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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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