices committed against both non-human animals and human women in this world are cheapened by the use of tactics based on inane and harmful stereotypes; far from challenging the issue of animal exploitation, this kind of approach reinforces the very stereotypes that have harmed human women and non-human animals alike.
Some of the activists defending the use of sex believe that showing our sexuality will call the attention of potential vegans by appealing to their own self image, implying that when they see how sexy being vegan makes us, they will want to become vegan too. This notion is not only misguided but also detrimental to the actual message we should be getting across. Veganism is about animal rights, not about feeling sexy, or having better sex (characteristics we all know have little to do with being vegan or not, but with each individual’s lifestyle and well-being) and it is most certainly not about “looking better” than people who eat meat.
Promoting veganism as a way to become “sexy”, which unfortunately is almost always equated with “losing weight” in our society (for example, the book “Skinny Bitch” comes to mind), further reinforces prejudices against larger or overweight people, which harms both women and men in our society, but particularly women. Not to mention that veganism is not some magic bullet to lose weight – there exist plenty of vegans who are far from “skinny”, who are essentially being given the message that they are failures by these sorts of campaigns that imply or flat-out promote veganism as a way to achieve western beauty standards. Appealing to these harmful standards not only reinforces them, but draws attention away from the true reason people should go vegan, which is to acknowledge the moral personhood of non-human animals.
Many of these activists defending sexist tactics claim that they are not, in fact, sexist tactics, that they “empower” the women who choose to participate in them, and so that criticizing these campaigns is disrespectful to these women – some even claim that to criticize them is itself sexist. These arguments are false for a number of reasons. First of all, these claims are usually made to male activists when they criticize such campaigns. But one’s gender does not in and of itself make one more or less qualified to speak about sexism or feminism.
There is a real “men should shut up and listen to women” attitude in these claims that seeks to replace the egalitarianism that feminism demands with a hollow and biologically-based authoritarianism. As bell hooks suggests, while sisterhood is powerful, feminism is for everybody. As abolitionist vegan women, we are extremely glad to have as allies men such as Gary L. Francione, among others, who has been denouncing sexism in the animal advocacy movement and consistently speaking up for feminism for years. While we do of course believe that women should be listened to and taken seriously, listening does not equate to agreeing with or accepting someone’s arguments simply because that person is female; disagreeing with those arguments and presenting logical counter-arguments does not equate to being sexist. It is unfortunate, but sexism is so pervasive in our society that some women do not even believe that it’s still an issue, do not see how sexism has an impact on their lives, and do not feel that feminism is relevant to them. Some male feminist allies have spent years studying feminist theory; just because they’re male doesn’t invalidate this expertise.
Furthermore, the view that anything a woman chooses to do “empowers” her is simplistic in that it ignores the patriarchal context in which those choices are made. Yes, the women who participate in the campaigns we are criticizing have chosen to do so voluntarily, and some may feel liberated, or feel as if their choices are themselves a challenge to female objectification, and we do recognize that they feel this way. We are simply asking them to seriously consider that these campaigns are both harmful to women as well as ineffective in challenging the exploitation of non-human animals, and that, in view of this, women should no longer support or participate in them.
As stated above, the view that women are “empowered” or “liberated” by choosing to commodify themselves ignores the structural dimension of sexism in our patriarchal society. Whether we like it or not, our choices to try to “take back” patriarchy’s commodification of women by participating in it voluntarily affect the lives of other women, especially women with less power. In a culture that still views and presents women as sex objects on a daily basis, the “taking back” or “reclaiming control” intent of these choices is entirely lost to the greater public, and the objectification and commodification is simply reinforced. When this sexism is reinforced as being acceptable or no big deal, the overall effect is to reinforce the attitudes that allow the trafficking, abuse, and other forms of exploitation and violence that are inflicted on women in poverty and of lower socio-economic status around the world every day.
Some claim that these campaigns are necessary to get the attention of the public. As we mentioned above, this draws attention away from the real reasons behind veganism: the rights of sentient beings not to be considered property. Getting attention at all costs is not the way to promote a serious issue such as violence against animals; in a world where this violence is already not taken seriously, attention-at-all-costs tactics only serve to further trivialize the issue. PETA’s sexist campaigns do get attention, but overall it is attention for PETA, not for the real issues. It’s a guerrilla marketing tactic designed to get people talking about PETA so that the donations keep flowing. (And look, it’s working, since here we are talking about PETA, but we felt we couldn’t discuss this issue without mentioning the largest and worst offender, unfortunately.)
Even more disturbing are the video campaigns that juxtapose sex and explicit, gory images of violence to animals, purportedly to grab the attention of young heterosexual men and then to inform them about the treatment of non-human animals. For example, PETA’s “State of the Union Undress 2010″ features a woman stripping “for the animals”, after which a second video automatically begins playing, depicting graphic violence inflicted on nonhumans. How exactly is getting men to associate these sexually arousing images with gory images of violence going to help anything?
The campaigns that blatantly use sex and Western beauty standards are not the only sexist tactics used in the animal advocacy movement. For example, the longstanding campaigns against fur have a distinctly sexist element. By singling out fur, advocates are not only implying that there is some moral difference between fur and leather or other types of animal-derived clothing, which there is not, but they are also singling out those humans who wear fur while ignoring or minimizing the actions of those who wear other types of animals. Most fur in our society is worn by women. Effectively, these campaigns single out as morally wrong a particular use of non-humans mainly by women, while minimizing other equally morally wrong uses by all genders. Does pointing out that a little old lady in a fur coat is wrong to use animals while ignoring a biker in a leather jacket really help anything?
Also worth mentioning are the gender issues involved in animal exploitation. The animals exploited specifically for their milk and eggs are, it should be obvious, females being exploited for their reproductive cycles. They are repeatedly forcefully impregnated in the case of cows and other mammals used for their milk, i.e. raped, then their babies are taken from them, which causes extreme distress to mother and baby. Both mammals and birds are killed once they reach an age such that their reproductive cycle slows down or stops, and they are no longer profitable to their owners. Similarly, female animals of most of the species exploited by humans are used as “breeding” animals, forced to have litter after litter of young, and discarded when their usefulness for this purpose wanes.
While, as is to be expected in our speciesist society that considers non-humans property, feminism and sexism have always referred to humans, when looking at it from a perspective that is both abolitionist vegan and feminist, this exploitation of female animals’ “femaleness” could be seen to fall into the intersection of these two struggles. It is odd that some people claim to be vegetarian (but not vegan) for “feminist reasons” – one would think that if someone believes the eating of animal flesh to be connected with the treatment of women “like meat”, that they would also see the use of animal products that come specifically from female animals’ reproductive cycles as being connected. Feminism is not merely a matter of having a vagina and a monologue; it is a daily lived practice, a dynamic force for change and liberation, a dialogue, a community, and a social transformation embodied in words and actions every turning moment of our lives.
If feminism is for everybody, that includes nonhuman animals. As animal rights advocates, whether we are male or female or genderqueer, it is our responsibility to oppose the exploitation and oppression of all sentient beings. This will be achieved by educating others in a creative and objective manner. How can we presume to end the exploitation of non-humans while encouraging or accepting the exploitation of our fellow human beings?
The bottom line is: commodifying ourselves does not truly “empower us”. We can’t use sexist methods to further a social justice issue. All exploitation of sentient beings is related; we’re not going to end speciesism, the oppression of non-human animals simply because they are not human, without a firm commitment to ending sexism as well, and certainly not with the kind of attention-at-all-costs opportunism engaged in by certain activists at the expense of other oppressed groups.
Ana María Aboglio
Paola Aldana de Meoño
Jo Charlebois
Elizabeth Collins
Vera Cristofani
Karin Hilpisch
Mylène Ouellet
Renata Peters
Trisha Roberts
Kerry Wyler
*While our original post used the word “only”, it is true that not *all* of PETA’s campaigns use men or women of a certain body type. While the majority of the people they feature in their ads conform to the Western beauty standard, some of them do feature celebrities with different body types. For this reason we have changed “only” to “mostly”.
By Stacia Mesleh
About a month ago my husband told me that the person who was responsible for a home invasion in Cambridge this summer had been caught. I had no idea what he was talking about since I stopped watching the news months and months ago. (It causes me to feel sad and anxious.) I looked online to find the story that he was referring to. A man broke into a first floor apartment where a 48 year old man and his 11 year old son were sleeping and did the most horrific things to their bodies that can possibly be imagined. I would rather not write these things out and they can easily be Googled if you would like to know the details. This happened about a mile from our home and it left me feeling very vulnerable. It frightens me that I can do everything I know possible to raise my daughter with love and kindness and that it is impossible to be 100% sure that I can protect her from violence. According to the news source, there was no connection to the victims and the perpetrator. It was random. The father was not engaging in a risky activity that endangered his son. They were sleeping at one in the morning when the man broke in.
When these things happen, people generally maintain a narrow focus on the perpetrator. He must be an awful person, a bad seed, wasn’t raised right. Perhaps he had a head injury or a mental illness. What most of us do not do is think about how human culture contributes to the creation of a person capable of this behavior.
I was thinking about what has been learned about many disease processes. Often a genetic predisposition is a precursor to disease, but not everyone with the genetic predisposition will manifest the disease. Secondary triggers are sometimes necessary to cause the disease to materialize. I’ve read about this in relation to diseases as diverse as schizophrenia to colon cancer.
I have no idea if there is a genetic predisposition for violence, but I do know that many things affect brain development. Abuse and/or neglect of children are a few of the conditions that lead to suboptimal neural outcomes. There are probably many other things as well. Once a person is predisposed to violence by any means, what are the secondary triggers that cause it to rise up into action? What cultural norms uphold a threshold of cruelty that does not seem to wane regardless of what political party rules, how many law enforcement officers we have on the street, or how many people we incarcerate?
I used to think that if we could just put all of “them” in jail, the streets would be safe. The “them” I was concerned with were murderers, rapists, child molesters, child abusers, and the list goes on. What I didn’t realize is that as long as the conditions that create these behaviors are still in place, we will constantly replace the imprisoned “bad guys” with new ones.
What are some of the conditions that leave us perpetually battling our potential for brutality? I can’t imagine that I can possible have a handle on all of them, however I know where to start. Our choices. With each choice we make, we are deciding what type of world we want. However, we must beware of over generalizing. Two people may make the same choice, but it can mean completely different things. One person may make a specific choice because it was the only one available (therefore not really a choice) or the best one available out of a limited array and another may make the same choice out of habit or culture or for pleasure.
When I decide what to eat I am deciding the type of world that I want. I want a less violent world, so I choose to eat food that was obtained with less violent means. I decided not to carry forth the racism, homophobia, heterosexism, and sexism that are inherent to many of my family members because I do not want a world pervaded with oppression and inequality. When my daughter does something I don’t like, I explain to her what I find unacceptable about the behavior and then explain the behavior that I would like to see. When she was 18 months and began kicking every time I changed her diaper, it would have been easier and quicker to swat her legs or behind. But, I don’t want a world where people physically harm others to get them to do what they want. It took about a month for her to “get it” and stop kicking. Occasionally she will start to kick again and when I remind her that it “hurts Mama when you kick like that,” she immediately stops. It took longer and more effort on my part, but I don’t want my little one to grow up thinking that violence is an acceptable means to get what you want. I also don’t want to harm her or have her fear me. I want to be a safe space for her (both emotionally and physically) in a not always safe world.
Maintaining an “acceptable” level of violence via our cultural norms makes the leap to horrific violence shorter. Imagine a world where a person would only harm an animal for food out of necessity, not for pleasure or habit or culture. The leap for a human to harm a human would be huge and impossibly rare. This is the world I want. I do not believe that it is realistic to think that we will ever be violence free, but it does not have to be this violent. Our humanity can prevail over our inhumanity. We have to create the conditions that enable kindness to triumph over cruelty.
One of the problems inherent in making kinder choices is that unkind choices are normalized in the context of our surroundings. I will give an example where I fell short recently. Thankfully, my daughter is eating like a champ now, but 6 months ago we were having a difficult time. I knew that the vegan chocolate muffins at the bakery across the street were not made with fair trade chocolate, but Amalia liked them and would eat almost the whole thing. No one looked twice at me when I purchased one. I didn’t break any social norms. In spite of that, I knew I was breaking with my values. I do not think child slave labor is okay under any circumstances and since I know the chocolate is not fair trade, I cannot verify that it was not made by exploiting children and adults who have limited means of putting food on the table and obtaining shelter. I have fair trade chocolate powder and fair trade sugar at home. The best choice (and the one I will make from now on) is to make my own at home. I am sure that there are other choices I will make differently as I learn more and as I strive towards living in synch with my values.
It is often so easy to do what everyone else does. As a matter of fact, people often herd others to do what they do so they won’t have to evaluate their own choices. This is one way the unsavory parts of human cultures and habit stay alive. The human tendency to herd leads to complacency and laziness of thought. It is less challenging to go along with the crowd and to please others. But, this doesn’t lead to a more equitable world. The chance for a more equitable global society would require a flood of commitment to lifelong learning and a willingness to change as a result of acquiring and evaluating new information. Certainly if we evaluate every action every minute, it would strip spontaneous joy out of our lives and this is not the end goal I am aiming for. But if we refuse to evaluate all of our actions and live and raise our children by rote, we will not be able to lift humanity out of the violence that has characterized us from the beginning. Each of us can begin to change through our choices slowly and surely. I love the Helen Keller quote, “I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do.”
With each choice, we create the conditions that encourage the goodness or the cruelty within us. We tend to think that the big news generating events shape our planet, but it is the small everyday choices each person makes that shape our world. That is, for people who have access to choice. How we use our privilege can make or break the lives of many and determine if we drive ourselves to an environmental cataclysm. The revolution is in the mundane.
