Intersectionality ‘Round the Interwebs, No. 13: Boobs, bacon & bigotry.
December 18th, 2009 6:23 pm by Kelly Garbato
In which Burger King tries to one-up its previous misogynist campaigns (can I interest anyone in a blog job burger?) by covering a naked woman in the dismembered corpses and fried secretions of tortured and murdered animals and making her wiggle her (and the animals’) bits in service of the male gaze. Cue: “morning spank routine.” Barf, gargle, repeat.
While dissecting Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi’s entrepreneurial endeavors – which largely involve selling women’s sexuality on his television stations – Clark-Flory mentions this gem of a tv stunt:
[T]he popular video “Il Corpo delle Donne,” which translates as “The Body of Women,” compiles some of the most shameless moments of T’n'A from Berlusconi’s stations and state television. The most egregious example: A woman is shown suspended from the ceiling in skimpy underwear next to a literal piece of meat clad in a matching pair of panties; it’s awfully reminiscent of that infamous meat-grinder Hustler cover.
After 20 minutes spent perusing boob/burger pimp BK’s website, I’m kind of glad I don’t have a video clip to illustrate this piece. Oy.
Stephanie @ Animal Rights: Breaking Unjust Laws: Clarence Darrow and Inherit the Wind and (especially) Breaking Unjust Laws: AETA, Fugitive Slave Acts, and Oppression Connections
Using the 1960 film Inherit the Wind as a jumping-off point, Stephanie briefly discusses a few similarities between the animal rights and U.S. anti-slavery movements. Or rather, similarities in how each movement was (is) countered by corporate powers, with no small amount of help from the government. (Hint: the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 is to abolitionism as _____ is to the animal liberation movement?)
Unpopular Vegan Essays: PETA: A Corporate Tangle of Contradictions
Dan’s piece on the welfare-esque failings of PETA is well worth a read; in particular, I’d like to emphasize his thoughts on using sexism to combat speciesism:
Speciesism, sexism, racism, and heterosexism are all bigotries rooted in the same underlying confusion that ignores morally relevant characteristics, like sentience or interest, in favor of morally irrelevant characteristics, like species or race, in providing equal consideration to others. And yet so many people are strong, passionate advocates trying to eliminate one or more of these prejudices while ironically scoffing at another. It is common to see feminists, LGBT activists, and civil rights advocates ridicule concern over speciesism while blithely ignoring the underlying implications of their dismissal. Many condemn the bigotry of others, but cannot see their own.
The same goes in the other direction for PETA and their sexism. If PETA is exploiting women in fur and flesh campaigns, reinforcing the current societal paradigm which sees women as objects and their bodies as commodities, why should anyone take seriously what such a hypocritical organization has to say about speciesism? Advocates of social justice issues render their own cause trivial when they trivialize the causes of others.
Also check out “On Trivializing the Causes of Other Groups,” to which Dan links in the excerpt above.
Jennifer Schuessler @ The NY Times: Mau-Mauing the Flesh Eaters and
Martin Rowe @ The Lantern Books Blog: Mau-Mauing the Flesh-Eaters?
In a review of Jonathan Safran Foer’s Eating Animals, Jennifer Schuessler manages to disregard the large and lengthy academic/journalistic body of work that precedes Foer’s celebrated pseudo-vegan treatise. As Martin Rowe points out, not a small portion of this work was produced by women. So where’s the love, hmmm?
Alley Cat Rescue: Typical “Crazy Cat Ladies” Show
Alley Cat Rescue deconstructs a recent 20/20 piece on animal hoarding, which drew heavily from the “crazy cat lady” meme – a stereotype we’ve discussed before. Unfortunately, by focusing on the sensational, 20/20 missed a valuable opportunity to advocate on behalf of the cats, for example, by reporting on spay/neuter and TNR efforts. Misogyny and ableism informs speciesism – or is that speciesism informs misogyny and ableism? Human and zygote, I tell ya.
Lisa @ Sociological Images: Hygrade Seed Company Says Vegetables Make You Tough and Strong
In an interesting reversal, Lisa highlights a vintage advert from the Hygrade Seed Company that urges American to eat vegetables to “Toughen Up!” Vegetables build “STRONG BODIES, STRONG MINDS, [and] STRONG HEARTS,” they tell us. I love it! More, please.
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Tagged: animals animal rights animal welfare patriarchy intersections parallel oppressions animals and women sexism misogyny gender feminism race racism violence stereotyping exploitation sex intersectionality kyriarchy megatheocorporatocracy pop culture speciesism flickr photos news in the news quick links link roundup link dump Intersectionality ‘Round the Interwebs burger king boobs singing in the rain peta Silvio Berlusconi slavery aeta abolition cat feline cat lady
Filed under aeta, animals and poc, animals and women, animals as food, animals as pets, burger king, capitalism, cat ladies, feminism, green scare, hoarding, inherit the wind, intersectionality 'round the interwebs, intersections, link roundup, movies, nonhuman animals, peta, poc, pop culture, sex sells, silvio berlusconi, slavery, women
