Sociologist and Social Justice Activist
Foie gras victims are usually male, and both women and men are involved in victimizing them as producers and as consumers, but, because patriarchal, woman-hating culture is most accustomed to viewing women as frivilous consumers and sexy victims of violence, the Nonhuman Animal rights movement regularly employs female activists to take on these convoluted roles in protest.
Continue readingCritical animal studies acknowledges the role that science has played in constructing and legitimizing categories of difference, particularly that related to species distinctions, evolutionarily ideas about group inferiority and superiority, and the goal of social development. As such, my research explores how sociological research has traditionally animalized its Appalachian subjects and used this animalization as an explanation or rationale for inequality.
Continue readingMore and more, however, the science of climate change is now demonstrating that animal products are a leading cause of environmental degradation, a body of evidence that is becoming difficult to ignore. However, the ideological shift that is needed–seeing animals not as objectified climate-destroying consumables, but as a marginalized group whose oppression is actually foundational to the degradation of the earth–still lacks. Until we start to see animals as persons and reject hierarchies of domination, the two movements will never fully align.
Continue readingVegan 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 “pork” 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 “grill girls,” “ladies,” “hot mamas, “spicy girls,” and “gal pals,” nothing was said about the extreme violence experienced by the pigs who are objectified as “pork.”
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