Male Privilege, Discussion Derailments, and the Politics of Politeness

Posted on September 30, 2014 by Vegan Feminist Network

Yesterday I was in a conversation with a male colleague who supports violence and welfare reform in Nonhuman Animal rights efforts. As an abolitionist, I reject these tactics as both ideologically flawed and counterproductive. The violence/non-violence debate and the abolition/welfare debate have long histories in the movement, and debates over effectiveness are never ending. Because I specialize in social movement theory in my academic life, I have some rather strong positions on these topics. My colleague, however, is a non-academic and is not versed in the science of social movements, basing his position on the dominant (male-led) discourse of the movement. As the conversation progressed and I continued to remain strong in my position, my colleague pointed out that he didn’t feel like he could talk to me without eventually being accused of sexism. This may have been because I was using the language of privilege to discuss the dominance of welfarist organizations in the movement, or it may have been because I noted that violent tactics are patriarchal and tend to attract men. Whatever the reason, I was being flagged for communicating my position within the framework of inequality. I certainly never accused him of sexism. However, it soon occurred to me that my colleague was probably not making this claim out of true exasperation, but rather as a manipulative tool intended to derail the discussion and restore male supremacy.

Men tend to be socialized to expect domination in discourse. They are socialized to believe they are right, that their opinions matter, and that these opinions are the most important. This is not based on experience or expertise, rather, it is based on their privileged social status as a male. Women, on the other hand, are socialized according to the politics of politeness. We are taught to give men more room to talk, to value their opinions no matter how ridiculous or offensive, to soothe their egos, etc. Decades of sociological research on talk, language, and social space regarding mixed gender interactions has confirmed that men talk more, they take up more space, they dictate the discussion, and their opinions are viewed as more credible and legitimate. Women, on the other hand, speak less, support more, and take up less space. Their opinions are also extremely devalued.

When men complain about not being able to say anything without being accused of sexism, what they are really saying is:

1. I am used to having control over the conversation, your awareness of sexual politics makes it difficult for me to enact this invisible privilege smoothly.

2. I am used to being able to speak about any topic without my authority being challenged, the possibility of being accused of sexism interferes with my authority.

3. I am drawing on politics of politeness to shame you into putting my feelings and interests first.

4. Feminist theory is a charade. Sexism isn’t real, you’re just using that rhetoric as a way to win the argument.

This tactic is a variation of tone-policing. Rather than engaging the discourse, there is a derailment created by appealing to the bruised male ego, the woman’s character, and the authenticity of feminism. Women are distracted from expressing their own authority on a subject when men exploit femininity and pressure women into paying deference to the patriarchal social structure. The validity of my argument goes by the wayside, I have to put his feelings first. Not putting the feelings of men first is a cardinal sin in the patriarchy. Being a woman with an educated opinion seems to be a great offense as well.

Finally, it is extremely important to recognize that when we individualize oppression, we obscure its systemic nature. If we can’t discuss systemic oppression because people of privilege prioritize their discomfort at what appears to be a personal attack, we will not be able to have the important conversations necessary for creating an egalitarian society. Making it personal (“Hey, I’m not sexist!”; “Hey, are you calling me racist?!”) seriously derails the conversation. Instead of challenging structural oppression, advocates find themselves tending to the feelings of people of privilege who are used to being shielded from discomfort. It becomes extremely wearisome for oppressed people to continuously pander to the feelings of privileged persons. Doing so redirects attention from the oppressed to the oppressors. It also shuts down the dialogue, interferes with critical thinking, and impedes social justice work.

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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Rape & Slaughter: Empirical Correlations

Posted on September 9, 2014 by Vegan Feminist Network

I had the pleasure of presenting at the American Sociological Conference last August in San Francisco with a panel of several talented female scholars in the field of Animals & Society. One such presentation, that of Racine Jacques, a Ph.D. student at the University of Central Florida, especially caught my attention because of its implications for vegan feminist theory. Ms. Jacques had discovered a very strong relationship between rape and the presence of “beef” slaughterhouses in the community. This relationship remained strong even when controlling for a number of other variables typically responsible for increases in crime rates. She reports that the presence of a slaughterhouse corresponds with a 166% increase in arrests for rape. Her study looks at other forms of crime, but rape stands out as especially significant.

Racine Jacques

This study partially confirms what vegan feminist scholars have been theorizing for some decades: Violence against women and violence against animals are closely entangled and likely aggravated by patriarchal rule and capitalist economics. In a society where the bodies of women and other animals are considered commodities and resources for the privileged, it should come as no surprise to find intersections of violence.

Ms. Racine’s study, “Social Disorganization in Slaughterhouse Communities,” is due to be published in an upcoming issue of Society & Animals. A more nuanced discussion of the race and class oppression felt by the slaughterhouse workers themselves is included in her analysis.

Dr. Wrenn is Lecturer of Sociology and past Director of Gender Studies (2016-2018) with Monmouth University. 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).

Prison Rape and the Sexual Politics of Meat

Posted on September 9, 2014 by Vegan Feminist Network

The above image was taken on Hennepin Avenue in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The billboard pictured reads, “The Freshest Meat Outside of a Prison,” and advertises a fusion restaurant called Chino Latino. The mocking reference to prison rape is both saddening and telling.

Though we often critique patriarchy in relationship to female disempowerment and violence against women, it is also true that the rape culture evidenced in advertisements like that of Chino Latino celebrate male violence in ways that hurt vulnerable men as well. Rates of rape in the prison system (an institution that targets primarily men) are astronomically high. Victimization is tied to severe emotional trauma, but also increased exposure to disease given the closed nature of the institution. Gay men and transgender persons are extremely vulnerable to assault, but all men are at high risk within the hyper-masculinized and violent environment of the prison system.

Prison rape is a feminist issue for several reasons. First, male-on-male rape is a product of patriarchy and normalized male entitlement to vulnerable bodies. Second, prisoners are, in many ways, feminized bodies. That is, they are disempowered persons who have been stripped of their agency and identity. They generally fall into the “feminine” category within society’s masculine/feminine dichotomy. They become deindividualized and are controlled and exploited by a capitalist/patriarchal institution (the privatized prison system is highly lucrative, relying on an inmate work force that is paid in pennies and cannot unionize). Many are mentally ill when arrested or become mentally ill from the incarceration experience. Imprisoned persons are often forcibly medicated. Imprisoned persons are also forced to wear demeaning uniforms meant to deindividualize or humiliate them. Many are kept in solitary confinement to prevent meaningful and healthy social interactions or relationships.

Third, the prison system is notoriously racist and classist, meaning that poor persons and persons of color are disproportionately targeted for imprisonment. Beginning in the 1970s, this trend increased significantly after the end of legalized slavery and the share-cropping system. Previous economic forms of enslavement were simply replaced with the for-profit prison system.

Finally, of course, female prisoners experience high levels of rape as well, particularly from male prison staff. Too often, the experiences of imprisoned persons are written off because these persons are presumed to “get what they deserve.” This ideology, however, ignores the role of systemic oppression, gross violations of human rights, and the intentional targeting of vulnerable groups.

The Chino Latino advertisement makes light of this horrific system and plays on the rape of vulnerable, deindividualized and feminized bodies to sell the body parts of vulnerable, deindividualized and feminized bodies in the form of “meat.” Exploiting and consuming the bodies of those who cannot consent is funny . . . and sexy . . .

The sexual politics of Chino Latino food is unmistakable. On their website, you are invited to look at “sexy pictures” and “hot shots” of their food and drinks. Many of these images display the corpses of Nonhuman Animals in all varieties of dismemberment and display.

The advertisement for their party room (a webpage entitled, “Explore Our Private Parts – It’s Okay to Stare”) proclaims:

We don’t like to brag, but why be coy? For parties and private events, Chino Latino is unusually well-endowed, with five unique spaces.

One suggested use (there was no mention of any female equivalent, such as a bridal shower):

[ . . . ] have us host a bachelor party the groom won’t remember to regret.

In other words, spaces where “meat” is served and consumed are considered male spaces, and the products are framed as feminized and waiting for male penetration.

The consumption of animal bodies is embedded within the patriarchal language and imagery of sexualized entitlement to and domination over feminized bodies, be they imprisoned persons, women, or other animals. The references to rape and voyeurism denotes the right of persons of privilege to the private and personal spaces of vulnerable persons. They become objects of resource and enjoyment; their individual agency is obscured and ignored.

The institutionalized and epidemic levels of violence, rape, and death imposed on imprisoned persons (primarily poor persons and persons of color charged with drug offenses), women, and Nonhuman Animals is neither funny nor sexy. That a billboard like this could be posted at all indicates how ingrained rape culture and patriarchal values have become. The presence of these messages demonstrates how the public space is, by default, the male space, maintaining a rigid gender/class/race/species stratification system.

References to the sexual politics of meat in this essay are based on the work of Carol Adams, author of The Sexual Politics of Meat, The Pornography of Meat, and other vegan feminist titles.

The Patriarchal Orientation of Sex, Race, Economic and Human/Nonhuman Classes

Posted on August 26, 2014 by Vegan Feminist Network

By marv wheale

Neither capital nor labor tend to consider women as a sex class beneath men. Both economic classes are prone to treat sexual relations as private, naturalist, voluntaristic, thereby not collectively antagonistic. Sexual equality is generally perceived as almost a given by men and women of the lower and middle economic classes. They acknowledge some irrational differences that manifest because of poverty and cultural discrimination. Racism is frequently explained along the same lines. Celebrating diversity and commonality are deemed as the answers to sex and race prejudice. Full gender and race equality will be achieved in an economic classless society, they think. So sex and race relations are subsumed into the class struggle and defined in primarily economic terms. At the same time men and women in the capitalist class are mostly white at least in developed nations. They often admit that women, especially women of color and of aboriginal descent (minority men as well) do not have equal economic power to white men but this will be resolved over time with more awareness, education and acceptance of differences. These elite, not unlike their subordinate classes, are resistant to the idea that there is a systemic sex and race division of power inside and outside the marketplace and the state.

In fact the sexes and races are classes too. Anyone who understands social classes knows that they refer to power inequalities not bigotry. Male dominance is a sex class. It signifies the political forms men’s power has taken over time: the sexual allocation of childcare and labour, pornography, sexual harassment, stripping, burlesque, beauty practices, rape, prostitution, battering, obligatory heterosexuality, homophobia, transphobia, the state, capitalism, colonization, the military, etc. Women assimilate into these constructs. They did not determine them. Hence male supremacy is institutional sexism not a natural or solely individual phenomenon. In terms of race class, it was white men in Europe, Australia and North America who organized the government, economy, servitude of men and women of colour, segregation and the occupation of indigenous lands – all illustrations of institutional racism.

As a correlation think about capitalism. Capitalists and workers do not have the same power to dictate each other’s lives. It would be ludicrous to believe that capital is not dominant over labour and that mistrust and intolerance are the causes of the ill feelings towards each other. To see the enmity in economic class divisions as a result of reciprocal misunderstandings would be an obscene misrepresentation of reality. Capitalist rule is institutional economic classism. Mutual respect, dialogue and compromise are not the solutions here to power and powerlessness; abolition is, at the system design level.

Many millennia ago males constructed masculinity thereby creating femininity out of females, causing the rise of the sex class hierarchy. When women were privatized and isolated into pair bonding/marriage it obscured their sex class status and the systemic violence towards them. Conjugality kept them divided against themselves by publicly declaring their primary identification as spouse/wife. Women’s lower economic status is shrouded as well when they marry men because men generally have more wealth. What’s more, women mediate economic class relations between men when they marry across (and within) class lines. Women serve to ease monetary and race class hostility by having men of different classes bond across women’s bodies providing political stability and legitimacy to the whole class system.

As noted by Cheryl Abbate the ascendancy of the male gender is obvious on the basis of aggression alone: “The idea that masculinity is responsible for violence, including sexual assault, is rarely disputed. As Kilmartin points out, the vast majority of violent acts are committed by males, leading us to conclude that there is a high correlation between masculinity and aggression (Kilmartin 1994, 211). According to the FBI (2011), approximately 90% of violent crimes in the United States are committed by men.”

Male dominance exists cross culturally in common and particular local forms too. Women are inferior everywhere in terms of the gendered/sex lines of power. Trouble is, the partitioning is usually defined as the biological sex differences by men (and many women) concealing its sexual politics. When the Left admits that austerity measures and poverty affect women, First Nations and people of colour more than white men, it seems to be aware of the centrality of white male privilege; but the Left doesn’t honestly face the universal historicity of patriarchy, preceding and following primitive accumulation.

Since all the world is a structural stage and the central element is patriarchy, gender conditions our choices in sexual relations in conjunction with capitalism in economic relations. No one purely chooses heterosexuality no matter how much consent there is because the assent is shaped by inequality. Heteronormativity under male imperialism is (man)datory whether it be monogamy, sexual harassment, pornography, prostitution or polyandrous relations. As mentioned earlier, in western countries male monopoly is integrated with white supremacy as the public setting for people of color. The difference is that many progressives suppose race classes should be undone while the majority uphold masculinity and femininity as innate. They only want femininity to be as socially valued and empowering as masculinity. Liberal feminists take this viewpoint that sex work, cosmetics, BDSM, marriage and housework can be liberating.

The following rhetorical questions should resonate with socialists and feminists alike : Do workers meaningfully choose their type of work or place of work? Have women played an equal part with men in conceiving and building the major institutions of society? If working conditions improve would oppression disappear? If women are granted greater legal protection from male violence does their exploitation vanish? If you have satisfying and high paying work, does that imply your work is not exploited? If a woman has high status in society by male standards does that mean she isn’t discriminated against or sexually objectified? As feminist scholar Catharine Mackinnon once said, is “a good fuck…any compensation for getting fucked?” I hope we all have honest answers to these questions. Apply race to these queries, which we must, and you will have another layer of subordination alongside and below white women. Add colonization, sexual orientation, age, disability, body shape and biosphere debasement to the equation, and more intertwining injustices come to light.

Women and Nonhuman Animals

Capitalists, socialists and anarchists have other conceptual barriers linked to male hegemony: an aversion to regarding nonhuman animals as a subjected class. Moreover these speciesist androcentrists dismiss women’s rank in interrelationship to animals’ position. The comparative mirror reveals the oppressions are not the same: women aren’t eaten and animals aren’t usually men’s sexual fetishes, for examples. Nonetheless there are numerous similarities. Dog and pony shows are analogous to beauty pageants and runway modelling. Hypermuscular man is binding the corpse of a chicken Animals are imprisoned and assaulted in our homes, corrals, barns, laboratories, rodeos, horse races, circuses, zoos, aquariums and fight rings. Women are detained and abused in prostitution, brothels, rape camps, strip clubs, peep shows and in their homes. It is men who typically control these forms of enslavement of women and animals. Domesticated animals are cooked and photographed in sexual postures as the pornography of meat. Women are sexually depersonalized in and by pornography. Harassment is common to either group. Animals and women are most frequently killed by men, and some women have been slaughtered, eviscerated and dismembered like animals by men. In addition, societal assumptions in general that animals “exist” for human welfare should not sound totally different from women’s experiences under male expectations. Even the therapeutic role animals and women play correlate. Most people live their entire lives without learning of the barbarity that occurs behind the closed doors of brothels, pornography studios, massage parlours, sex trafficking, strip clubs and private dwellings on the one hand, and slaughterhouses, vivisection labs, animal entertainment industries, animal traffickers, product-testing facilities, factory farms and households on the other. The business of exploiting women and animals for pleasure, convenience, amusement, taste and moneymaking is intentionally well hidden. Disclosure would undermine the power and profit of male capitalist and socialist enterprises. Men must have their sex and steak at all costs.

The truth of the interrelationship of patriarchy, capitalism and speciesism is revealed by vegan feminists who believe it is crucial not to conflate them in ways that are fanciful and offensive to women or untrue of animals. When relating the rape of women and farmed animals for instance, Corey Lee Wrenn calls for respect: “Knowing that about 1 in 3 women have or will be raped, I find it extremely inappropriate to utilize rape imagery to promote veganism. First off, our primary audience is women. If 80% of the movement is women, and 1 in 3 women are rape victims, that means that more than 27% of our movement (or more than 1 in 4 activists) are likely to have been the victim of rape. Any rape victim can tell you, seeing images of rape or reading graphic descriptions is extremely triggering. It is also revictimizing when it is made obvious that our community doesn’t care enough about our safety to avoid using our experiences for animal rights claims on our behalf.” A discerning approach is always necessary to examine these oppressions together and separately.

Transforming Cognizance

Vegan feminists unmask and demystify our personal identities. Part of seeing through the identity fog means admitting the delusions we took for granted, the “habitual patterns” – the assigned gender hierarchies of masculinity and femininity, human species superiority and capital control – reinforced through millions and millions of moments of social learning. Before “awakening” we thought it wasn’t possible for things to be any other way as if these tendencies were an unchanging part of human nature (coming from the stork or written in the stars). These assumptions easily perpetuated themselves because they are some of the most unquestioned beliefs we have. As we begin to grow in consciousness and apprehend the alternatives to the prison of gender roles, non-human animal inferiority and labour submission, we become unstuck from oppressive attitudes. Declaring a primary loyalty to women’s or animals’ or workers’ liberation is now regarded as a misconceived notion. They are different, interrelated and of equal value. There is no complete separation among them when each is understood as they actually exist in the context of patriarchal systems and rules.

All this illustrates the extraordinary power and influence of male ideologies over our consciousness, unconsciousness and societal institutions. They render dissenting views like the abolition of pornstitution, animal products and capitalism as absurd and unintelligible – it has always been this way so it must be this way. Overcoming the suppression of freedom of expression by male dogma is daunting but achievable. Promoting veganism is an essential though utterly deficient way forward. Political engagement in women’s, people of colour’s, workers’ and other species’ emancipation from patriarchal organizational injustice is the ultimate solution. Single issue approaches focusing on higher status animals as in dogs, cats, bears, whales, dolphins, sharks, elephants, tigers, gorillas, etc., does not constitute a serious engagement with comprehensive structural violence when they omit contextual analyses and strategies.

Feminism, Anti-Capitalism and Anti-Specieisism

That deep feminism is the missing underpinning of anti-speciesist socialist/left/anarchist analyses is another point of this reflection. Some pro-animal revolutionaries from these traditions agree that all oppressions including sexism are entangled. However they are reluctant to admit that men, often white males, have dominated the top tiers of monarchial, feudalist, religious, slavery, animal industry, state, military, capitalist, colonialist, family and pornstitution systems. The animalist left typically denies that the male sex class could well be the enveloping power of all social hierarchies throughout (his)tory. Patriarchy was never unvarying. It evolved in various ways depending on how societies were organized within the hierarchies of men of which women and animals had little decision making power. It would be more factual therefore to resolve other class struggles within the broader sex class struggle. Male supremacy should be emphasized as the first among equal subjections rather than one structure among many. Opting for an “interlocking equal oppressions method” has the effect of minimizing foundational sources and influences even though women oppress animals, women capitalists have power over their workers and white women as a group have advantages over people of colour.

How can we devise appropriate strategies to change the world if we don’t analyze it accurately?

Note: Few of the ideas in this post originate with me. The principal ones stem from feminists like Cheryl Abbate and Corey Lee Wrenn who have taught me how to think rationally, critically and inclusively, something my non-feminist teachers failed to do.

Party with the Meat Stick: The Sexual Politics of Slim Jim

Posted on August 24, 2014 by Vegan Feminist Network

Slim Jim, an American brand of cheap, convenience store animal-based jerky has launched a new ad campaign, “Party with the Meat Stick.” A series of three commercials, all place “meat” within the realm of masculinity by feminizing their competitors. This is done in some cases to degrade the competition. In other cases, Slim Jim jerky is positioned with women to make their jerky appear more sexy, attractive, and consumable.

The first ad features two women’s bodies (their heads are cut off, because this is, much like the jerky, about the consumption of fragmented body parts). The Slim Jim women touch each other sexually with the “meat sticks” (an obvious phallic referent). The competitor’s jerky, however, is held by two fat men who rub and poke each other’s protruding bellies with the sticks. The commercial pulls on homosexuality (and fat-phobia) and makes it “disgusting” in order to feminize their competitor in the negative sense.

In the second commercial, a display box of Slim Jim gets progressively more masculine (first donning men’s sunglasses, then a mustache and an athletic medal, and finally a captain’s hat). The “impostor” jerky (or, what they call “impostor meat sticks”), however, gets progressively more feminized. First, the display box dons a baby’s bonnet and diaper, then a possum appears next to the box. In the case of Slim Jim, many masculine referents are used; in the case of the competitor, femininity referents are used (infants and Nonhuman Animals are both feminized bodies). Note that feminist theory considers any group that is marked with powerlessness, vulnerability, and low social status and is also oppressed, dominated, and consumed within a patriarchal society a feminized group.

In the final commercial, the Slim Jim jerky attracts a partying man with several young women dancing behind him. The “impostor meat sticks” attract an older woman wearing a cat sweater who holds two cats. With “real” meat, men can expect a sexy good time with lots of available women at their disposal. With “fake” meat, we should expect non-sexy, worthless women who are of no use to men because they are no longer viewed as sexual resources. The cats are additional markers of “negative” femininity, as, again, Nonhuman Animals can be considered feminized bodies.

In all cases, “impostor meat sticks” are feminized using references to women, children, homosexuals, older persons, fat persons, and other animals. “Real meat’ is masculine, or rather “real men” eat meat, and “real men” are defined by what they are not: feminine. They are in control, they dominate, and their power and social status comes from the denigration and consumption of vulnerable bodies. In the case of the Nonhuman Animals, cows, pigs, and other animals are tortured, killed, ground up, spiced, and squeezed into plastic tubes. Their bodies are literally being consumed to maintain male privilege. “Meat” becomes a signifier of masculinity. The consumption of animal bodies becomes a way of “doing” male gender. It is a performance of domination enacted through the consumption and the active maligning and mocking of the non-masculine. Men are encouraged to “party with the meat stick,” meaning, they are invited to celebrate and enjoy the privilege of masculinity using feminized bodies. Their privileged status is demonstrated by reinforcing the disadvantaged status of others.

This blog is based on the theory of Carol Adams. Learn more about the sexual politics of meat by visiting her website.

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“Sexism is Nuts” says company that enslaves animals, children, and uses disableism in slogans

Posted on March 31, 2014 by Vegan Feminist Network

Feminists were in a fury over a new Australian Snickers ad that makes a mockery of street harassment and gender equality. For some time now, Snickers’ commercials have been based on people acting really strange or belligerent because they are hungry. Once fed a Snickers bar, they are satiated and return to normal. In this Australian commercial, construction workers are acting out of sorts from hunger. We know this because they are yelling egalitarian slogans at female passerby that sound straight from the mouth of feminist Ryan Gosling.

Hey Girl: Gender is a social construct but everyone likes to cuddle

Feminist men: It’s funny because it would supposedly never happen.

In the commercial, we see that most women are afraid at first (and this is supposed to be funny), because we have been conditioned our entire lives to expect and to fear strange men yelling at us. However, the women in the commercial appear to be pleased and amused when they realize they are hearing pro-feminist calls. Lisa Wade at Sociological Images describes the cruelty of playing on these gender scripts:

And then the commercial ends and it’s all yanked back in the most disgusting way. It ends by claiming that pro-feminist men are clearly unnatural. Men don’t respect women — at least, not this kind of man — they’re just so hungry they can’t think straight.

Wade finishes her piece by declaring that she would never be buying Snickers again. But I’d like to know what feminist would be eating them in the first place.

Today Cadbury jumped on the bandwagon with an ad for their Boost bars that reads: “We at #BOOSTNUTS believe that men with real nuts proudly respect women whether they’re hungry or not. #Sexism is Nuts.” Then MissRepresentation retweeted it. Now I’m really confused.

So far as I am aware, both Mars (who makes Snickers) and Cadbury source their chocolate from child slaves in Africa. Their chocolate also contains dairy products from enslaved and tortured cows who are eventually killed. Cadbury suppliers rip the newborns from their mothers, throw them in the back of a corpse-laden truck, and blast them in the face before feeding them to dogs. The calf pictured managed to survive a bullet to the head and struggled his way across the bodies of his family members to the corner before he was finished off. Additionally, Mars has been testing their products on animals for years–so they can tout the healthy properties of their chocolate. It appears Cadbury was purchased by Kraft Foods, which likely conducts animal testing as well. So, really, as a feminist against the oppression of others, I would never, ever purchase from Mars or Cadbury, and I’m really quite disgusted that large feminist collectives would promote either.

Male calves are considered “by products” of the dairy industry and meet brutal deaths. Cadbury was under fire for shooting calves in the head. Though this image is disturbing, this calf’s torture and death is considerably less brutal than that of most male calves (who enter the veal industry).

These are capitalist enterprises–sexist or not sexist–they are out to profit by exploiting the vulnerable. Nice try Cadbury, but aside from being a slave industry, you also managed to maintain cis-normativity in presuming real men must possess “real nuts.” And using “nuts” as a pejorative is also disableist! “Sexism is nuts” reads like “People who are sexist are bad people, just like mentally ill people.” Fair-traded vegan chocolate for me, please.

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Category Archives: Feminism & Patriarchy