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The Fetishization of โ€œAnimal-Friendlyโ€ Animal Products

The Body Shop, like LUSH, markets itself as a compassionate company while simultaneously profiting from the institutionalized exploitation and killing of Nonhuman Animals. Declaring to customers that non-vegan animal-based products โ€œdonโ€™t harm the animalsโ€ is false advertising of the worst kind. As is the case with most capitalist enterprises that profit from the oppressed, The Body Shop banks on customers never questioning or thinking critically about their ethical claimsmaking. This false consciousness is buttressed by โ€œcruelty-freeโ€ labeling and endorsement from large โ€œanimal rightsโ€ non-profits such as PETA. These charities have effectively socialized many customers that is okay to use, harm, and kill other animals as long as it is done โ€œnicely.โ€

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Essays

Grill Power: Feminism in Menโ€™s Meat Market

Vegan feminism would argue that tweaking speciesist masculinized consumption to include women subverts anti-speciesism as well. It does nothing to challenge the fetishization of commodified bodies. The โ€œporkโ€ industry attempted to boost the sales of dead pigs, for instance, by launching a campaign to encourage women to get grilling. Although Mother Jones was quick to highlight the blatant sexism of the advertising materials in which women are belittled as โ€œgrill girls,โ€ โ€œladies,โ€ โ€œhot mamas, โ€œspicy girls,โ€ and โ€œgal pals,โ€ nothing was said about the extreme violence experienced by the pigs who are objectified as โ€œpork.โ€

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Essays

PETA, Dahmer, and Intersectional Failure

In 2014, the home of infamous serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer went on the market. This sale was understandably a contentious one. Seventeen boys and men, many of whom were children, gay, prostituted, and/or persons of color were raped, tortured, killed, and sometimes eaten by Dahmer at the site. Twenty-five years later, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) made a bid to purchase it.

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Essays