PETA’s “Youngest Pinup”

Posted on July 9, 2013 by Vegan Feminist Network

From PETA: Women and girls of all ages should “go all the way” . . . for the animals.

PETA normally waits until people turn 18 before asking them to star in a “provocative” campaign, but not this time. Sixteen-year-old singer-songwriter Samia Najimy Finnerty stars in our new “Vegans Go All the Way” ad. PETA’s youngest pinup is the daughter of actor and longtime PETA supporter Kathy Najimy and Dan Finnerty of The Dan Band.

PETA “normally waits” for a girl to reach legal age before they are prostituted for fundraising, but, not anymore.

From this campaign we learn:
1. Statutory rape is condoned.
2. Girls should “go all the way” as though their purpose for existing is to be a sexual resource to others.
3. For women, helping animals means sexually objectifying her body–even if she is still a child.
4. Rape culture reigns. Children cannot consent, and only in a rape culture, would this campaign be acceptable.
5. The sexualization of childhood (girlhood) has encroached on Nonhuman Animal rights advocacy.

Incidentally, PETA had originally planned for the 16 year old to appear on a bed.

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Gender Inequity in the Animal Welfare Movement

Posted on July 8, 2013 by Vegan Feminist Network

Jen here. I recently had the pleasure of meeting (through the Internet) a fascinating scholar by the name of Corey Wrenn. She wrote a paper entitled, “The Role of Professionalism Regarding Female Exploitation in the Nonhuman Animal Rights Movement,” published in The Journal of Gender Studies.

Ms. Wrenn makes one point that it not new- that some animal rights groups get their point across by exploiting women, specifically PETA, LUSH, Fish Love, and Animal Liberation Victoria (ALV).

But she makes a larger point that is the elephant in the room: Even though WOMEN make up the majority of those who support animal welfare, it is MEN who are in the leadership positions.

Does this sell our cause, or does it demean women and diminish our voice?

Indeed, the ASPCA, the Humane Society of the US, the Humane Association, the International Fund for Animal Welfare, the World Wildlife Fund, and many other groups are led by men and their top leadership is overwhelmingly male.

But it’s not men that are caring for animals. It’s not men who are lobbying for animals. It’s not men targeted with those emotion-laden commercials begging for money. It’s all about us then, baby.

So why are men running the show in this female-dominated arena? Why are we allowing them to market to us in a way that is demeaning? And does this gender inequity play into our inability to make meaningful changes in the animal welfare arena?

Recently I wrote a blog post where I said I wanted to work in the field of animal welfare. Many posted comments suggesting that I cut back on blogging and show my interest by volunteering for a rescue. Really? I scoop litter boxes every day. Why do I have to prove my worthiness to work in this field by scooping litter boxes for someone else? For free? Do you think Wayne Pacelle, when interviewing to lead the Humane Society, was asked how many litter boxes HE scooped to earn his stripes?

Personally, I’m thinking it’s time for a real change in the path this movement is taking. We need to phase out the Good Old Boy leadership. We need to stop the exploitation of women. Let’s change the face of this movement from the Crazy Cat Lady and clueless co-ed, who each need men to guide them, to that of the Old Crone, the elder who holds the wisdom of the ages.

The Wise Crone respects Mother Earth and all of her creations

What do you think? Is Animal Welfare rife with sexism? Do you feel women are respected in the movement, or are we used as funders and cheap labor to promote a male agenda? What do YOU think should be the face of the movement?

By Jenny Threet

You can follow her on Twitter and on her blog, Rumpy Dog.

This post was originally published on Rumpy Dog on July 8, 2013.

Male PETA Employees Make Women have Sex with Vegetables “For the Animals”

Posted on July 7, 2013 by Vegan Feminist Network

Not Safe for Work: Discusses pornography and contains sexualized imagery.
Trigger Warning: Discusses pornography

Some may recall that PETA launched a pornography site a few years ago, interweaving graphic scenes of violence with sexualized images of women. Fortunately, it removed the images of women, and the porn site is nothing more than short video clips of factory farms. But that wasn’t the end of the story. The porn is back, now under a new campaign called “Veggie Love Casting Session.”

On the campaign’s website, various clips of women performing sex acts on vegetables are featured. In the television commercial, women are paraded in front of the camera and inspected for the audience like human meat ready for consumption. The project is orchestrated by men who we hear in the background calling the shots, directing the women to show the audience how much they love their assigned vegetable, then laughing at the woman’s humiliation at the end of her session. Photos of the women are listed at the bottom of the page where viewers can rate them with a “thumbs up” or “thumbs down,” adding another level to the women’s objectification.

PETA even manages to mimic the prevalence of racism in pornography. The only African American woman featured is shown animalized, crawling across the couch to some broccoli where she devours it with no hands.

Many would view this campaign and argue that these women are participating “by choice” and they’re “enjoying it.” But this is missing the point. We need to consider what shapes those choices, that being an environment that sees women as sex objects and resources for male enjoyment. Women are under immense pressure to perform the gender roles they have been assigned. Under patriarchy, women are socialized to be servants to men. Women are groomed as little girls, taught that providing sex and pleasure for men is both expected and required of them. Women are given so few opportunities in this world to achieve and succeed based on their skills, knowledge, and other dignifying qualities, sex work is one of the only options available to them. The vast majority of sex work, incidentally, is high risk, low pay work with very little job security and very little agency (most sex workers are pimped or otherwise trafficked). Importantly, this is an option that’s not even on the table for men.

Pornography and other forms of sexual exploitation also target especially vulnerable women, predominantly girls and women from low-income backgrounds or abusive families, girls and women with little occupational or educational opportunities, and girls and women who are suffering from addictions.Pornography hurts all women, but it particularly hurts at-risk women.

A white woman in a bikini and high heels spanking herself with a stalk of celery.

How does this imagery educate the public about speciesism?

After viewing videos of women performing sex acts on vegetables, videos of Nonhuman Animals being beaten and killed automatically pop up on the PETA website. In other words, images of sexualized and humiliated women are juxtaposed with dying animals. PETA is tapping into a new form of sexuality, one that has been popularized by porn culture: subjugating and hurting the vulnerable for the pleasure of the privileged. Seeing someone humiliated and suffering for our enjoyment has become sexy.

PETA is sexualizing the degradation and humiliation of women. PETA is sexualizing the exploitation of vulnerable people. PETA is sexualizing violence against women. PETA is sexualizing oppression.

A white woman stuffing radishes into her mouth with painfully stretched cheeks.

The director encourages this woman to stuff as many radishes as possible into her mouth to demonstrate to the audience how much girth she can withstand.

The research is overwhelmingly clear: pornography leads to the degradation of women, the objectification of women, the dehumanization of women, and violence against women. It leads women to internalize this devaluation, and women begin to objectify themselves. It disempowers women, it leaves women susceptible to domestic violence, and it feeds rape culture. For more information on how pornography hurts women, check out The Price of Pleasure (warning, the material on the website and in the film are extremely triggering and graphic). I also recommend Gail Dines’ Pornland or Robert Jensen’s Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity (this book is freely available on his website).

Dr. Wrenn is Lecturer of Sociology. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology with Colorado State University in 2016. She received her M.S. in Sociology in 2008 and her B.A. in Political Science in 2005, both from Virginia Tech. She was awarded Exemplary Diversity Scholar, 2016 by the University of Michigan’s National Center for Institutional Diversity. She served as council member with the American Sociological Association’s Animals & Society section (2013-2016) and was elected Chair in 2018. She serves as Book Review Editor to Society & Animals and has contributed to the Human-Animal Studies Images and Cinema blogs for the Animals and Society Institute. She has been published in several peer-reviewed academic journals including the Journal of Gender Studies, Feminist Media Studies, Disability & Society, Food, Culture & Society, and Society & Animals. In July 2013, she founded the Vegan Feminist Network, an academic-activist project engaging intersectional social justice praxis. She is the author of A Rational Approach to Animal Rights: Extensions in Abolitionist Theory (Palgrave MacMillan 2016).

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Why Sex Doesn’t Sell Animal Rights

Posted on July 5, 2013 by Vegan Feminist Network

In a previous article with One Green Planet, I documented the rising incorporation of sexist tactics and sexual objectification of women in Nonhuman Animal rights advocacy. Beyond the well-known and infamous PETA naked campaigns, more and more advocates are turning to the female body to promote veganism and rights for other animals.

In February 2013, a vegan pornography site “Vegan Pinup” relaunched brandishing the slogan: ”Because veganism is beautiful and sexy!” Like other vegan pornography sites, Vegan Pinup justifies the sexual objectification of female models with the presumption that images of “beautiful and sexy” naked or nearly naked women put veganism in an attractive light.

The website is set up like the popular alternative-lifestyle pornography site Suicide Girls, which runs on volunteer female models who submit their own images with varying levels of nudity based on the model’s comfort level. The model pays for the photographer, spends her own time having the photos taken, processed, and sent to the webmaster, and the webmaster then displays them on the website for paying customers. The models receive minimal compensation.

Vegan Pinup does not profit from customers who must pay to view the photographs (the photos are free to view), but they do profit from an extensive merchandise store. Unlike Suicide Girls, none of the vegan pinups receive compensation.

Playboy models working for PETA draw attention to water usage in Nonhuman Animal products by sitting naked in a bathtub in a public square

Essentially what has happened is that the Nonhuman Animal rights movement, a serious movement advocating for social justice, has been co-opted by pornographers and mainstream sexism. The Nonhuman Animal rights movement is comprised of 80% women, yet it is led mostly by men. Men construct the theory and men dictate the tactics. Advocacy on behalf of other animals has become sexualized.

Women are being told that to advocate for veganism or Nonhuman Animal liberation means taking off their clothes and indicating sexual availability. Activism is no longer about discussing ethics, it’s putting the female body on display for male consumption. Veganism is now about sex, not social justice or political engagement.

Of course, body image is an important factor as well. For instance, while Vegan Pinup explicitly states that all body types are welcome, at this time, only thin women are pictured. More telling, the website repeatedly states the requirement that all models must demonstrate healthfulness, they must look “healthy.” This has implications not only for body weight (it is unclear how the webmaster decides the cut off on an “unhealthy” looking woman) but also for sexual availability. A pornography site can’t function unless it’s models appeal to men’s sexual appetite.

Sex cannot sell our movement . . . it can only sell out our movement. The proliferation of websites and tactics like Vegan Pinup speaks to the patriarchal infiltration of what was once a powerful site of female political presence. Encouraging women to strip for Nonhuman Animal rights is encouraging women to strip their personhood and become sexual objects. Instead of gaining empowerment through political action, women are told they are empowered by disrobing and looking “beautiful and sexy” for men.

Playboy models working for PETA in lettuce bikinis insert veggie hot dogs into their mouths

A plethora of research has demonstrated that the prevalence of sexually objectifying media degrades women’s self-esteem and can lead to mental health issues and eating disorders. A recent study in Psychological Science, however, has even asserted that sexual objectification leads women to internalize that objectification to the point of impaired self-efficacy. Women who are socialized to believe they are objects, in other words, are less likely to engage social activism that challenges that oppression. For a mostly female movement, increased objectification and reduced efficacy could prove disastrous.

This post was originally published by One Green Planet on March 15, 2013.

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Vegan Body Shaming: Analyzing the Evidence

Posted on July 3, 2013 by Vegan Feminist Network

Trigger Warning: Fat-shaming.

After coding data for a publication on demographic representations in vegan media, I was utterly shocked to discover that nearly all analyzed subjects were undeniably skinny. Over a twelve year span, the two magazines included in my study featured only a handful of subjects (mostly men) who were noticeably athletic, toned, or carrying “excess” body fat. Only one female subject appeared to deviate from the thin norm, but she was also wearing baggy clothing, so it was unclear.

Vegan campaigns sometimes go beyond this otherwise indirect connection between veganism and weight loss and blatantly suggest that if you want to be “hot” and “fit,” you need to go vegan. Freedman and Barnouin’s Skinny Bitch is a prime example, as is PETA’s “Save the Whales” billboard campaign. The overwhelming representation of thinness in our movement is a problem in itself, but our fixation on veganism as a weight loss miracle carries with it several implications that target vulnerable populations: women, people of color, and “obese” persons.

Body shaming is especially problematic for a movement whose largest demographic is women. When we promote veganism as a means to lose weight, we normalize thinness as the ideal body type. This alienates those vegan women who do not fit within this ideal and it denigrates non-vegan women who do not fit it either. Research has shown that veganism is indeed an important variable in reducing excess body fat, but one 2005 medical report found that as much as 29% of vegans are overweight or obese. That means about 1/3 of our vegan community does not reflect the idealized thin body that represents us on magazines, websites, videos, and other lifestyle or outreach literature.

Idealizing thinness is really the idealization of higher socioeconomic class. It oftentimes takes considerable income to have access to fresh vegetables and fruits. Vegans without that luxury must rely on cheap, carbohydrate-heavy grains like flour, pasta, and potatoes. Fresh fruits, vegetables, and even spring water tend to be far more expensive than their processed counterparts.

We cannot forget that socioeconomic status is not simply about economic resources, but social resources as well. In the United States, African Americans, Native Americans, and Hispanics are disproportionately poor, a result of centuries of oppression and continuing inequality. They are also disproportionately located in areas with limited availability for healthful foods (rural areas and segregated inner city neighborhoods); these are known as food deserts. In The Inspired Vegan, Bryant Terry, who advocates for improving food access for disadvantaged peoples, notes that in 2007, Oakland California housed 53 liquor stores, but not a single full-service supermarket. Those living in food deserts might not have a car, could lack access to public transportation, and they may lack the time to travel out of town for healthier groceries due to work and childcare responsibilities.

Finally, the demonization of “fat” in the United States has very real and disastrous consequences for those humans unfortunate enough to fit within that socially constructed category. “Overweight” humans (especially women) can face hiring discrimination, are less likely to be promoted or selected for prestigious projects, and they ultimately make less money overall. And of course, weight discrimination can result in hurtful interpersonal mistreatment as well, like name-calling and objectification.

I can understand that many vegans enthusiastically promote veganism as a weight-loss diet, but we must be mindful that body weight is a complex social issue and the celebration of thinness can be hurtful to others who lack the social and economic privilege that most vegans enjoy. This movement is about nonviolence, and this principle must extend beyond Nonhuman Animals to include our fellow activists as well.

Vegan media sources, too, should be aware of their influential role. Consistently portraying a particular body type that is relatively unachievable for a good number of us creates a harmful and unrealistic ideal. The impact of thinness in women’s magazines is well documented. When the media is inundated with thin (often airbrushed) figures, this can seriously impact consumer self-esteem and lead to eating disorders. But some magazines like Seventeen have responded with a commitment to picturing “real” people. This should be a goal for vegan media as well.

As social activists, we should not only be concerned with the well-being of our community members, but we should also recognize that our media portrayals are influential in attracting (or repelling) certain demographics. If we consistently show thin people (or women, or whites, or higher socioeconomic status individuals), we are framing our movement as one meant for certain types of people, but not for others. Yet, I suspect that diversity will be an essential variable in achieving social change. I suggest, then, that we begin to think critically about how our movement is being represented and set our bar a little higher to include all body types and all backgrounds.

This post was originally published by One Green Planet on January 30, 2013.

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Vegans, Procreation, and “Overpopulation”, Oh My…

Posted on July 2, 2013 by Vegan Feminist Network

“There are definitely too many of you!”

If you spend enough time reading vegan blogs, websites, and social media, or if you frequently participate in vegan forums, you will inevitably encounter vegans making arguments against human procreation. Invariably these arguments are premised, at least in part, on the assumption that the world is overpopulated with humans and that the size of the human population is the primary driver of just about every ecological and social crisis we are facing today. Often the people making these arguments go even further, suggesting that there is no ecologically acceptable place on this planet for humans because humans are destructive and parasitical by nature. Some vegans will even go so far as to declare that procreation is decidedly not vegan because, given all these obvious problems caused by human overpopulation, the decision to add to the surplus of humans harms countless nonhuman animals.

These simplistic arguments – that “there’s too many people on earth, just look at all the destruction humans cause to the planet” and “obviously 7 billion humans is too many because that’s a really, really big number” – are typical among the vegan and non-vegan anti-procreationists/populationists, but if we examine them we can begin to see how they are deeply flawed and how they necessarily obscure much more than they reveal.

The truth is that most of us 7 billion humans are not endangering the planet; The primary drivers of environmental destruction, pollution, resource shortages, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, species extinction, climate change, and many other pressing problems often attributed to “too many people”, are, in reality, our unjust political and economic systems -controlled by a small minority of humans- and the military industrial complex that allows them to function and expand. The tragic irony of the blame-the-“breeder” position is that the vast majority of humans are actually the victims -not perpetrators- of this profoundly exploitative system in various ways.

We need to understand that our materials economy is designed to create an endless supply of “cheap” disposable stuff merely for profits gained by a small percentage of humans (think about the “1%” articulated by the Occupy Wall Street movement), and not for the needs and well-being of humans or other animals, for the health of our ecosystems, or to create sustainable and equitable social systems. Rampant ecological destruction that negatively affects the lives of many humans (particularly marginalized groups) and countless other animals is inherent in this infinite growth economic model, from the extraction of materials and resources, to the production, distribution, and disposal of all this stuff, much of which is intentionally designed to become obsolete after a very short period of time.

Additionally, it has been reported that the US Department of Defense is “responsible for the most egregious and widespread pollution of the planet” and that “This impact includes uninhibited use of fossil fuels, massive creation of greenhouse gases, and extensive release of radioactive and chemical contaminants into the air, water, and soil”. Futhermore, “the Department of Defense … produc(es) more hazardous waste than the five largest US chemical companies combined. Depleted uranium, petroleum, oil, pesticides, defoliant agents such as Agent Orange, and lead, along with vast amounts of radiation from weaponry produced, tested, and used, are just some of the pollutants with which the US military is contaminating the environment”. It should go without saying that the vast majority of people on this planet are not included in any decision making process within the US DoD.

Many people challenging anti-procreationist/populationist arguments often attempt to shift focus and blame onto individual consumption choices, and in some ways this also misses the point. According to Annie Leonard, author of The Story of Stuff, 97.5% of solid waste in the United States comes from industrial operations, not household waste, and up to 97% of all energy and material that goes into manufacturing products is simply wasted. This is not to say that individual consumption choices don’t matter, but clearly the vast majority of us have little or no immediate control over, or even any say in the decisions made that use the most resources, produce the most waste and pollution, and cause most ecological destruction.

Moreover, populationists often tend to overlook or ignore substantial inequalities, and thus disparate levels of consumption, even within rich nations. In reference to individual greenhouse gas emissions, David Satterthwaite writes that “…the lifetime contribution to GHG emissions of a person added to the world’s population varies by a factor of more than 1,000 depending on the circumstances into which they are born and their life choices…”

On top of all this, it’s downright silly for vegans, of all people, to argue that the planet is overpopulated with humans when it is estimated that “livestock” systems occupy nearly half (45%) of the global surface area. This is a true overpopulation problem for the planet: we breed billions of land animals into existence every year -roughly 8 times the human population- just to exploit and kill them for unnecessary purposes, misusing vital resources and causing widespread pollution and environmental catastrophe. Not to mention the many billions of aquatic animals unnecessarily killed every year, brutalizing our oceanic ecosystems.

Can we seriously maintain that the size of the human population (or even human existence), in and of itself, is the main driver of the destruction of our world? The issue of human “overpopulation” is, and historically has always been, a huge distraction.

Note that none of what I have mentioned above even addresses the fact that the human population is not currently exploding as many populationists claim. Rather, it is experiencing a global trend that will likely result in stabilization, if not decline, later this century. Nor did I address the inherent racism, classism, and misogyny in an argument that focuses blame on women’s bodies and on folks that still have rising populations: mainly poor people of color. Nor have I begun to address the history of the “too many people” position, or what groups of people have constructed these arguments to justify elitism, racial supremacy and oppression, or how overpopulation theory has been, and is currently, put into horrifying practice.

If anything is “not vegan” or unethical, it’s attempting to shame fellow vegans (or anyone else) for their reproductive choices and relying on flimsy “overpopulation” arguments to validate one’s own shallow misanthropy. Now that’s a real shame, and we should not tolerate such nonsense if we are truly concerned about challenging oppression and promoting social justice…

By Lucas

You can follow him on Twitter and on his blog, Our Vegan Pregnancy.

This post was originally published by Our Vegan Pregnancy on January 8, 2013.

Vegan Feminist Network

Critical essays and resources for vegan women and their allies

Author Archives: Vegan Feminist Network

PETA’s “Youngest Pinup”

Gender Inequity in the Animal Welfare Movement

Male PETA Employees Make Women have Sex with Vegetables “For the Animals”

Why Sex Doesn’t Sell Animal Rights

Vegan Body Shaming: Analyzing the Evidence

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