| Saturday, March 14, 2009 |
| PETA and Objectification |
Greetings, readers! The following post comes to us from Alderson Warm-Fork of Directionless Bones, who will also be blogging here on occasion. Someday I will figure out how to create different users for this account so my introduction won't be necessary, but I must also someday figure out how to get a decent tax return, make my own jewelry and engage in urban foraging without poisoning myself. Thus, I hope no one is holding their breath when I say I will "someday" do something.
PETA and Objectification
One of the main claims urged against PETA is that their numerous sexual images of women constitute ‘objectification’, which is bad. In this post I want to explain this idea as clearly as possible.
‘Object’ has a lot of meanings – vernacular, grammatical, philosophical. In broad terms it can be used relatively as ‘the object of my attention’, ‘the object of my desire’, etc. to mean that thing which a certain action is targeted towards. It can correspondingly be used absolutely, as ‘an object’ full stop, to mean the sort of thing which in general has things done to it, rather than doing things.
‘Objectification’ then means a pattern of words or images of whatever that emphasises and prioritises the things that are done to something over the things that it does. This has an important relationship with two other ideas: personhood and hate speech.
Personhood is related because although clearly persons are objects, in that they can be seen, felt, thought of, and acted upon, what is distinctive about persons is a certain sort of activity. Perceiving, thinking, reasoning, understanding, deciding, desiring, aiming, etc. are the distinctive activities of persons, and it is these activities, not any perceptible difference, that identifies persons (persons don’t, for example, feel different to the touch from non-persons).
So one consequence of objectification is that what is objectified is de-personalised; its personhood is devalued relative to what persons can do to it.
Hate speech is another phrase with often unclear meanings, but I present it in a certain sense – as speech which legitimises violence, which presents a class of beings as by nature fit targets for violence. This is clearly a species of objectification – indeed all objectification will have a certain tinge of ‘hate speech’ because to be acted on, to be used like an object, is typically a violent experience.
So how does this relate to animals? Food animals are supremely objectified. The single most accurate way to sum up the way they are treated is – they are treated as objects. They are resources, property, things. Even animals which are spoken about hatefully as, for example, ‘beasts’, as dangerous and threatening and hence deserving extermination, are presented as having more agency and activity than the broiler chicken, which is in a sense merely a KFC bargain bucket on legs.
And the ‘hate speech’ component of objectification comes through here very clearly. Nobody literally ‘hates’ broiler chickens – nobody thinks ‘yeah, those fucking chickens are going to get it now!’. But the objectification, the seeing them simply as resources for human use, justifies and legitimates the single most extensive and large-scale systematic act of violence on earth – the killing of billions of chickens every year. Objectification legitimises violence.
How does this relate to PETA adverts showing nude or effectively-nude women? This trend, this societal obsession with the naked female form, fits the definition of objectification because it “emphasises and prioritises” the things that can be done to that form – things ranging from ‘desiring’, ‘fantasising about’, to ‘touching’ and ‘having sex with’. Even the action of ‘seeing’ is emphasised – the whole point is not just what this woman looks like but that she is showing herself. No individual image need carry such an emphasis – the pattern of endless repetition clearly does so.
And as with animals, objectification is linked with violence. If the principal feature of women is their suitability to be acted upon, to be seen and desired and touched and had sex with, then their other traits (such as the ability to choose, to make rational decisions) are obscured, and actions, such as rape or harassment, which conform to that ‘essential nature’ (sexual object) while conflicting with the secondary trait (rational chooser) make a lot more sense. Indeed, if a woman’s essence is to be desired, then any action which displays desire, from wolf-whistling to badgering her into unwanted sex, can be seen as a ‘compliment’, a benevolent act.
Female humans are not killed on the same scale as chickens. But the fact that so many of them experience sexual violence, the fact that historically most sex has been non-consensual (since marriage was seen as making consent irrelevant), the ratio of women killed by men who claim to love them compared to men killed by women, constitute a no less serious crisis.
Empirical arguments about causal links need not be central: if we can recognise objectification of chickens as a component of the complex of ideas which support ongoing violence against them, then we should recognise that same taint in objectification of women. Organisations which try to oppose one system should not do so by participating in the other.
Cross-posted at Directionless BonesLabels: animal rights, feminism, hate speech, intersectionality, objectification, personhood, violence, women
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posted by The Venerable Vegan Empress @ 2:14 PM   |
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| Tuesday, March 3, 2009 |
| Now what? |
Well, damn. I did not expect to be starting a blog today, but lately I've been consumed with thoughts of how much I hate PETA, and since "Vegans Against PETA" is one of the most-searched terms on Google, I decided I'd better start this blog before the hate group that is PETA tries to make one of their interns register it or something.
Anyhow, why do I hate PETA, especially given the fact that I myself am vegan? Well, I really hope you're not too attached to PETA, because I really don't have anything nice to say about them. In fact, I'll probably call you names and make you cry if you try to defend them, so maybe you should just head over to www.iamamisogynistwankstain.com instead of wasting your time here.*
But for those of you who are genuinely curious as to why I and many many other vegans hate PETA, or if you're feeling masochistic and just want a recap, here's just the briefest list before I retire to my richly canopied brocade and damask bed (I am an empress, you know):
PETA hates women. A whole lot. Okay, that's not entirely true. They really like dead and/or abused women. It could be their new motto! "The only good woman is a sexy dead one." Hey, dead women don't eat meat, right, PETA?
Although PETA is perfectly willing to exploit women's bodies to get attention, they also think we should be ashamed of our natural bodies. Funny that.
PETA hates transpeople. When viewing this ad, please keep in mind that transfolk are 17 times more likely than cisgender people to be murdered, and are the most likely to be murdered of any minority group. Every year in November a day of remembrance is held throughout the United States where the names of all transgender murder victims from the past year are read, and candles are lit for them; oftentimes the programs for these events are out of date by the time the vigil happens because another murder has happened in the few days between printing and the Day of Remembrance. Given these facts, the blood on the transwoman in this ad cannot be construed as anything other than a mockery of the rampant murder of transgender people.
PETA hates black people.
PETA hates Jewish people.
PETA thinks lesbian relationships are a big ole' fucking joke and that lesbians should only exist for the pleasure of straight men. (In one of the videos of this bile -- I don't know if it's in this one, I'm not watching it again -- one of the women in the video giggles at the end, "But we're straight!")
PETA comes into towns where other animal rights groups have done hard work to make changes, then takes the credit for those changes. In some cases they prevent those changes from happening at all. (Although other posters at this forum discuss it, I'm thinking especially of Mary's post at June 19, 2005, 10:22 am.)
PETA has their very own craptastic "rescue" program, in which 97 percent of animals they take in wind up being euthanized. By contrast, humane societies in Virginia (PETA's home state) typically euthanize 35 percent of the animals they take in. Read this if you want to learn a little more about how sick they are on this front.
For all their hoopla about the evils of fur, they're not nearly as militant about leather. Oh sure, they have their totally objectified leather police (not linking) and have a few leather campaigns, but I have yet to see them douse a member of a biker gang with flour for wearing leather. (And how cool does Samantha Ronson sound in this article, seriously? PETA could take some tips from her on Being a Responsible and Rational Adult.) I'm thinking this isn't so much an oversight as yet another manifestation of PETA's rampant misogyny, because as the saying goes, "People are more violently opposed to fur than leather because it's safer to harass rich women than motorcycle gangs."
They use pit bulls to get donations and sympathy, yet support totally exterminating the entire breed -- supposedly because they're too likely to be abused. I wonder if they think women should be exterminated, too? Except oh wait, then they'd have a lot fewer people to exploit in their ads....
Anyhow, that brocade and damask bed. It's calling me now. I leave you with a poem that, according to legend, was created by some brilliant minds at Vegan Freak. At some point in the future I shall pontificate upon the rules and philosophy of this blog and how to ensure that it doesn't have the unintended effect of giving PETA free publicity and furthering the hate they spew. But for now:
Hush lil' baby don't say a word
Ingrid Newkirk is a big ole turd.
And if she cooks you food to eat.
It will be stuffed with "happy meat."
*Ha ha, that site doesn't really exist, you dumbshit PETA interns!
“You can stand tall without standing on someone. You can be a victor without having victims.”
--Harriet Woods.Labels: advertising, animal rights, antisemitism, euthanasia, fur, intersectionality, leather, misogyny, PETA, pit bulls, racism, transphobia, veganism
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| posted by The Venerable Vegan Empress @ 6:45 PM |
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| About Me |
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Name: The Venerable Vegan Empress
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If you have any ideas for an article here or would like to write a post, I'd love that! I work full time, volunteer and take classes at my city's university, so I don't work on this project nearly as often as I'd like. Just send me a comment with your contact info -- I approve all comments before posting, so if you include info that you don't want published let me know and I won't publish your comment.
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| Previous Post |
- Don't befriend sociopaths
- Thanks PETA, now I just spit all over everything.
- OMG, you guys, PETA is, like, TOTALLY feminist!
- This is what happens when you sell your soul
- Prediction
- PETA, please go fuck yourself
- PETA, just another welfare org....
- Like you care, PETA
- Care to elaborate, Daily Telegraph?
- Uh oh, does PETA know about this?
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