PETA/Women

[Guest guest]

Carol J. Adams (author of Living Among Meat Eaters) gave a great talk

at UT-Austin a few years ago about about what she calls " The Sexual

Politics of Meat " (also the title of one of her books)--how women and

animals are both objectified. How in marketing campaigns women are

" animalized, " and animals are sexualized in order to sell products. She

did this amazing slide show with images of advertisements and signs

that portray women or animals in really lame positions. Like, when a

barbecue restaurant uses a happy cartoon female pig in its signs. I've

noticed more and more how meat establishments use these blissful animal

images--like those stupid Chik-Fil-A billboards with the cows, or don't

even get me started on the " happy California cows " campaign. Ugh.

Anyway, she talked a lot about PETA's sexism in its campaigns, and this

very pro-animal audience was very vocally angry at PETA. It opened my

eyes a lot to how they get their message out, but I still really

appreciate what they do for the animals--they get a lot of attention

for the cause, and it keeps people from being able to just put it out

of their minds completely.

 

She is wonderful--if she comes to your city go see her!

 

Amy

 

 

On Thursday, November 3, 2005, at 05:16 PM,

wrote:

 

> Regarding ads with naked women: it's not the nakedness, per se, that

> is the problem, I think, but rather that PETA so often capitalizes

> on the rampant sexism in our society (the sexism that says that

> women are most valuable for their physical appearance, and that

> women's bodies primary function is to provide visual/sexual pleasure

> to others).

>

> Again, the key question is: are the people drawn to ads with naked

> women hearing the deeper message about compassion towards animals?

> If so, then perhaps it is worth it. If not, well, then, it's just

> contributing to the problem of sexism, IMO. There's also the

> question of whether ends really justify means (in this case, the

> means being utilizing one form of oppression in an attempt to change

> another form of oppression).

> K