The irony of this statement seems lost on the writer. In the interest of reducing or ending the exploitation of animals who are ‘voiceless’, they further engender and condone the use of and exploitation of women as nameless, faceless and voiceless tools of amusement and pleasure.

They have completely co-opted to the system that promulgates exploitation of all beings and completely lost their message.

What I do see, however, is the connection between a patriarchal system that says that women are here solely for sexual and visual use by men and a patriarchal system that says that animals are here solely for use by “man”. The dominion over the one is intimitely tied to the dominion over the other. This makes for nice cultural critique, but not PETA advocacy: by perpetuating the consumption of women as sexual objects, they are in effect perpetuating the consumption of animals and animal products as nutritional objects. By perpetuating the disregard for women as thinking, feeling, acting beings, they are in effect perpetuating the disregard for animals as, well, at least as feeling beings.

http://www.hfa.org/about/rabbits.pdf

It was put out by the Humane Farming Association, Animal Rights International, and Animal Welfare Institute. It was humorous (in a sort of ironic, incongruous way), informative, and certainly eye-catching. (it certainly caught my eye when I saw it in the New York Times, with the headline/picture mismatch)

I would give them a lot more credence on this issue if they were, say, throwing red paint on fur-wearing gangsta rappers instead of elderly socialites. PETA activists recently threw flour on Paris Hilton and a designer who uses a lot of fur. What about P.Diddy? He wears fur. Oh, but he has armed bodyguards.

I guess PETA hasn’t gained enough mileage over the years by showing fur farms or boxed-in veal calves. So they go for entertaining the patriarchy to make their point.

I fear they won’t get much mileage as those who give the most attention will give little thought beyond, ‘Look at the chic!” or “Shit, I’d love to do her!”

PETA appears to my observation, to be run by a frat house or possibly Tom Green of sucking udders fame, rather than individuals who have a true thinking argument to offer for their cause.

And yes, it smacks of the woeful division in our society of most protest groups, who split by the ingrained patriarchal pull of competition and can’t seem to come together and work for a broader common good, with their issues interlinking.

Reminds me of when I was an activist for poor women’s issues, us, the environmentalists and the gay rights folks were constantly pitted against eachother for funding, media attention or constituencies. None would risk any little peice of the system in power that they had worked so hard to garner in order to assist the other.

And likewise, none could see how their fighting over crumbs served only the status quo at the expense of all of them.

PETA is effectively engaging in the same; hogging the trough provided by the patriarchy when in reality if all groups put their strengths together, they could haul their own water and not need the ‘powers that be’.

PETA has lost its soul.

I became a vegetarian at 12 (ethical reasons) and I so did not eat any sort of researched diet, mostly because my family refused to cook me anything other then the usual food, where I would only eat the vegetables. (Lucky for me though my family is Italian, so we ate a lot of pasta anyway.) I survived, without anemia, an active teenage life and sprung into a healthy adult (Veggie for 19 years! WOOT!) I am pleased to say that I have a functioning healthy body. Yeah so I might be a little taller (I’m pretty damn tall) and a little less skinny, but everything works well enough for me to bike everywhere, play water polo, and have what people tell me is an odd amount of energy for someone my age (kids love me.)

Although if you don’t eat plenty of veggies in teh first place then I could see a problem, I just loved my brussel sprouts (still do.)

I sent a letter to PETA awhile ago and I got a similar bullshit response. Maybe I can dig it up. Actually, maybe I should write them again and tell them if they don’t stop exploiting women I’ll start eating meat! Maybe that’ll work. (And I won’t btw, I’m veg for life.)

Wonder how they feel about plant pus?