feminist blogs

Or just a cat lady?

Elaine sends on this diary she wrote for DailyKos about transparency in animal agriculture (warning: disturbing graphic at the end). She’s absolutely right: Installing video cameras in slaughterhouses is a logical and economical way to make sure that there’s some real oversight in the food industry.

I tend to differ with some vegetarians and vegans on the morality of eating meat, and I tend to differ with some meat-lovers on our individual responsibility to counter the environmental harms and animal abuses that come out of the meat industry. But I think we can all agree that there’s no need for unnecessary cruelty towards living beings, and that improper meat industry practices not only harm animals, but threaten our health. Greater oversight is a necessity, and cameras are an efficient way to do it.

I almost never actually watch Oprah because I’m never home during the day and because my TV really only gets turned on for LOST at this point, but I can admit that I not-so-secretly love her. As much as I cringe when I see the “Oprah’s Book Club” stickers on novels I’d like to pick up, the woman has revitalized the book industry and gotten a whole lot of people reading — and she isn’t picking crap to read, either. My biggest beef with her is Dr. Phil, who is a total wiener, but I can forgive her that mistake for all the other good she does.

Like her upcoming show on puppy mills. Yeah, I know, perhaps not the most important issue in the entire world, and I’m usually the type to focus more on people-issues than non-human-animal issues. But animal rights activism rarely gets the attention it deserves (unless it’s obnoxious, sexist, racist, anti-Semitic or some combination of the above), and so I think it’s important to highlight fact-based, non-bigoted kind, especially when it’s taken by a mainstream media figure as huge as Oprah. A whole lot of people still buy their dogs from pet stores, and any swipe at the puppy mill industry is cool with me — especially when you spread the word to the kind of people who otherwise may not take the time to find out (or who may be turned off by PETA rhetoric if they did start to google the issue). So good on Oprah and Lisa Ling.

Now, will someone please find a way to deliver this little guy to my door?

It is really unfair:

He gets carried around by his butt!

Click the picture for a larger image.

Shocker: Animal rights activism can be sexist.

TWO things that you can find a lot of in Portland, Ore., are vegans and strip clubs. Johnny Diablo decided to open a business to combine both. At his Casa Diablo Gentlemen’s Club, soy protein replaces beef in the tacos and chimichangas; the dancers wear pleather, not leather. Many are vegans or vegetarians themselves.

But Portland is also home to a lot of young feminists, and some are not happy with Mr. Diablo’s venture. Since he opened the strip club last month, their complaints have been “all over the Internet,” he said. “One of them came in here once. I could tell she had an attitude right when she came in. She was all hostile.”

Mr. Diablo isn’t concerned with the “feminazis,” as he calls them. As a vegan himself, he says he hasn’t worn or eaten animal products in 24 years and is worried about cruelty to animals. “My sole purpose in this universe is to save every possible creature from pain and suffering,” he said.

Except for women, apparently.

I am glad, however, to see feminist vegetarians, vegans and animal rights activists speaking out against sexism while still promoting animal liberation theory. I’m happy to see that they don’t buy the line that any means to promote veganism are a-ok.

Isa Chandra Moskowitz, a cookbook author, is among those who believe such images twist the vegan message. “As a feminist, I’m not keen on the idea of using women’s bodies to sell veganism, and I’m not into the idea of using veganism to sell women’s bodies,” she said.

Ms. Moskowitz is the host of an online forum, Post Punk Kitchen (www.www.theppk.com), some of whose members are debating Mr. Diablo’s vegan strip club. (Last week Mr. Diablo put the club up for sale, although not because of the criticism, he said. He may have overestimated the appeal of stripping to vegans, or of vegan cuisine to striptease fans; an earlier vegan restaurant he ran was poorly received.)

The issue of sexism in vegan circles is “extremely polarizing,” said Bob Torres, an author of “Vegan Freak,” a guide to living a vegan lifestyle, which generally means avoiding the use of animals for food, clothing or other purposes. Mr. Torres, like many vegans, disavows the “essential idea at the heart of some animal rights activism that any means justifies the ends,” he said. Certain activists, he added, care only about “animal suffering and ignore the suffering of humans,” a category into which he would put women who are exploited.

But not all feminist animal rights activists seem to get it, and some are totally willing to sell women out in order to promote animal rights:

Elaine Vigneault, 32, a vegan and former women’s studies major who lives in New York, doesn’t have a problem with a vegan strip club or a recent PETA protest in London in which a pregnant woman got into a cage in her underwear to draw attention to the treatment of pregnant pigs. “I think it’s really important that when reviewing and analyzing images of women, we take into account their perspective of what they’re trying to say,” Ms. Vigneault said.

That’s all fine and good, and we should take into account what women are trying to do and say, but just because a woman chooses to partake in something doesn’t automatically make it not-sexist. For example:

Contributors to the popular feminist blog Feministing have criticized the emphasis of the “Skinny Bitch” books on weight loss, noting that some women with eating disorders use vegan diets to restrict their food intake. Ms. Freedman isn’t buying that critique. “It’s not politically correct to suggest women should be thin,” she said. “But it is healthier.”

It’s not politically correct to suggest that women should be thin? Uh oh, someone needs to tell fashion magazines, TV and movies that they’re totally counter-culture!

I understand the intersections between animal rights and feminism. I think it’s important to explore those intersections. But it’s also not ok to ignore feminist theory or throw women under the bus in order to promote animal welfare. And “But women themselves are doing it!” isn’t the greatest of excuses.

Does it get any cuter than this? No, no it does not.

This time with a naked pregnant woman in a cage.

I’m sympathetic to the argument that sexualized stunts get attention. Fine. But really, PETA, why do you always have to use women’s bodies to make your point? A major feminist critique of advertising in general is the fact that images of women serve as stand-ins for sex itself, leading to a greater cultural understanding of sex as something that women both “have” (and that men are trying to get) and physically embody. That’s incredibly problematic — and (perhaps ironically), it works itself into the way that meat-eating is masculinized and vegetarianism is feminized and de-valued (just read Carol Adams, since she explains this better than I can).

Animal liberation theory does intersect with feminist theory, and our cultural understanding of animals and food (and animals as food, and women-as-meat) is heavily gendered. But PETA is promoting 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 humanizing them, go for it. But you don’t have to de-humanize women in the process.

Image below the fold. (more…)

In the running for greatest youtube video ever. via Lauren.

OMG TOO CUTE!!!!:

Thanks to Sam for the video.

1. Radiohead - Jigsaw Falling into Place
2. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - God’s Hotel
3. Tom Waits - Big Black Mariah
4. Les Savy Fav - Blackouts on Thursday
5. Spoon - I Could Be Underground
6. The Shins - Weird Divide
7. Mogawi - 2 Rights Make 1 Wrong
8. Bright Eyes - No Lies, Just Love
9. Ted Leo and the Pharmacists - Who Do You Love?
10. Portishead - It Could Be Sweet

Friday Videos:
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Well this is disgusting, and offensive on several levels. It’s no secret that the American meat industry is inhumane and under-regulated, but the Humane Society has just released a video of slaughterhouse employees essentially torturing cows in order to get them to stand up for health inspectors — employees shoot water up the cows’ noses, electrocute them, and jab them in the eyes. Beyond being simply inhumane and shockingly cruel, it’s also a major health hazard — cows that refuse to get up may have Mad Cow Disease, among other problems, and their sedentary state can be a cue to inspectors. Animals that have been laying down have also been wallowing in feces, increasing the risk of transmitting salmonella, e. coli, and other diseases.

And did I mention that the slaughterhouse where the video was shot recently received an award from the Department of Agriculture for Supplier of the Year for the National School Lunch Program?
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