Jamie Kilstein, Vegan Male “Feminist” Explains Feminism to “Dumb” Women

Posted on November 6, 2013 by Vegan Feminist Network

Content Warning: Contains ableist language and male-on-female aggression

Not Safe for Work: Contains cursing.

By Professor Corey Lee Wrenn

Jamie Kilstein, comedian and co-host of Citizen Radio, announced that he would be doing an interview with PETA and PETA 2. A feminist questioned him on this, asking why he chooses to collaborate with a notoriously misogynistic organization. He then proceeded to dismiss her and berate her.

In the middle of the above interaction, Kilstein peeked into her profile, which listed her interest in Marxism. He then referenced it, insinuating that she was “dumb.”

Kilstein then reminded readers that he’s discussed PETA’s sexism and fat-shaming on the show. For that matter, PETA has done awesome things for the kids. His dismissive and aggressive reaction insinuates that women who continue to have a problem with his position are demonstrating ignorance and simply don’t understand the wonderful things PETA has done.

PETA promotes violence against women and girls by regularly using pornified images of women and girls to represent either violence against women and girls or violence against animals. How many episodes of his show do we have to listen to before we understand that supporting PETA is consistent with feminism? How many episodes until we find his behavior towards women acceptable?

This is not the first time I’ve gotten an uneasy feeling about Kilstein. He once posted that he found men’s rights advocates (a hate group) “funny.” I replied saying that, as a woman, I didn’t find them very funny at all, but rather quite terrifying. He responded with condescension, gas lighting, and mocking. Like the woman above, and he also told me that I must not listen to his show. Again, he positions feminist criticisms as a matter of ignorance or irrationality.

This man has made a career from feminism, but he approaches honest feminist criticism of his decidedly anti-feminist behavior with abuse and aggression. This behavior is what is referred to as tokenizing. Tokenizing is when men use women’s experiences for their own personal gain while simultaneously doing little to challenge gender oppression. Kilstein makes fun of sexism in his stand-up, then signs on to Twitter after the show and berates women who find it problematic that he collaborates with organizations that routinely hurt women.

When men self-identify as feminists, this is generally the result. Too often, they have little understanding about women’s experiences, and, sometimes, are the very perpetrators women are seeking to escape. Self-identified male feminists generally use this feminist identity to shield their sexist behavior (and there is also a frightening trend in men using feminism to sexually harass and assault women). Read more on why I argue that men cannot be feminist here and how men can be better allies here.

Ms. Wrenn is the founder of Vegan Feminist Network and also operates The Academic Abolitionist Vegan. She is a Lecturer of Sociology with Monmouth University, a part-time Instructor of Sociology and Ph.D. candidate with Colorado State University, council member with the Animals & Society Section of the American Sociological Association, and an advisory board member with the International Network for Social Studies on Vegetarianism and Veganism with the University of Vienna. She was awarded the 2016 Exemplary Diversity Scholar by the University of Michigan’s National Center for Institutional Diversity. She is the author of A Rational Approach to Animal Rights: Extensions in Abolitionist Theory (2015, Palgrave Macmillan).

Male Entitlement, Meat, and Sports

Posted on October 27, 2013 by Vegan Feminist Network

Not long ago, the Vegan Feminist Agitator published a piece on rape, meat,¹ and “taking what is not ours.” Marla writes:

In both rape and our role in oppressing animals, both can be framed as a birthright (“They were born for me to use as I wish,”) and as what is one’s due (“I spent money and this is what is owed me,”) and also presented in a way that completely belittles the experience of the victim (“Come on, don’t be so melodramatic; it wasn’t that bad.”). Only a sadistic psychopath would use such terms to justify violating another person, but we accept those terms without question on a daily basis involving the animals we consume. Underpinning both rape and eating animals, though, is the conceit that because we can do something, this confers the right to do it, no matter who is harmed or killed in the process.

Under patriarchy, that is, under male rule, feminized bodies (women, nonhuman animals, people of color, the environment, etc.) are understood to be resources. Under patriarchy, the male ruling class is socialized to internalize their entitlement over their subjects. Women exist to give sex, if they don’t give it, then it should be taken from them. Animals exist to use and eat, we take that from them. People of color exist as cheap or free labor, and that is also taken from them. The environment is reframed as our “natural resources,” something to be freely taken. In other words, the world is man’s oyster. Notice even this phrase frames Nonhuman Animals and the environment as a birthright to men!

Remember in The Lion King when Mufasa explained to baby Simba that everything the light touches is theirs? That’s kind of how male supremacy works. It’s an unrestricted entitlement to everything, and it’s an entitlement that is taught.

This afternoon while I was working, football was playing on the television in the other room. One of the commercials caught my attention. I was hearing a man yelling at another man, “Are you a little baby boy, or are you a BIG STRONG MAN?” Hearing this male-on-male gender policing is always disconcerting, but in the context of football, a hyper-masculinized activity, I was especially bothered. Upon investigation, it turned out to be a commercial from Buffalo Wild Wings, a sports bar and restaurant chain that attracts groups of men who want to watch the game, gawk at young underpaid waitresses, and stuff themselves with the body part of chickens glazed with various sauces (BWW is really just a less sexist, less atrocious version of Hooters). In this commercial, there was one piece of chicken body left, and the male subject was afraid to take it and offend his friends who were distracted and watching the game. A football coach had sidled in and was belittling him for not living up to his masculine role. The man reacts and stands up to reassert his masculinity. He announces that he is a MAN and takes the piece of chicken.

Jackson Katz has written extensively on the dangers of male gender policing, that is, pushing men into tiny boxes that equate manhood with aggression, violence, and domination. Not only do fathers, brothers, and other male peers take it upon themselves to teach and enforce “manhood” to other boys and men, but our media is constantly bombarding us with these norms (and the subsequent shame and other consequences associated with failing to uphold those norms). Katz argues that masculinity (like all gender roles) is something that is taught. It is not an innate, testosterone-driven tendency towards oppression (oppression is often naturalized, thus making it difficult to criticize). Rather, it is a socially supported, systematic reinforcement of a male supremacist social rule. Vulnerable groups are not only taught to submit, but privileged groups are taught to dominate. Both are encouraged to view it as natural and normal, that is, if this largely invisible power structure is ever jostled into view in the first place.

In the BWW commercial, the coach firmly reminds the male subject, “You know that one’s yours, right?” He asks if he is just a slow eater or if he is “not man enough to claim what’s rightfully yours?” This is sending a very clear message to male viewers: You are entitled, so if you don’t get what is rightfully yours, then be a man and take it. As men come together to celebrate the highly competitive and violent American football games (with grossly underpaid cheerleaders in bikinis with pompoms happily bouncing around for their enjoyment), the game and the commercials remind them that manhood is defined by fighting for one’s entitlement to absolute ownership. The chicken is yours, it is rightfully yours.

The preoccupation with meat in this context is not coincidental. Carol Adams’² theory on the sexual politics of meat suggests that Nonhuman Animals, a highly feminized group, are fetishized as the ultimate “man food.” Men kill, grill, and stuff themselves with corpses with great celebration. It is the taking of something (once a someone, someone who was quite unwilling, though often portrayed as very willing indeed) that gives them pleasure. Male domination is seen as an entitlement, as something enjoyable and natural. A bonding experience. Maria Veri and Rita Liberti tackle the sexual politics of meat in the sport wellspring of male supremacy in their 2013 publication “Tailgate Warriors: Exploring Constructions of Masculinity, Food, and Football.” They write: “[ . . . ] the mediated pairing of food and football in TWs [a football cooking show] action on the blacktop reinforces hegemonic masculinity as it displaces and marginalizes women and femininity” (242). Meat, they suggest, is a symbol of this male supremacy and women are largely excluded from sports-related meat rituals (like cook-offs and tailgating).

In all the hoopla over male greatness embodied in plates of dead chickens, pornified women, football games, beer, and yelling, the voices of the tortured dead are conspicuously silent. No one hears the hen and no one sees the hen. She is invisible. According to Carol Adams, she is an absent referent. We know we are eating something of course, but we are completely oblivious to the someone she once was. And who cares anyway? “It’s” rightfully yours, isn’t “it”?

Notes

1. It is important to note that “meat” is a euphemism for animal flesh.

2. See our recommended reading section to learn more about Adams’ theory.

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 is a member of the Research Advisory Council of The Vegan Society. She has contributed to the Human-Animal Studies Images and Cinema blogs for the Animals and Society Institute and has been published in several peer-reviewed academic journals including the Journal of Gender Studies, Environmental Values, 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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Veganism is Not “Food Ethics”: Veganism is about Social Justice

Posted on September 25, 2013 by Vegan Feminist Network

I was beyond disappointed after reading Olivia’s (from Skepchick) recent post and the discussion that followed in the comments section concerning veganism. First of all, there was absolutely no serious conversation about the connections between atheism and veganism. I am always at a complete loss to explain the lack of interest in veganism in atheist spaces. Atheists appear to be critical as long as they remain within the tiny sliver of conversation surrounding God-beliefs but lose all capacity for this critical thinking when it comes to narratives that those God-beliefs underpin. I would argue that the consumption narrative, with respect to animals, is one such narrative. Second, and the subject on which I will comment today, the conversation was carried out in an overly simplistic manner, which has been a depressing trend lately, even among other vegans. As usual, this overly simplistic treatment of veganism was derived from the assumption that veganism is individually based ethical action rather than a proper social justice position and movement founded on particular ethical beliefs. Key features of this myopic construal of veganism are:

(a) At its root, veganism is an ethical matter grounded in the individual.

(b) Veganism is an unattainable ideal. It is a guide rather than a realizable goal.

(d) The bulk of veganism is to try “the best one can”.

(e) Veganism naturally entails moments of “guilt” because one cannot be a “perfect vegan”.

(f) Veganism is a practice conceptually isolated from other social justice practices.

Throughout her post, Olivia consistently referred to veganism as “food ethics” or a “diet” (c) and the rest of (a) through (f) can be seen in just one passage:

“We can see that not every abstract ethical conclusion demands perfect compliance because our own well-being should be part of our ethical calculations. Each of us has a finite amount of time, money, and energy, and we have to decide which arenas to focus those resources in. There are an amazing number of things we could do to improve ourselves and our communities, and we simply cannot do all of them. If changing our diet deeply depletes our resources, it may hurt us, or leave us anxious, angry, unhappy, and incapable of acting ethically towards the people around us (as an example I know that I am a cranky bitch when I don’t get adequate protein). If one particular ethical choice leaves us without anymore energy or resources, it may not be the most effective way of improving the world.”

Let me address (a) through (f).

(a) Veganism, at its root, is a social justice position grounded in the political collective. This means that mass exploitation and torture of animals can be eradicated only with social and political restructuring. Notice that we demand social and political restructuring also to address the plight of other oppressed groups . . . because to be anti-racism, anti-sexism, anti-homophobia, etc is to take a social justice position. These are not individual ethical stances (although they are founded on ethical concerns and ethical implications do follow). There is no talk of “do you!” when it comes to social justice positions because to take a social justice position is to make some sort of claim about rights. Rights are a universal notion, not a “do you!” notion.

Not only is veganism a social justice position but also it is one grounded in a critical stance. It is a position funded by the critique of our inherited consumption narrative with respect to animals. We take issue with the assumption that animals must belong in the consumption narrative and we hold that it is partly because of this flawed assumption that animals remain without rights. If animals are simply beings for us to consume and use, whether as food, clothing, entertainment, research subjects, etc, then it is contradictory to also hold that they are beings deserving of protection from violation. As long as we assume that animals belong in the consumption narrative, they will never be granted rights. (Refer to my past post to read why I believe animal rights are the proper end goal for vegansim).

(b) Achieving vegan goals is certainly a realizable project. The only obstacle in the way of seeing this is the tendency to misconstrue veganism as an individually based ethical project! Obviously, ethical efforts made by isolated individuals cannot possibly dismantle the myth about animals’ place in the current consumption narrative. The consumption narrative is a systemic story complete with, economic, cultural and political forces; thus, if we are going to find a good strategy to tackle the problem, it will have to be at the systemic level. The abolition of chattel slavery was not the mere sum of individually based ethical projects. Rather, it was the result of calls for social and political restructuring. Abolition would have certainly been an unattainable ideal had abolitionists failed to see that the root of this oppressive tradition was based in a narrative systemically sustained. In other words, our great social injustices do not exist simply because there are “bad” people who are not willing to strive for abstract, unrealizable ideals. Great social injustices exist because structures are built and kept in place that function to perpetuate those very injustices. These structures are the very things giving rise to the illusion that ridding ourselves of particular social injustices are “abstract” ideals devoid of reality or mere phantoms of optimism that human nature can never accommodate.

(c) Veganism is not merely a food practice or food ethics or a diet. This is not to say that food practices are not social justice issues. They certainly are and deserve more attention. However, veganism is a social justice position with the aim of securing animals rights and, as such, is not exhausted by what we eat or wear. It grates me to even hear the phrases “veganism”, “food practice” and “food ethics” in the same sentence. If, as I’ve argued, vegans properly come to the social justice position by critiquing the assumption that animals must belong to the consumption narrative, then it follows that vegans do not conceptually regard animals as food. Calling veganism a “food ethic” or a “diet” or “food practice” is a lazy misnomer.

(d&e) Feeling guilty only makes sense when viewing veganism myopically as an individually based ethical project. I will have to support this claim by way of an example. One of my favorite films unfortunately has one short scene with needless misogynistic crap. When the dreaded scene approaches, I -as a staunch feminist- do not feel guilty. Rather, I feel frustrated and -at most (and at worst)- powerless as an individual. As a vegan, I am aware that I cannot currently live a life free from animal exploitation. As mentioned above, our society has systematized and institutionalized human dependence on animals and animal exploitation and torture. When I learn that my wall contains (most likely) exploited animal product, it seems inappropriate to feel guilt. I am not culpable in this matter. Rather, I feel frustrated at how pervasive the problem is and -at most (and at worst)- powerless. The feeling of powerlessness ebbs away after a while and the frustration that remains reminds me where the proper site is for my activism: at the systemic level. Momentary realizations of powerlessness, which is naturally grounded in individual powerlessness, and frustration are productive emotions because they indicate that the problem transcends the individual. Guilt is not productive because it indicates that the problem stems from the individual.

Some might object that I have given little to no attention to feeling guilty when it comes to “slip ups” or being “lax” in certain company or to those in dire situations who -regardless of social justice positions- must rely on animals for food and clothing. Regarding the first: as I’ve already stated, I think veganism is properly understood as a critique of the consumption narrative and animals’ place in it, which means that animals no longer conceptually qualify as “food” and that it is a social justice position, which means a vegan actually thinks animals are rights-deserving subjects. I think adopting the critical stance makes impossible “slip ups” or “laxity”. I (controversially) believe the “slip up” and “laxity” phenomena have a lot to do with adopting the individual-ethical-stance, which rely on vague notions of moral statuses and “cruelty” and does not do much to conceptually or critically alter the person.

I (again controversially) don’t consider situations that involve dire straits to be of any immediate concern to vegans. As vegans, we should be concerned with the consumption narrative; we are concerned with the story we as a society tell about animals and how they fit into our consumption routines. When people are eating or using animals for basic survival, they are not interested in creating a consumption narrative that gives animals the short end of the stick because of some perceived privilege. They do not have the power to institutionalize these notions. They are simply trying to stay alive. Professor Will Kymlicka refers to such a situation as residing outside of the “circumstances of justices”. This is a different issue than what vegans should take issue with. (Similarly, when you spray an insect in your kitchen with roach spray, subsequently killing it, this is a different issue than what vegans should be taking issue with. Such isolated incidences have nothing to do with maintaining the current consumption narrative in the same way that spraying an intruder’s face with the same roach spray has nothing to do with current human rights violations.)

(e) Veganism is not a social justice issue isolated from other social justice issues. Above Olivia states, “Each of us has a finite amount of time, money, and energy, and we have to decide which arenas to focus those resources in.” Such a view is rampant among both vegans and non-vegans. According to this “single-issue” mindset, activisms are structured to address one issue and it addresses this issue as being fundamentally independent of and different from other issues. As a result, we have to prioritize issues. The single-issue approach obscures the reality of how racism, sexism, classism, ableism, homophobia, speciesism, ecocide, etc are all not only connected but dependent on one another to form what I call a ‘pernicious holism’. If one sees this reality, the single-issue approach appears completely incoherent. If all of the issues we wish to fight against are enmeshed in a deep, interconnected web, then it makes absolutely no sense to structure your activism as if they are not connected and interdependent. Isolating one issue from the web is to misjudge the root and depth of the problem, in which case any further activism from this isolation is futile. Most times, single-issue approaches are espoused simply due to lack of diversity. It can be difficult to spot how particular issues are connected if you lack the relevant experiences.

For instance, feminist movements have historically focused solely on the gender aspect of their struggle simply because their members and the women they targeted and spoke for were all white women of a particular class. Until recently, it never occurred to mainstream feminist organizations that race and class are social forces that shape gender. This illumination was afforded by the voices of women of color and women from lower socioeconomic rungs. Although vegan organizations like to draw upon the likeness of human and animal exploitation, rarely do they take it to the next logical step to conclude that these likenesses have something to do with the same structure underpinning these exploitations. The anatomy of this structure on which all exploitations hinge is the pernicious holism that exists among all of the regressive –isms. To make a commitment in the right way to veganism, then, is not to take away time, money and energy from other valuable commitments. Making a commitment to veganism is just to make a commitment to attack the underlying structure of speciesism, which is structurally embedded with all of the other regressive –isms.

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, this is not to say that vegan activism is feminism is anti-racist activism, etc. However, to take on the force that shapes animal exploitation requires also taking on the social forces that shape and intersect with that force. Gender, race, class, ability, sexual orientation, and other forces are so wrapped up in animality that tackling animality and how it undergirds speciesism requires taking into account gender, class, race, ability, sexual orientation, etc. This is the multi-issue approach or as it’s sometimes referred to as “intersectional activism”. For a good demonstration of this approach, consider this point Dr. Breeze Harper makes when she argues that there is something inconsistent about calling vegan products “cruelty-free” when they are made by child slaves!

Conclusion. The take away from all of this is that viewing veganism from the individual perspective as a practice that exhausts itself in personal ethics is diametrically opposed to the aim of veganism, which is to eradicate the myth that animals belong in the consumption narrative. Since legal protections are the only things that could meaningfully prevent the exploitation of vulnerable beings and since rights-language is the only language that can ensure formal vulnerability and violability of beings, our task as vegans is to secure animals rights if we are to meet our aim. The ethical implications which follow from this view do just that: they follow the critical stance that give rise to our social justice position and subsequently fix our practices. We need to insist that we are involved first and foremost in the business of social justice. Morality talk merely tells us something about us- about our character, about whether we are good or bad. Rights-talk tells us something about animals– about what they deserve and what they still don’t have.

By Syl

Vegan Porn is a Barrier to Egalitarianism

Posted on September 17, 2013 by Vegan Feminist Network

A new study in Psychology of Women Quarterly, reports that people who admitted to watching pornography were less likely to support affirmative action for women in a subsequent interview. Why?

“[ . . . ] sexual media activate abstract social scripts, which may then be used to inform opinions about social issues.”

“Pornography often presents women as sexual objects deserving of degradation, and even aggression.”

“In alignment with these depictions, prior studies have found that pornography viewers are more likely to hold a variety of antisocial attitudes towards women.”

Countless studies similar to this one have supported the link between exposure to pornography and a rejection of egalitarian values.

So, my question is: Why does the Nonhuman Animal rights movement (PETA, James McWilliams, CUFA, 269Life, VOKRA, VGirls|VGuys, Animal Liberation Victoria, Vegan Pinup, LUSH, etc.) use porn? How can “sex sell” Nonhuman Animal rights if it fosters anti-egalitarian attitudes? If pornography fosters female objectification and degradation and aggression against women, why would we expect that reaction to magically transform to respect for other animals? And do we not have a duty to protect the safety and dignity of the women who compromise 80% of our movement? How can we build a strong collective if we’re giving the green light to antisocial attitudes against our largest demographic?

This post was originally published on The Academic Abolitionist Vegan on September 16, 2013.

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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A Commentary on Non-Humans First

Posted on September 10, 2013 by Vegan Feminist Network

There is an animal rights activist group trying to shake things up by taking three steps backwards and dragging veganism/ animal rights to an all-time low. They recently put forward a declaration titled “Non-Human Animals First.” Their mission? Vegans need to put animals first because apparently we are back in the activist dark ages, during which we assumed activism was a zero-sum game. Also, something about temporality because certain groups have to be “first” or “not first” or something like that for a movement to achieve anything.

Reads "Non-Humans First!" Image of upraised dog paw and human fist, with human fist crossed out

A representative of the group (which I will refer to as NHFirst) wants us to use the single-issue mindset espoused by early women’s liberation efforts, civil rights, etc as evidence that an intersectional approach is not needed. For instance, NHFirst points out that MLK Jr. was a “sexist” and “homophobe” and that while “it is great to be against all injustice, in reality people are complex and have differing views.” Who knew that being a sexist or a homophobe was simply a sign of character complexity?!

It speaks volumes that NHFirst is willing to deal with and accept “complex” characters like racists, sexists and homophobes, but not willing to deal with and accept speciesists. This position echoes the ridiculous synchronic position I keep seeing in the animal rights movement which goes like this: If we just accept everyone, no matter how horrendous they are, we’ll have more people “for the animals.” They don’t seem to realize that over time, we will lose people from the movement since women, people of color, homosexuals, disabled people, etc will run the hell away. If we are all in a movement, we have to work together and that’s not going to happen if the movement is filled with people who have attitudes that motivate particular behaviors toward particular people against whom they hold those attitudes.

Moreover, they seem to overlook the fact that the lack of intersectionality that plagued (and continues to plague) many early (and current) movements is the precise reason we are still dealing with the very same problems those movements sought (and seek) to dissolve. Corey Lee Wrenn has already pointed out that NHFirst’s approach fails to appreciate what I call the ‘pernicious holism’ existing among speciesism, sexism, racism, ecocide, etc., and, as such, cannot possibly begin to dismantle our dependence and subsequent exploitation of animals. In other words, if we correctly identify the depth of the problem- that is, that the exploitation of animals is systemic and a crucial element of the ‘pernicious holism’- but we refuse to engage with the problem -the system of pernicious holism itself- then, we are doing absolutely nothing to address the problem of animal exploitation. All of NHFirst’s words are basically a lot of hot air.

As a charitable reader, I initially assumed NHFirst had good intentions that simply went horribly awry. After all, at one point many of my vegan companions were very animal-focused in their activism and never thought to incorporate human rights activism into their “animal work.” NHFirst, on the other hand, explicitly go out of their way to mention their awareness of (daily) human rights violations and human suffering only to point out that those violations should remain outside the range of our concern as vegans. Animal exploitation is an emergency situation whereas human exploitation is. .. well, just something brown people and women need to suck up because ANIMALS FIRST.

I don’t think the “brown” and “woman” stuff is wholly coincidental to NHFirst’s insistence to downplay the extent of human suffering. In fact, I think it is precisely because exploited humans are generally non-white and/or women that NHFirst thinks it’s totally fine to pretend human suffering has nothing to do with or cannot be addressed in conjunction with animal suffering. We all know that if there were to be a holocaust disproportionately impacting white or white-looking people, everyone would think it highly inappropriate to start yelling, “ANIMALS FIRST!”

Having said all of that, I don’t mean to claim that vegan/animal rights activism is reducible to civil rights activism or feminist activism or other human rights activism and I don’t mean to suggest that any species of human rights activism is reducible to vegan/animal rights activism. Certainly feminism has a specific beneficiary in mind; namely, feminism seeks to grow the rights and improve the lives of women, while gay rights activism seeks to grow the rights and improve the lives in the LGBTQ community, and so on and on with other oppressed groups. In the same vein, veganism/animal rights activism seeks to grow the rights and improve the lives of non-human animals. I don’t mean to deny the constraints that determine the specific flavor of distinct activisms. However, what I do claim is that achieving those specific ends of distinct activisms requires taking into account other social forces that shape and affect the specific -ism we seek to dismantle in any activist site.

For (an easy) example, a feminist activist who fails to acknowledge the unique role race and class plays in shaping the very gendered oppression that women face, especially women of color or poor women, cannot begin to adequately engage with, address, or dismantle gender oppression. She would be missing crucial components that shape sexism. So, one activism cannot be carried out in isolation from other activisms. It has to be done in concert with other movements (which is why the great Frederick Douglass said, “All great reforms go together.”)

I would like to take this one step further in the case of animal exploitation. Unlike any other oppressed group (possibly with the exception of prison inmates), animals are the only group that has never been granted rights. That is, although (some) animals have been granted some measure of legal protections, none have been granted proper rights in the United States. Rights language is needed to formally acknowledge the vulnerability and violability of beings. Unlike animals, humans have all been granted rights simply by virtue of being human. The distinction that rests between oppressed humans and animals, then, is this: while oppressed humans’ rights remains in the space of theory- that is, those rights are rarely enforced in practice despite having been granted- animals simply don’t have rights. There is nothing to enforce since nothing has been granted. This leads to a terrifying revelation: beings can be rights-having subjects and still face horrifying violence and exploitation, as we see with oppressed humans.

Hence, taking oppressed humans into consideration, the problem we face as vegan activists is actually two-fold: first, animals are not granted rights. In other words, even in the space of theory, animals are not seen as subjects that can be rights-having, which means they are not seen as beings that can be properly violated or vulnerable. Killing them, eating them, torturing them, raping them, etc are not considered ‘violations’ in the robust sense of the word. Second, even if animals were to be granted rights, there would be no assurance that these rights would be enforced in practice. Like most humans, animals’ rights would remain in the space of theory, which leaves them practically in the exact same position they were in before: subject to violence and exploitation.

Even if one cannot see the pernicious holism among the -isms that Corey Lee Wrenn and other writers point out, the fact remains that vegans have a duty to involve themselves in human rights activisms to make sense of and work to close the gap between rights in the space of theory and rights in the practical sense. If granting rights is the only means to formally establish violability and vulnerability, but rights-having subjects continue to be violated and exploited in practice, then rights-having is essentially useless. It would be a shame if we worked this hard and this long to gain rights for animals only to have those rights ring hollow in the face of violence and exploitation.

NHFirst, then, is very, very wrong. It does matter if your movement is riddled with sexists, homophobes, racists, and the like because these are the very kinds of attitudes that play a role in nullifying the practicality of rights-having. Sure, plenty of historical figures that played a large part in movements were sexists, homophobes, racists, etc., but that only explains why sexism, homophobia, racism, etc are even more deeply (and invisibly) embedded in the structure of present-day society. It doesn’t explain why that’s a good template to follow in our movements today. We know better.

By Syl

Social Movement Prostitution

Posted on September 4, 2013 by Vegan Feminist Network

Trigger Warning: Discusses prostitution and pornography.

Not Safe for Work: Contains nude images.

Nude protest has a long history in social activism, but it is certainly gaining a lot of momentum in today’s hyper-sexualized world where pornography is mainstream and third-wave feminism prioritizes sexualization as empowerment. Media attention is a social movement’s best asset. It gets the organization more recognition, attracts more volunteers, and more importantly, it brings in more donations. These days, to get media attention in a digitized, high-speed media landscape that is bombarded with trillions of competing images, some social movement organizations attempt to stand out with free soft-core porn. Free sampling is a technique heavily utilized by pornographers in a highly competitive online pornography space. They give the consumer a little taste of the product with the expectation that the consumer will become excited and will want to purchase more.

When I set out to write this essay, I had hoped to explore social movements as a whole, but sadly, once again, the Nonhuman Animal rights movement steals the show in its problematic treatment of women. The only other large social movement (that isn’t the nudity movement itself, where people advocate for the freedom to be naked without penalization) is the peace and anti-war movement. Breasts Not Bombs, for instance, has female volunteers march in public spaces holding political signs.

Then there’s Femen, a male-led feminist group of mostly white, thin young women who claim to speak on behalf of all women (and sometimes brown women in particular) by going topless in public spaces.

Aside from these exceptions, getting naked for a cause is the Nonhuman Animal rights movement’s modus operandi. And, though many supporters of Nonhuman Animal rights organizations that utilize sexualization as a tactic may claim that men’s naked bodies are used, too, the overwhelming majority of sexualized bodies presented to the public are that of young, thin, white women. With 80% of the movement identifying as female, the movement’s largest volunteer pool offers to organizations a wealth of physical assets. Body parts are politicized to the exclusion of women’s intelligence, skills, creativity, dedication, or leadership ability.

Organizations like PETA take female volunteers, put them on street corners, posters, and film, and, for all intents and purposes, prostitute these unpaid women to extract funding, media attention, or other resources (incidentally PETA may be the most infamous, but it is certainly not the only organization engaging this tactic). This systemic social movement prostitution is defended in ways similar to that of typical street prostitution: women choose to do it, or she’s getting something out of it. But free choice is often an illusion. Women do not have the same choices available to them that men do. Women in Nonhuman Animal rights are being funneled into the “choice” of stripping down for the male gaze in public spaces. Do women get something out of it? Some do, particularly middle-class white women. Is nudity a bad thing? No, of course not. But we need to be cognizant of patterns and power. There is a pattern of women’s bodies being used in a world where men have the power.

PETA protest with person in fish suit holding sign that says "Fishing hurts," next to a thin white woman holding a sign that says, "Don't let your kids become hookers."

PETA sign reads, “Don’t Let Your Kids Become Hookers.”

Female activists are “selling” their bodies for resources, but none of the profit goes to these sex workers. Instead, the money raised goes to the organizations that they represent. If a John buys a prostituted woman for sex acts, he pays her, and more often than not, the money goes to her pimp. If a John buys a PETA membership because of his interest in PETA’s women (see PETA’s “Veggie Love” campaign for example), the money goes to her organization.

Incidentally, there is a vegan strip club in Portland, Oregon where women are also being prostituted for “the cause.” The male club owner insists that “throwing boobs out there” is the only way to get people to visit his restaurant and try his vegan menu. He claims he wants to “end the suffering of all creatures,” but it seems that he and the movement ignore the fact that women are “creatures,” too. We can be certain that “throwing penises out there” would draw some attention as well, but, patriarchy ensures that it is female nudity that will expected.

Stripping, like prostitution, is sex work that often preys on vulnerable populations of women (many feminists and survivors regard “sex work” to be a euphemism; for women who are trafficked, we must recognize it as sex slavery). It is “work” with extremely high rates of sexual assault, rape, and other forms of violence. It is “work” that is extremely difficult for most women to make a living with and it is “work” with little job security. Strip clubs have a strict set of rules that ensure most money stays in the hands of the male owners, not in the hands of the hard-working women. Like prostitution, stripping is glamorized or romanticized in the liberal imagination as something freely chosen by independent women who have full control over their work and lives. Some women enjoy that kind of agency, but most women do not.

Social activism today has been swept into the Non-Profit Industrial Complex, where organizations must compete for vital fundraising in order to survive. This extreme dependence on funding means that tactics are compromised, and advocacy becomes a means of making money to sustain the organization, not changing the world. In other words, even if viewers were to begin supporting Nonhuman Animal rights organizations as a result of being exposed to these sexualized tactics (and there is no evidence to support such a notion), most of the money raised will not be used in support of anti-speciesism. Instead, most of it will be put toward keeping the lights on, paying staff members, and funding more ways to raise money.

I argue that the Nonhuman Animal rights movement squanders an important resource by degrading women’s participation to stripping and legal forms of prostitution. So much more could be accomplished by nurturing women’s brains instead of objectifying their bodies. Beyond the negative impact that these tactics are having on so many of the girls and women groomed by the movement, we also need to take into account the impact that this type of activism has on women as a demographic. The socially-accepted degradation of women and their sexual objectification is directly linked with discrimination and violence against women. This is a consequence that social justice movements should take very seriously.

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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Vegan Feminist Network

Critical essays and resources for vegan women and their allies

Tag Archives: Animal Rights

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