Lighthearted with a Radical Message?
“Pregnant women may want to think twice before chomping on those chicken
wings, or their sons could come up short,” says PETA Associate Director of
Campaigns Lindsay Rajt.
Men have treated women as sex objects for millennia, so it's inevitable that
women will now do likewise with men!
This is progress?
Women flocked to famed French courtesan Anne de l'Enclos (1620 - 1705), for
the secrets of love. When asked how large do a woman's breasts have to be,
she replied, "Large enough to fill the hands of an honest man."
To be fair, it must be pointed out that PETA not only treats women as sex
objects (e.g., supermodels saying, "We'd Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur"),
but men, too!
(Again, this is progress?)
Men have posed for PETA ads, too!
Over a decade ago, an ad appeared in PETA's Animal Times magazine, showing a
shirtless muscular male with baby chicks on his biceps, and the caption
reading:
"Chicks Dig Vegetarians!"
I showed it to my friend Hilton at work, and even he thought it was funny!
And Hilton, who says conservative Christians are hypocrites for fornicating
while opposing LGBT rights, has slept with over 75 women (he says Deadhead
women are loose!), so no one's ever going to accuse him of being gay!
Sometimes, being lighthearted is the only way to convey a radical message.
Ingrid Newkirk, co-founder of PETA, was once credited as having created the
most successful radical organization in America.
But is PETA really radical?
Is the Humane Society or the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty
to Animals (ASPCA) radical?
Some of PETA's tactics: asking the city of Fishkill to change its name,
urging people to think of fish as "sea kittens," i.e., recognizing that fish
should be seen as kittens, rather than as "food," are met with derision...
Some of PETA's other tactics: using sex to sell, for example, are very much
in the mainstream. And reading PETA's Animal Times magazine, with vegetarian
celebrities sharing their favorite vegan recipes, etc. is a lot like reading
People magazine!
Someone commented online that PETA has a talent for getting young women to
undress. I commented to vegan businesswoman Karine Brighten a few years ago,
"That sounds more like Hugh Hefner."
I don't know Ingrid Newkirk's views on prostitution, but does porn or merely
posing nude differ from prostitution?
I've never had to pay for sex, but I have friends who have paid for sex.
Some feminists oppose pornography. Others do not. Some feminist groups like
COYOTE ("Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics") support the legalization of
prostitution.
While it is known that the feminist movement originally opposed abortion as
“child-murder” (Susan B. Anthony’s words), it is generally not known that
many of the early American feminists—including Lucy Stone, Amelia Bloomer,
Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton—were connected with the 19th
century animal welfare movement.
Together, they would meet with anti-slavery editor Horace Greeley to toast
“Women’s Rights and Vegetarianism.”
Polls have found more women than men opposed to abortion. The vegetarian and
animal rights movements also tend to have a greater proportion of women than
men. Women are more likely to become vegetarian than men.
So it's disingenuous for pro-choicers to claim pro-life feminists aren't
real feminists, especially when the history of the feminist movement shows
otherwise.
In her article "Animal Rights and the Feminist Connection", Ingrid Newkirk,
co-founder of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), writes:
"Inherent in feminist ideology is the basic philosophy of freedom from
oppression for all living beings. Many feminists, however, are still very
much 'human chauvinists' in their outlook on nature, the human species and
other life.
"Many are guilty of the same kind of supremacy clung to by males in our
society in that they either exclude non-human beings from ethical
consideration or they extend them less than equal consideration...
"The inclusion of animals in feminist ethics does not weaken or split
feminist issues; indeed it solidifies, deepens and makes clearer our
understanding of, and our opposition to, the absolute aggression 'nurtured'
by macho male society...
"How long will some feminists go on munching on the greasy bones of little
murdered birds? Dressing in the skins of slaughtered cows and wild
creatures?
"How long will they tolerate a male-oriented state that sanctions commercial
savagery? How long will they be comfortable while ignoring humane
alternatives?
"Many feminists sit down to steak dinners like the macho men who hurl
insults at them on the street--and they all uphold the same supremacist
ideas about animals.
"How many feminists realize (or want to realize) how much violence,
oppression and suffering they support at the meat counter, the dairy case,
the leather goods store, the fur shops and the cosmetic counter?
"Do they know about crated veal calves, caged and de-beaked chickens,
'super-ovulated' dairy cows, trapped or 'ranch-raised' fur animals and
blinded rabbits? Do they wonder whether all of this is 'necessary'?
"Feminists should recognize that their attitudes to members of other species
are a form of prejudice no less objectionable than prejudice about a
person's race or sex.
"Early American feminists from Lucy Stone, Amelia Bloomer, Susan B. Anthony
and Elizabeth Cady Stanton...and others have condemned animal slavery.
"Let all true feminists--women and men--join their expansive feminism and
we'll make a substantive move away from all exploitation and oppression."
Even if the views of pro-life feminists do not represent the feminist
majority but are in the minority, like Feminists For Animal Rights...
Feminists For Life and their pro-life feminist views should similarly be
welcomed by other feminists for serious discussion.
Feminists For Life, PO Box 320667, Alexandria, VA 22320
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