Politics of Power and PeTA

May 30, 2007

PeTA ad to boycott circus Coffee and Conversation says of ads to boycott circuses:

“Great cause but the only problem was the ad looked more for these sex sirens than for poor, captive, caged animals. On the whole a brainless pointless, terribly executed ad. Although it could [be] passed off as the cover for Debonaire or Man’s World.”

This is an ongoing criticism of PeTA. There are many criticisms, but the strongest criticisms, in my opinion, are the ones where PeTA sacrifices the liberation of one group (for example, women or farm animals) for the liberation of another (respectively, animals or pets). I’ve written about it before, myself.

Many argue PeTA should adopt a non-sexploitative approach to ending animal suffering.

It should be noted that PeTA uses a wide variety of marketing and campaigning for many different causes. They are a large organization and their messages run the gamut. See examples in this blog post.

There is another argument, too, that because these ads are made with the consent of the women involved, they are liberating. Certainly women should be allowed to be as sexual or non-sexual as they choose. In some small way these ads blur the Madonna/whore dichotomy. These aren’t ads for Playboy or Hustler, these are ads for charity, activism, morality. To use sexuality to promote morality is an interesting twist that has the potential to spread more than just the idea that circuses are immoral. It has the potential to spread the idea that women’s bodies are their own and they’ll use them how they please.

The main argument for these types of ads is: Naked bodies get noticed. Sex is probably the easiest way to market something. Stick a pretty female face on almost any product and it sells better. Show a nude body and get attention.

But again, there’s one of the standard feminists criticisms of porn and the pornification of mainstream media: the images represented are not varied enough. One of the reasons we recognize it as porn is that the story it tells is always the same one. It’s not a liberation of female sexuality if it doesn’t truly represent female sexuality. A proper representation of female sexuality would be much more varied, less traditionally pretty, less staged, less seemingly exploitative.

Moreover, where are the naked men? Let’s paint up some guys to look like tigers, elephants, and monkeys.
Fur is Dead

PeTA receives a lot of criticism, like this old post from Animal Rights dot net:

“People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals seems to have a soft spot for men who beat their wives, as it is featuring yet another wife beater as a spokesman for the group.”

There is obviously a point where PeTA must make some choices. They can’t please everyone. The criticism is similar to saying something like “only vegans should be in PeTA ads.” But omnivores can boycott fur just as well as vegans can. It might be the first step to a more compassionate lifestyle. It’s no more hypocritical for wife-beaters to boycott fur than for omnivores who eat pigs to refuse to eat dogs (dogs and pigs have very similar intellect and emotional abilities). This ad doesn’t condone wife beating. It says nothing about wife beating.

We all draw our lines somewhere. Everyone contradicts themselves at some point, particularly when the meaning of your words are defined by the listener, not you. If this ad were printed in a magazine opposite an article about wife beating and mentioning Tommy Lee, the ad would “say” something very different than if the ad were printed opposite an article about creating a more peaceful life and getting a fresh start. The meaning is in the context and the reader makes the context.

Your experience, education, identity, depth of visit, and more inform your interpretation of my blog. If this is the first time you’ve read ElaineVigneault.com you’ll have a different perception than if this is the sixth or the 200th. If you know me in person, you’ll interpret this differently if you met me in college in a Women’s Studies class or if you met me in person in a poker room through Ed Miller. The meaning is in the context.

Imagine an ad against animal testing that showed a black man in a cage with electrodes attached to his brain. People would be offended. Oh wait, PeTA tried that already, basically. They started a campaign a few years ago that showed the similarities between slavery (and other oppression) and animal exploitation. The similarities are striking and they make a good case.

hanging

However, people who do not believe animals deserve liberation are offended by the comparison. Someone who thinks it’s OK to chain up an animal will probably not be persuaded that it’s not OK by showing them how we used to chain up people, too. And those people were vocal enough that PeTA shut the exhibit down.

Some people who think it’s OK to eat meat get offended when you use “human” words, like when you call ‘meat’ ‘flesh’ or when you call ’slaughter’ ‘execution’ or ‘murder.’ They are offended because they don’t see the similarity. They think there’s nothing in common between human forced labor and animal forced labor. They really, truly don’t get it.

forced labor

A better argument is that because there are so many racists, misogynists, bigots and other people who do not believe in the liberation of any group of beings dissimilar to their own group, comparisons between enslaved, oppressed, disenfranchised, and otherwise non-powerful groups of beings possibly damages all liberation movements. People are naturally afraid of change. They tend to handle small, gradual change better than large, sweeping change. They tend to accept those most similar and then slowly extend that range of tolerance, compassion, and acceptance outward.

The rich, old, powerful, white guy who only just realized the systematic oppression of women after watching his daughter harassed at high school isn’t going to automatically apply that lesson to other groups of oppressed people and certainly not to animals. He’s more likely to see racy PeTA ads and think they’re exploitative of women than think “wow, there’s a connection between feminism and animal rights.” He just won’t get the animal rights message at all. For him, the ad only serves to promote mainstream anti-women ideas.

To see what I mean, check out animal rights discussions on feminist blogs. Check out feminist discussions on progressive blogs. Lots of people who ‘get it’ in one way don’t get it in other ways. It’s like they have blinders on and only see this or that section of oppressive behavior. We’re all guilty of it, actually. I write my blog from my own experience and my experience is white, middle class, educated female in the US. I’m not going to really understand racism the same way as a person who experiences it.

This is the danger of being too subversive. When you’re subtle enough that half the people don’t get it, you wind up fostering the ideas you set out to demolish. (I feared The Colbert Report would fall into that trap when it first came out. But when blogs like this come out, that fear is assuaged.) It’s a tightrope walk on a very thin, gray line.

Posted by Elaine Vigneault | Filed Under Animals, Feminism, Food, Lifestyle, Philosophy and Guidance

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Comments

16 Responses to “Politics of Power and PeTA”

Lara on May 30th, 2007 9:32 am
Elaine - I’m hoping that it’s really just too early in the morning and I haven’t had enough coffee - but are you comparing meat eaters to racists, bigots, and misogynists? I can’t tell you how much I REALLY hope I read all that wrong (and I read through it three times).

You know, I’m all for being a little outrageous to get your point across, but honestly PETA goes above and beyond to the point of no one “getting it”.

I live in upstate NY - PETA wanted to have the governments of areas like the Catskill mountains, Fishkill, and Hamburg CHANGE their names (after four hundred years) because they have the word “kill” in there after an animal name or refer to ground up cattle. Let’s not forget, that “kill” in these names doesn’t refer to slaughter, but rather it means “creek”. wiki And Hamburg - well, are they going to go to Germany and implore the German government to change THAT? It’s even older than the Hamburg in NY!

I understand that vegetarians have different reasons for not eating meat, and that many of them make that choice because of the suffering of the animals, and they don’t wish to eat anything that has a heartbeat. I totally get it.

While I’m not vegetarian, I won’t wear furs, because I don’t believe in raising an animal solely to kill it for it’s skin. Leather, to me, is a different story. My opinion - I own it. I also don’t believe it makes me a hypocrite, but rather base my emotions and feelings on circumstances instead of making broad decisions.

However I do take serious offense to the association of meat eaters being racists because they don’t “get” the difference (being that PETA and PETA supporters feel there is none). I’m not and never have tolerated racism in others. I’m a woman, and I don’t take shit from anyone in terms of being considered the “lesser” sex. And I’m driven further into my dislike for PETA and groups like it by being called racist…

Before I finish - let me also state that I’m a certified zookeeper, but would never work in a zoo that didn’t give the animals a lifestyle resembling one they’d have in the wild (and don’t get me started on PETA’s movement to break into zoos and let all the captive-born animals free…), one of my dreams in life is to be in Rwanda saving the Mountain Gorillas from extinction by poachers (Hey, what a novel idea! Give that one to your PETA president… what, they don’t want to put their lives in danger to save a dying breed? Didn’t think so. I would though.) And last, I boycott circuses and despite the number of children in my life, will not attend them, and put their parents through one hell of a finger wagging for even suggesting the idea of taking their children. Yep, I’ve done my part, and changed a LOT of minds about it - does that make me a racist, bigot, or misogynist now?

I’m sorry - but I’m TIRED of the generalizations… and that one just went a little too far.
Elaine Vigneault on May 30th, 2007 10:54 am
I hope you didn’t feel like I was calling you a name. I certainly didn’t intend to name-call.

However, I can see how what I wrote could be interpreted as calling omnivores the moral equivalent of racists. But to get a better context for my meaning, perhaps you should read my post where I admit that I am a racist (by virtue of being white and privileged and ignoring that privilege).

I’m not sure if you’re familiar with the ongoing discussion regarding the difference between animal welfare and animal rights. You are clearly and animal welfare advocate and I applaud that. As I said in my post, omnivores can boycott fur without being hypocritical. It may be one step towards a more compassionate lifestyle.

However, we appear to disagree at a fundamental level regarding animals. Clearly you believe it is OK to eat them. I don’t. I also don’t think that decision is just a matter of opinion. It’s no less an opinion than a decision not to eat human babies.

You may think that comparison is absurd and *that’s* what my blog post was all about: how people who don’t share your fundamental beliefs will not understand your analogies.
Lara on May 30th, 2007 11:09 am
I appreciate that you didn’t moderate - and I would never comment in a hateful way because I do feel that everyone on this Earth has a right to voice how they feel about anything and everything without being subjected to hatred for it.

That said, I really DO understand your analogies in the sense that to YOU it makes perfect sense. I’d no sooner call a vegetarian or vegan a name of any kind for their beliefs than I would call a child stupid for believing in Santa Claus.

Likewise, I can’t see the difference between your analogy of not eating human babies and mine of not having an abortion. Yet so many women do it every day, and many of them are vegetarian/vegan and proclaim themselves as such under the nature of animal rights. These same people would throw pig’s blood on a woman wearing a mink (yes I know they’ve since resorted to watered down red paint - but this is an example of getting caught with their pants down), and who want to change 400 years of history over something they don’t want to understand.

To bring it back around to politics - I haven’t met any conservative vegans in my life (none, actually) yet liberals are the ones fighting in favor of pro-choice.

(Note: I appreciate a good old-fashioned debate and that’s really what this convo’s all about for me - my beliefs and yours on the table. I’m not really at any time trying to single YOU out - but rather the belief system that you share with millions.)
Elaine Vigneault on May 30th, 2007 11:31 am
Aha, I see. You’d like to discuss abortion? Well OK fine.

The crux of my pro-choice argument lies in the fact that fetuses rely on the body of the women they are in to survive. When/if our technology develops to a point where fetuses can live without action on behalf of the pregnant woman, I might then become pro-life.

Just like I might have been a meat-eater if there were no vegetarian food sources available to me, for example, if I were an indigent Eskimo I might think it’s OK to eat seals and polar bears.

Or, at least, I might think it’s morally acceptable. But I probably still wouldn’t be able to do it myself. Just like I think abortions are morally acceptable but I’m not sure I could have one myself.
Lara on May 30th, 2007 11:54 am
But how can you claim that a life is a life, a heartbeat is a heartbeat, and murder is murder - and then turn around and say that if it couldn’t survive without the “host” then it isn’t alive? It is - there’s a heartbeat, and brain activity, and consumption and elimination of waste.

Zoo animals wouldn’t survive in the wild. They are bred and born in captivity (yes, all of them these days - 100 years ago, not so much). They rely on their keepers to feed and clean them, keep them free of disease, and aid them in rearing their young to survive (most wild animals die within the first week of birth). You release them into the wild, without the proper rearing to learn how to survive in the wild (ie. rescue/rehab situations and always without direct contact with humans, which means not providing them with nutritious food or exposing them to human involvement in ANY way) and they will die. Is that a better life, or murder?

Believe it or not - I’m not strictly anti-abortion (though I lean heavily to that side). Like you, I could never do it… but my statements revolve around the fact that it’s been proven that heartbeats begin within weeks of conception, even before most women know they’re pregnant. And yet there are vegetarians and vegans who state their choice on the basis that they refuse to eat anything that ever had a heartbeat (not the basis that you stated about requiring a “host” to exist).
Lara on May 30th, 2007 11:56 am
oops - forgot to finish that last statement:

And yet there are vegetarians and vegans who state their choice on the basis that they refuse to eat anything that ever had a heartbeat (not the basis that you stated about requiring a “host” to exist) who would willingly have an abortion regardless of the reasons of conception or the health of the child.
Elaine Vigneault on June 1st, 2007 1:17 am
But how can you claim that a life is a life, a heartbeat is a heartbeat, and murder is murder - and then turn around and say that if it couldn’t survive without the “host” then it isn’t alive?

I haven’t claimed any such thing.

I simply make a distinction between a moral duty to refrain from harming something and a moral duty to care for something. They are different.

If a child fell into a lake and couldn’t swim would I have a duty to rescue that child? Depends on the situation. Can I swim? Are there crocodiles in the lake? This is the abortion analogy.

If I pushed a child into a lake would I have a duty to rescue the child? Yes. This is the zoo animal analogy. Humans created the situation that makes zoo animals and other companion animals reliant on humans to survive. Therefore, we should protect and care for those animals and we should strive to stop creating situations to make animals dependent on humans.

If I was deciding whether or not to push the child into the lake, is it my moral duty to refrain? Yes. This is the veganism analogy. We have a moral duty to inflict on other beings as little pain as possible for our survival. We have a duty to refrain from killing whenever possible.
Elaine Vigneault on June 1st, 2007 1:19 am
For the record, I wouldn’t eat an aborted fetus either.
Elaine Vigneault on June 1st, 2007 1:23 am
Related: http://www.animalblawg.com/wordpress/?p=71
Animal Blawg discusses the link or lack of link between animal rights and other movements of social change. There is a risk of being paternalistic in our approach to animal rights. Likewise, veganism is a school of thought, a philosophy, that perhaps should be treated as a religion for the purposes of gaining more rights and freedoms for vegans (and thus animals).
Lara on June 2nd, 2007 4:58 pm
I see where you’re getting at - but then is pain and harm okay if we choose to have it inflicted upon us?

I know a woman who had an abortion. She went through the cleanest, most proper channels available (in other words, she didn’t go to a butcher in a basement) yet the trauma to her own body gave her so many additional problems later on, that she now, at the age of 30, has to have a full hysterectomy.

Despite the fact that her current husband had hoped for a child someday, as did she, it’s now going to be impossible.

If they want a child, they’ll have to adopt. Had she not had the abortion, and given that baby up for adoption, she could’ve helped someone else who had found themselves in the situation she’s in right now. Vicious circles, anyone?

I would’ve never thought you’d eat an aborted fetus, either - afterall, they’re “meat” right? I’d hope that if all other values didn’t stand in your way, at least that one would.

Again, I’m not against veganism. I’m not against arguing against animal testing, or circuses, or furs, or even the consumption of certain species (like tigers, that while endangered, are killed in Asia for their penises and ONLY their penises, or domesticated animals that are raised as family pets until they reach a certain age and are then beaten and slaughtered for that night’s meal).

What I don’t appreciate in PeTA’s tactics are the attempts to equate me (as a meat eater) to a bigot or any of the above names we’ve discussed, especially given the hypocritical activities they’ve hosted in the past, or their desires to change things THEY choose not to understand, in the name of inciting a proverbial riot and garnering themselves more attention. To me, it appears that PeTA cares less about the quality of the attention or the validity of their behavior than they care about what they claim to be fighting for…

And in terms of veganism being considered a religion? It wouldn’t phase me much on my opinions about the PeTA organization as a whole. I’d say the same things with the same passion as I would tell a satan worshipper they needed to take a trip to the psych ward.

If we haven’t learned a damn thing about this war we’re in - it’s that extremist ANYTHING is never an okay thing.
Lara on June 2nd, 2007 5:02 pm
Correction: I said,

To me, it appears that PeTA cares less about the quality of the attention or the validity of their behavior than they care about what they claim to be fighting for…

What I meant was that to me it seems that PeTA cares less about the quality or validity of the WHAT that they’re fighting about than the fact that they’re getting attention - any attention is good attention? - for doing so…
Elaine Vigneault on June 2nd, 2007 6:11 pm
I’m sorry about your friend. Sadly, accidents happen.

Plenty of women have had damage done to their reproductive systems through other means: giving birth, medications, cancerous pollution, poor diet, car accidents, etc.

—
As I said before, “people who do not believe animals deserve liberation are offended by the comparison” of animal exploitation and human exploitation.

I’m sorry you’re offended, but I do still believe eating meat is immoral and I believe it’s just as immoral as misogyny, racism, slavery, etc. That doesn’t mean I can’t respect you as a person, but it does mean I can’t respect your decision to eat meat.
Stac on June 19th, 2007 5:08 pm
did you all see the new animal-less meat researchers are trying to develope http://collegecandy.com/reality/3613 i’m a big fan of saving animals and all but this would be like drinking o’douells (sp) when you really just want an ice cold coors light. Animal-less meat is a real dumb idea in my opinion.
Elaine Vigneault on June 19th, 2007 9:28 pm
Stac, The animal-less meat is like cloned meat. It would taste exactly the same as regular meat. I think it’s a cool idea.
mary seeley on January 5th, 2008 6:07 pm
This is the first time I have been on this site. I have always loved animals and taken in and got homes for every animal from kittens to pit bulls. I Thank God there are people who can expose all of the horrible cruelty that is going on everyday to these helpless animals. Personally, I could not look at any animal get hurt in any way, its too sickening to me. I believe this is where people do not see it, so therefore it does not exist in thier minds. Whatever it takes to draw attention to your cause, God Bless you! I wish you all the sucess your richly deserve!
Elaine Vigneault on January 31st, 2008 1:44 pm
Thank you, Mary.
Sorry I didn’t say that sooner.

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