Tell me more, John Mackey; I look forward to hearing about this new relationship with farm animals that you so compassionately chop up in cellophane packages in the butcher’s case.
A propos of the recent spate of femivegan commentary on the blog — will Meat vs The Angry Feminist become the blaming juggernaut, or should I say, the Blamernaut, of 2008? — I give you this dude Gary L Francione, who in this post adroitly outlines the ever-creepier ideological alliance between funfeminism and “conscientious” carnivorosity.
Francione is an animal exploitation abolitionist who has published extensively on the subject. His position is that funfeminists (he calls them “postmodern feminists” but you know what we both mean: pole dancing empowerfulizes women, “sex work” is groovy because women freely choose it, femininity is a gas, etc) have much in common with PETA-esque animal welfarists; both ideological postures posit scenarios which favor the perpetuation of patriarchal oppression. It’s OK to go to strip clubs because strip clubs empowerfulize women. It’s OK to eat “free range” meat because the animals were “raised by local ranchers” or were slaughtered “humanely”. And of course inveterate blamers are no strangers to PETA’s obsession with human female sexploitation. But what say I shut up and allow Gary L. Francione himself to enlarge?
[…] [P]ostmodern feminists have created a brand of “happy” commodification for women just as the welfarists have created the phenomenon of “happy” meat and animal products. The postmodern feminists often conveniently ignore the fact that women involved in the sex industry are raped, beaten, and addicted to drugs just as the welfarists conveniently ignore that animal products–including those produced under the most “humane” circumstances–involve horrible animal suffering. And both groups ignore that the commodification of women and animals, irrespective of treatment, is inherently objectionable.
Both the postmodern feminist position and the new welfarist position are steeped in the ideology of the status quo. They both reinforce the default position of animals as property and women as things whose personhood is reduced to whatever body part(s) and body images we fetishize. They both just put little smiley faces on what is in essence a very reactionary message.
He also notes that the rhetoric of funfeminism/PETA, which dismisses any criticism of their respective goals as impeding “movement unity,” mimics the vapid sloganeering of the reactionary right. This disturbing comingling of wingnut tactics with so-called “progressive” groups doesn’t surprise Francione and it doesn’t surprise me. Whenever patriarchal ideals come under fire, it’s patriarchal rhetoric that shows up to defend it. Funfeminism and PETA are both antifeminist.
[Thanks to josiemysourceofmostfrustration for the link]
I thought PETA in their ideal world, wanted everyone to be vegetarians? I know there is a trend towards some sort of faux compromise on meat eating, but I didn’t realize PETA were pushing that rhetoric.
My eating activity is on the wrong side of this one, so I’ll sit the rest of this one out.
I only found this Francione dude today, Pinko, so I haven’t investigated the extent of PETA’s “situational” ethics as relates to endorsing a meaty lifestyle; my indictment of the organization as antifeminist stems from their historically repellent reliance on T&A to market their agenda. However, PETA does seem pretty free and easy with its “Proggy Awards” to meat-friendly organizations (see the John Mackey link above).
Yeah, I had spaced the “naked women for vegetarianism and no furs in fashion” shtick.
I guess the heart of the argument is whether any sort of pragmatism or acceptance of a continuum instead of a meatno meat binary is reasonable. I certainly don’t accept that there should be a continuum in the rights of women as human beings. I recognize that there certainly are parallels in the way the debates proceed (the rights of women and the rights of animals). I think some would not accept an equivalence.
I wouldn’t accept this for the rights of people, but is a gradualist approach reasonable on any level for animal rights?
The other parallel here is the debate on ENDA. Some groups wanted a compromise for the sake of moving the bar a little bit and not a lot.
The Whole Foods guy is a piece of work too. Obscenely libertarian in his political viewpoints.
I’m just a joker here, so I don’t have any solution to anything.
The analogy is apt between the oppression of women and the oppression of animals. But the logic is less immediate than you would make it.
Certainly, it is logically consistent to believe that women are deserving of all rights of humanhood, but that animals are not, just as it is logically consistent to believe that animals should not be abused and murdered for human consumption, but that doing so to male humans is OK. I bring this up not to disagree that the abuse of animals or women is wrong — morality depends on more than consistency — but to say that a priori the part of the Revolution focussed on women does not require that we treat non-human animals well.
In order for me to eat meat, I must convince myself that
killingmurdering an animal is not sufficiently wrong as to preclude other benefits. But I have already convinced myself that the ultimate sin is not the death itself: I had to in order to accept the moral legitimacy of abortion.I said this in a thread below, but since you might not see it there: Twisty, your horse Stanley is beautiful.
Thanks for the links, I was especially amused by the “Courage in Commerce Winner”: Abercrombie & Fitch. Hehe, right.
Theo:”But I have already convinced myself that the ultimate sin is not the death itself: I had to in order to accept the moral legitimacy of abortion.”
Abortion = death? Ha, that’s a hot one.
I’m perplexed as to why PETA is awarding a book for aggrandizing “what really happens when A-list meets D-cup, when girl becomes goddess”.
Seriously?
Flying S. Monster, I never in my wildest dreams though I’d see my favorite blamer approvingly quote my favorite animal rights theorist! The tears, I must go wipe them!
Ironically, John Mackey is actually a vegan. Not even white dudes can escape the evil clutches of the patriarchy and free market capitalism.
So what are we Feminists going to feed our CATS? THey cannot digest anything BUT meat.
Obviously, the only ethical thing to do is to turn loose a a dozen or so mice in your homes for the cats to kill per their evolved directive. This is not very nice for the mice, but at least they’ll have a fighting chance, and will escape in sufficient numbers to establish breeding populations in your walls, thus ensuring a continuous feline food supply. This way the human habit of feeding cats will no longer contribute to the meatyocracy. And the cats, of course, will finally get some exercise — why are house cats all so obese? — not to mention experiencing the thrill of the hunt. Then, once the current crop of house cats dies off, one does not replace them, unless one enjoys cleaning up mouse poop, or one lives on a prairie or savannah, where the both the cat and its food supply can live and breed au naturel.
I remember reading somewhere that the domestic cat requires 1 square mile of personal territory to be fulfilled as a feline.
“I thought PETA in their ideal world, wanted everyone to be vegetarians? I know there is a trend towards some sort of faux compromise on meat eating, but I didn’t realize PETA were pushing that rhetoric.”
PETA does. However, PETA pushes for “humane” advances in factory farming and animal exploitation practices and Francione and other animal rights abolitionists would say that these reforms are meaningless and counter productive. For example, PETA and other humane organizations act like it’s a victory when legislation is passed giving factory farm animals a little more room to move around in their cages or when “humane” slaughter laws are passed. Abolitionists would argue that these laws only serve to make people feel more comfortable exploiting animals, they don’t end the exploitation they just perpetuate it. And, since the laws are rarely enforced, they’re really worthless. Francione’s point is that if it’s wrong to abuse and exploit animals for our pleasure, then it’s wrong. We can’t make ourselves feel more comfortable about it by making the animals just a little more comfortable, and any “animal rights” organizations that celebrate those types of victories are ineffectual. He supports veganism and vegan education as a more meaningful goal.
Anyway, that’s my take on Francione in a nutshell. His blog and his published books put it all a lot more eloquently than I can.
Horse & girl pics, fuck yeah!
Knobjectivism* & Ayn Rand harshing, fuck yeah!
Radfemveganomics, fuck yeah!
*A mastercoinage, Pinko Punko. Truly.
I agree with the overall point that small steps in animal treatment do not solve the problem of animal exploitation, but I don’t think they shouldn’t be treated as forward steps.
In a similar vein, the legalisation of abortion did not end the patriarchy, but feminists still celebrate it as a step in the right direction.
Although to be fair, I wouldn’t be hostile to an argument that said that the legalisation of abortion made us feel better about female oppression and hence stopped more radical change.
hmmm… food for thought.
I agree with Francione that if it’s wrong to oppress animals, then it’s wrong. Making the oppressed animal more comfortable by giving him or her more space to live in or a less gruesome slaughter is not a victory. An analogy would be that if prostitution is a form of oppression, then it’s just wrong. Paying prostitutes better or unionizing them doesn’t really advance their rights. It may make the people who oppress them feel better about themselves. However, it doesn’t change the fact that the women working as prostitutes are still being commodified and exploited. Just like humane slaughter and larger gestation crates for sows doesn’t change the fact that those animals shouldn’t be raised or slaughtered for food in the first place.
I know that promoting more humane slaughtering practices doesn’t line up philosophically with thinking animals shouldn’t be slaughtered at all, but I feel that since we are less likely to end animal slaughter right now than we are to end the worst of the abuses at factory farms, it makes sense to promote ending the worst of the abuses. The total amount of suffering can be decreased more quickly in that way, right? I just feel like taking this hard philosophical line is not necessarily helpful to the animals in question.
Ditto for prostitution and unionizing, etc. I mean I know in an ideal world prostitution wouldn’t exist, but isn’t it still a good idea to try to improve conditions for the prostitutes who do exist?
Laura, Improving conditions for the prostitutes who do exist is being done today by a handful of organizations across the country, run by women who know prostitution from the ground up, that work to provide prostituted women with a way out of an inherently exploitive and abusive situation. The irony is that the childhood sexual abuse that very often sets a girl up for prostitution is promoted by the existence and normalization of prostitution anmd pornography.
The whole picture, including unionization, is factually provided in Melissa Farley’s “Prostitution & Trafficking in Nevada: Making the Connections” (2007). Find it at www.prostitutionresearch.com, along with a lot of great articles.
I would chime in here, but I’ve already commented on this matter here:
http://www.elainevigneault.com/naked-protests.html
Also, regarding Melissa Farley:
http://www.elainevigneault.com/validated.html
Sigh. I’m glad you’ve gone veg, but there is a critical, significant difference between sex work and animal agriculture. That difference is that women can choose to participate in our economy. Animals cannot choose to participate in our economy.
Admittedly, women’s choices are limited and they are often coerced into certain fields, but they DO have a choice. With animals, there is no gray area and there is no debate about choice. With women, there are TONS of gray areas and choice exists on a continuum with some women being forced and some women freely choosing to participate.
Wow, I can’t believe there hasn’t been a mass uprising yet over Twisty’s Cat Solution.
Twisty
You must be magical - how you go right to the best.
Gary Francione is one of the finest teachers in the animal rights movement. Some years ago, an animal abuser with the help of the legal system ruined my life. As I desperately went from group to group, I was sadly disillusioned as to their alliances and blaming the victim attitudes. We all know about PETA. But now that time has passed, I am thankful for every group that gets “its’ own kind” up the ladder. I just know that we veggies all have different values in the end.
The person I admire most in the Animal Rights Movement is Gary Francione. Below is an excerpt from an interview with him. Read the whole thing here:
www.theanimalspirit.com/garyfrancione.html
“FoA: You are a law professor. What do you say to those who maintain that your views are specific to someone trained by the legal profession?
Gary Francione: I have no illusions about the usefulness of the legal system. Veterinary malpractice cases, cruelty cases, and cases brought under the Animal Welfare Act are pretty much meaningless in terms of reducing suffering, and have absolutely no effect on the property status of animals.
But they have created job security for lawyers. Anna Charlton, who has taught the animal rights law course with me at Rutgers University for over a decade, often points out that the legal system will never respond differently to animal issues unless and until there is a significant shift in prevailing social consensus about animal exploitation.
For the most part, the law reflects social attitudes and does not form them. This is particularly true when the behavior in question is deeply embedded in the cultural fabric, as our exploitation of animals undoubtedly is.
As long as most people think that it’s fine to eat animals, use them in experiments, or use them for entertainment purposes, the law is not likely to be a particularly useful tool to help animals. If, for example, Congress or a state legislature abolished factory farming, that would drive the cost of meat up and there would be a social revolt! ……..
I can always depend on your blog to make me upset and angry about something! (That’s a good thing, it means I’m thinking and being challenged) Usually, it’s because you point out something that really fucking disturbs me, and it takes me a few days to calm down.
This time it’s about animal rights. I get very, very angry about animal rights, and it’s because I grew up on a small farm, where we actually cared about the animals.
This is what got me: “welfarists conveniently ignore that animal products–including those produced under the most “humane” circumstances–involve horrible animal suffering.”
I would like to argue that the animals on my farm, and my neighbors, didn’t encounter horrible suffering. As an example of what I mean, let me tell you about our hens. None of our hens were ever de-beaked, or starved. We didn’t kill them at 1 or 4 years old; because we actually looked after the health of the hen, they were still “producing profitably” at 6, 7, even 8 years of age. They died of old age, and the occasional raccoon raid. Additionally, when I say our hens were raised free range, I mean that they were outside from dawn ’till dusk, roaming over 3 acres of land, eating bugs and chasing the cats. And they went into the shed at night under their own free will; we only had to herd them in when a storm was coming.
Just so you know, there is an option between supporting factory farms and going vegan. Drive a little out of your way (or go to your local farmer’s market), find a nice small farm, check out how they raise their animals, and buy your eggs and milk from them (and meat, if you eat it). Too bad not every one has that option.
I certainly think the local meat movement has at least something to offer. Mega-slaughterhouses-like many mass production spaces- abuse every living thing in them, from the skinned alive cows to the people who cut them up.
there are a a few levels of issues here
Is factory farming OK?- I think everyone will say no.
Is any farming OK? this depends if you think it is acceptable to limit animals excercize of whatever freedom of will they have.
Is killng and eating animal any time OK-hunting? I think here one can at least make an argument that this is sometimes necessary.
Obviously, the only ethical thing to do is to turn loose a a dozen or so mice in your homes for the cats to kill per their evolved directive.
Obviously, we shouldn’t keep animals captive in our homes for our own amusement. I bet you even saddle (and ride!)that poor horse, tsk.
I live in a rural area and although people raise an slaughter their own animals, at least they’re aware of the process. I’m a life long vegetarian and off and on again vegan when I can afford to be and I’m often taken by the fact that people have no idea from whence their food comes. I was permanently scarred by the sight of a huge grain lot with thousands of cattle shoulder to shoulder on the edge of the Mojave desert where it was well over one hundred degrees. No shade, little water, absolutely no space.
As for the acceptance of vegetarianism, just try raising a vegetarian (or worse vegan) child and the pediatricians will accuse you of child abuse.
Tangent, directed at josiemysourceofmostfrustration, laura and TwissB: I’ve been wanting to do a study/article/some kind of research on the exact points that you raise about sex work and sex workers. Thankyou so much for having that little side conversation here. Maybe the website TwissB mentions will show me that what I want to look into has already been done…
I amy not have stated my points as clearly as I would’ve like to in my previous post, so let me go on the record as saying that I do not oppose unionization of prostitution. I think that anything that prostitutes can do individually or collectively to make their lot better is fine by me. I don’t think that women who work as prostitutes should be punished or marginalized at all.
However, I don’t think that it’s any feminist victory, by a long shot. Anything that perpetuates prostitution does not advance the cause of feminism. And, measures like unionization can be counterproductive because they make johns and the general public feel more comfortable with it and perpetuate the myth of the happy hooker. Just like “humane” farming perpetuates the myth of happy meat.
Great Twisty/Horse picture.
As I see it, the standard animal rights line is based on the idea that we should not confine and kill animals because, first, to constrain another creature’s life and instincts is wrong; and second, that killing is per se wrong.
Which is fine, but I do actually think there’s a positive ethical argument for killing and eating animals - it just comes from an ecological perspective rather than a legal/rights perspective. On a small farm, animals and their manure cycle nutrients to keep the soil fertile; pastured chickens clear bugs out and produce eggs; and you can do all kinds of things to have animals doing what’s natural and healthy for them, and at the same time maintaining the farm as an ecosystem. You can’t really do that without animals.
At the same time, big vegetable/grain farms like the ones where a lot of vegan protein is produced can be really devastating to the ecosystems around them and to individual animals, especially anything groundnesting that gets crushed by a plow. Plus, a big field of a single plant is very vulnerable to pests, so you need to use pesticides or intensive weeding; and vegetable farming is usually much more intensive as a land use than animal farming, so you end up with more erosion, etc.
Any farm is an ecosystem: the question is whether the nutrients and assets (like soil) stay in the farm and get recycled or whether they get leached out. Humanely raised meat is a restoration of a basic kind of decency in our relationship with animals, but it doesn’t take care of the biggest ethical issue with it, since killing kind of seems wrong any way you slice it. But small farms, where the animals are an integral part of the sustainability of the farm, create living ecosystems that also sustain humans, rather than scorched earth that only sustains humans. I’d rather buy from Daryl and the Fishers and the Meadow Run farmers than from EdenSoy.
There’s not really a ‘do no harm’ choice here, is all I’m saying. And choosing to eat meat can be an active ethical choice, rather than a compromise.
I must say, it amuses me to no sad end to see some folks scramble to justify the perpetuation of patriarchy-approved slaughter & consumption of living beings.
Further still amusement is derived from reading comments that attempt to postulate that it is indeed humankind’s burden to slaughter and consume living beings as a form of necessary bodily maintenance. Or that it is otherwise necessary, implying a lack of other foodstuffs.
The extent to which patriarchy is internalized, even in these revered feminist spheres, is astounding. At what point is it acceptable for the oppressor to define the experience of oppression for the oppressed? Apparently it is dialogue relating to this issue, where the occasional individual is so dedicated to maintaining the party line of the right to exert patriarchal dominance that they will fabricate lines of argument that are truly incoherent from a radical feminist perspective. Meateaters, thou fellate the male appendage of the patriarchy.
Actually, I think the point North is making is that being vegetarian or vegan does not nullify your impact on the earth. The whole point of the patriarchal system is that your choices are defined by it. There is no escape without revolution.
I am also uncomfortable with an attitude that is so hostile towards other people’s choices. Your damned if you do and damned if you don’t under the patriarchal system and people should be allowed to make the best choices they can under their circumstances without being castigated as unfeminist.
Who do you blame, mia?
Having been raised on a small farm myself, I take issue with the statement that animals can’t be raised humanely. I think if anyone of you had come to my mother’s farm, you’d have seen how different conditions can be.
Our chickens were raised free range, in the true sense of the word: we regularly chased them from the garden! They were out from sunrise to sunset- and they went into and out of the shed by themselves.
I think, that when it comes to ‘ethical’ or ‘humane’ treatment of animals, you’re not going to see a difference between two big factory farms, but you will see a difference between a small, organic, doesn’t hire-anyone and a big ugly factory farm.
Also, what North said is very true.
On a small farm, animals and their manure cycle nutrients to keep the soil fertile; pastured chickens clear bugs out and produce eggs; and you can do all kinds of things to have animals doing what’s natural and healthy for them, and at the same time maintaining the farm as an ecosystem. You can’t really do that without animals.
At the same time, big vegetable/grain farms like the ones where a lot of vegan protein is produced can be really devastating to the ecosystems around them and to individual animals, especially anything groundnesting that gets crushed by a plow.
There are two important points that need to be brought up here. First, where is there required killing in your story here. None of your fertilizing and clearing out bugs requires killing. Second, and more important, it takes farmed plats to raise animals for meat. It takes a lot more acres of farm land to raise a pound of animal protein than it does to make a pound of vegetable protein. You remind me of the person who told me she didn’t like soy because it promoted mono-culture in farming while eating a steak. Animals produced on a large enough scale to actually feed the number of people that we have in the U.S. and the world will always be more harmful to the environment than eating a similar amount of veggies.
TwissB, the Melissa Farley article you mentioned is fabulous. I was writing a paper on the topic recently, and it proved invaluable. I hadn’t heard of the website before, though - it’s going in my favorites.
Lauredhel, I blame the patriarchy.
This whole dialogue is a valuable tool in helping determine the depth and breadth of the dehumanizing aspects of patriarchy–kind of like pulling up a dandelion and following the root system.
Sadly, I’m frequently surprised at how deep the cultural imperatives of dude nation go, and the extent to which people defend the status quo. But for that, without doubt, IBTP.
Feminist Avatar: “being vegetarian or vegan does not nullify your impact on the earth.”
Exactly! There’s destruction either way because we have to eat. Either you kill animals directly to eat them, or the plows that clear the land crush songbirds and small animals, and you destroy a lot of habitat for all kinds of creatures. So you’re fucked any way you look at it if you’re trying to do no harm.
Nutrient cycling is the way that minerals, nitrogen, etc get moved around in an ecosystem. Generally, on a small farm, animals eat plants (often grasses that humans don’t eat), digest them, and their manure - sometimes composted - returns nitrogen and other nutrients to the land.
Any piece of land needs this. You can do it artificially, with fertilizer, or naturally, with animals, but maintaining your land as an functioning ecosystem rather than a machine has benefits for other species and the long-term health of the area’s ecology. And there’s no revolution that’s going to rid us of this need, because it’s based on non-human factors. Supporting that is a good thing, and eating meat/eggs/dairy is one way to do that, as long as the meat/eggs/dairy come from responsible farmers.
Eating meat (the right meat) can be good for the planet. Not just a compromise, but a positive choice.
There’s destruction either way because we have to eat. Either you kill animals directly to eat them, or the plows that clear the land crush songbirds and small animals, and you destroy a lot of habitat for all kinds of creatures. So you’re fucked any way you look at it if you’re trying to do no harm.
But there is less destruction when you don’t eat animals. It isn’t as if the animals come from nowhere, they have to be fed and have to live somewhere. To do those things requires resources, to do them on the scale required to produce meat for any major modern nation requires environmental degradation on a massive scale. The animals people eat are fed crops grown in exactly the same way as the vegetables they would otherwise eat; but, they people need less vegetable if they go straight to the veggie source.
hey North and FA
Have you people ever heard the word organic?? It is a new concept (to you} but if you google it I am sure you will be surprised and enlightened.
“Eating meat (the right meat) can be good for the planet. Not just a compromise, but a positive choice.”
How about this: oppressing the powerless (the right ones) can be good for the patriarchy. Not just a compromise, but a positive choice. To me, it all sounds frighteningly similar to arguments that have been made to justify the oppression of African Americans in slavery, women, and Native Americans. And a similar argument to that which is currently made to justify the use of torture.
And this: “Exactly! There’s destruction either way because we have to eat. Either you kill animals directly to eat them, or the plows that clear the land crush songbirds and small animals, and you destroy a lot of habitat for all kinds of creatures. So you’re fucked any way you look at it if you’re trying to do no harm.”
North, what exactly are you arguing here? Because even if we do farm, and plow the land (crushing all those songbirds under the plow) eating vegetative food means we only have to farm about one seventh the land area. Which apparently, even by your logic, means only killing one-seventh the songbirds. This is because it takes about seven pounds of grain, give or take, to make one pound of animal flesh for consumption.
Oh, and by the way–just so you know, “trying to do no harm” is a concept that generally does not include gratuitous killing.
I never quite understood the argument about how keeping farmed animals is bad for the environment, with all the land and resources set aside for them, all the methane they produce (cow farts will be the death of us all, apparently) as an argument for vegetarianism. Because what exactly would be done with all the animals if everyone stopped eating meat? Surely they’d still have to be looked after, which would obviously not solve the problem. And if they weren’t to be looked after, then would that mean they would have to be culled? Isn’t killing animals kind of the issue?
I’m not trying to be difficult, it’s just that that particular argument has always baffled me.
The point of my comment was to suggest that calling people with different opinions unfeminist is unhelpful and effectively silences discussion. This is a form of oppression.
But if we are going to be silly about it: eating organic does not nullify your impact upon the earth; it might reduce it. But organic food still has to be transported hundreds of miles from farm to consumer. This burns fuel. It still has an impact on local wildlife. It also commonly uses animal manure as fertiliser, thus being reliant to some extent on animal farming. The other organic fertilisers it uses are often made through industrial processes that use fuel and produce waste. It is also highly labour intensive and therefore can exploit poor people. Driving or taking the bus to the shop to buy organic veg uses fuel. Cooking organic vegetables on a stove uses fuel. Using the internet to talk about or google organic food uses fuel.
The point is that there are different ways you can try to reduce your impact on the earth, but there is no way you can have no impact at all. In that sense, it is just like the patriarchy.
This will probably be a poorly articulated and silly question, but is there anything that is okay to commodify? It seems to me that the process of commodification is inherently objectionable no matter what is being commodified.
FA
You are silly about it.
Virginia Ray -
No, YOU are being silly about it.
FA is absolutely correct in that the vegies and grains you consume are mostly transported from hundreds or thousands of miles away on ….. huge corporate owned farms who exploit the living hell of the earth and the people who work them. All that tofu you eat comes from single-crop farms that exploit the hell out of the soil, kill all insects and wildlife that live in the area and pay the people who process those soybeans very, very little. The amount of fossil fuel used in the processing, packaging and transporting all that food over hundreds and thousands of miles is astonishing. I won’t even start to discuss how biodiversity is being eliminated and how that is impacting the health of our planet.
I don’t think there is any way to eat without exploitation or harm. Period. Unless you happen to be fortunate enough to own some prime farm land and grow and harvest it all yourself.
This is not a criticism of vegetarianism. It’s a criticism of people who feel all morally superior that THEY aren’t causing any harm on the planet while they sip their bottled water and eat the grapes picked in Chile. If you really want something interesting that will make your hair stand on end, follow the trail back from most of the vegetarian organic brands that you buy. The vast majority are owned by….. huge corporations and conglomerates.
All of our hands are bloody. Some of us are just less morally superior about where the blood comes from.
Twisty -
I humbly beg your forgiveness for my use of ellipses. I forgot myself in the heat of my rant. I won’t do it again. I promise.
A few more notes for VR before I pack it in for the night.
#1 - Over on Twisty’s first post on the subject, I posted the following: Your source in the links you provided is Dr. Neal Barnard, the president of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has donated more than $1.3m to PCRM. PETA is based in Norfolk, Va., and PCRM in Washington, D.C. There is a third organization called Foundation to Support Animal Protection housed out of the same address as PETA. This organization’s board consists in part of PCRM founder and president Neal Barnard and PETA president Ingrid Newkirk. The IRS form 990s filed for FSAP confirm that from 1999 through 2000 PCRM was a supported organization. Since 2000, FSAP has declined to itemize its supported organizations.
The ties between PCRM, PETA, and FSAP have been criticized by the American Council on Science and Health and The American Physiological Society.
#2 - Perhaps you should a little more about soy before you start eating it 3 times a day. Here’s one place to start:
http://www.utne.com/2007-07-01/TheDarkSideofSoy.aspx
#3 - Perhaps you should do a little more homework about being a vegan and the politics and science of food before you start the lecture circuit.
There are two important points that need to be brought up here. First, where is there required killing in your story here. None of your fertilizing and clearing out bugs requires killing. Second, and more important, it takes farmed plants to raise animals for meat.
OK. So I don’t want to be having a crazy blogwar here. I just think a lot of people don’t think through the ecological (not legal/rights) implications of what they eat. My partner works in the organic/local food movement, as do my parents, and I have done a certain amount of academic study of all this. AoT, I think you are wrong on both points above.
1. Clearing and plowing land kills creatures. It just does. You plow under the nests of ground-nesting birds, crush tunnels and burrows for ground-dwelling animals, and eliminate forest and grassland habitat for wild animals, which then die. Here’s an article about an endangered falcon species losing habitat to plowed land. Here’s another about genetically modified crops (which I’m not advocating for) that includes numbers about land (and habitat) cleared for crops and the damage done by plant agriculture to various species. Plowing land gets rid of wildflowers and the wild animals they support, gets rid of forest, leading to erosion, and is not a neutral choice.
2. It does not take farmed plants to raise animals for meat. Cattle and bison can graze on land that is not suitable for grain or vegetable farming because it lacks water or soil fertility. Pastured chickens can help prevent pests in organic farms by eating grubs that are not a usable human food. It goes on and on. Pastured animals at responsibly run, ecologically careful farms are net contributors to the health of the farm’s ecosystem. Polyface Farm, run by a really awesome, really conservative, really creative guy, has managed to improve the ecosystem on his land using several decades of animal husbandry.
Eating vegetative food means we only have to farm about one seventh the land area.
Mia, this would be accurate if all land had the same quality, but there’s a lot of land that can easily be used for animals that just won’t last under vegetable production, which is much more intensive. In other words, vegetable production there isn’t sustainable; in fact, for a vegetable/grain farm to be sustainable - to not need massive external inputs made from petroleum - you need manure to maintain soil fertility. (We could use human manure, but that’s not as effective ecologically because of the ways you can use animal behavior to keep an ecological balance on the land; also human manure is a lower quality input.)
You might also be interested in this study, which argues that a low-meat diet (exactly what I’m arguing for) is most efficient in terms of land use.
How about this: oppressing the powerless (the right ones) can be good for the patriarchy. Not just a compromise, but a positive choice. To me, it all sounds frighteningly similar to arguments that have been made to justify the oppression of African Americans in slavery, women, and Native Americans. And a similar argument to that which is currently made to justify the use of torture.
I don’t really know what to say to this, other than that it’s a patently disingenuous argument aimed at making me feel bad about myself. As human beings, we can substantially rework our social arrangements. There are no laws of physics in the way of that. But we can’t rework ecology - we can only choose how we cooperate with it or fight it. If we want to eat, the nutrients that support our food have to come from somewhere, and so far the only two options we have are animals and petroleum.
I want to be extremely clear that I am not justifying or defending factory farming, which is torture and brutality to animals. I was a vegetarian for many years, and have started eating meat in large part to support farmers I know who are treating their animals with kindness and respect and for whom the pastured animals they raise are a crucial part of keeping their farm’s ecosystem healthy. I don’t see any value in comparing such people to genocidaires and torturers, nor in arguing that it is somehow anti-feminist to support them. I fully respect people who are vegetarian or vegan so as not to participate in the active killing of animals. I think it’s important to acknowledge that that choice has many consequences, only one of which is the stated goal, and that it is not the only dietary decision that can be made in good faith.
also, BadKitty, word.
To me, meat eating and anti-feminism are two different issues being conflated.
What I note is that women worldwide are underfed in spite of all the nonsense we hear about obesity. Women in the U.S. are becoming shorter and fatter because they get into food deprivation in order to conform to notions of smallness and thinness as being feminine ideals. As soon as young girls plump up because they are about to put on a growth spurt, they cut back on food. As adults, being short, they can’t eat much without getting fat, and they are perpetually on diets or on funny dietary regimes, having lost all sense of appetite and the enjoyment of food.
Visiting a college the other day I could not get over how much shorter girls are today than they used to be. And not because they are Mexican or Asian; the white girls are way shorter too.
Women need enough to eat as children and as adults because they need to lead full, energetic lives. To me that’s a way more important issue than whether or not they eat meat.
Virginia: “hey North and FA
Have you people ever heard the word organic?? It is a new concept (to you} but if you google it I am sure you will be surprised and enlightened.”
Possibly Virginia you should do some googling yourself about farming practices, small scale, organic and large-scale corporate. What North describes is a small scale family or community farming operation, which would probably only feed a family or two.
ALthough North didn’t elaborate, his/her description pretty much emphasizes the natural processes of nitrogen enrichment, nutrient breakdown and bio-diversity that is typical on a well managed organic farm. That is of course, organic in the ideal sense, a sense that only remains a reality among those fortunate enough to have their own land and the funds to obtain the equipment, stock and of course the knowledge and time to operate such.
Our capitalist system has destroyed such operations and made them nearly impossible to exist. Organic or not, food production whether for plant matter or animal flesh, is an entirely subsidized, corporatized and globalized operation that has nothing to do with picturesque images of a draft horse and driver working a long furrow under the orange sun.
Frankly, I don’t have the economic ability to do my regular shopping at Whole Foods or any other outlet that inspires self righteous indulgence by pocketbook. Instead I hound through the reduced vegetable racks of all the local stores, the reduced bakery and even the reduced meats. I’ll save a buck by buying a chicken and making three meals out of it, or stewing oxtails like the old folks did. I don’t eat steak regularly, in fact, there was a time not long ago when I didn’t eat regularly at all.
Might I also add that the natural foods marketeering around questionable medical claims makes me just a bit recalcitrant to consider them organizations free from their own sort of exploitation.
Also, the claims about how much land is required to produce so much meat made here have no validity as the requirements change with the type of animals raised, what they are fed, their time of slaughter, breeding, etc.
In addition, I am loathe to consider animals on a level of importance equal to humans.
I suppose again, it isn’t just mega corporate farms that perpetuate terrible practices. I invite anyone to drive through the central valley here in northern California and on many a smallish organic farm you will find men women and children bent at the waist all day picking their way across entire fields in that very position no matter how hot it is. Your spinach should induce almost as much guilt as your burger really, unless you know every single thing about where it comes from. At least in these cases you wont find a field being sprayed with pesticide at the same time people are picking the field next door(which you can see on any day of the year) but the conditions are still deplorable.
What do you do? Buy only from happy hippy communes that dot the land up here and sell food for a price no lower-class budget can sustain and insure migrant workers never make a buck at all?
I think the ethical argument about meat eating has to be entirely focused on weather it is OK to eat a living thing that has some degree of free will and can reason(to some extent) and that has emotions. If the argument is simply about corporate practice we all better start photosynthesizing because meat or no meat, simply by eating anything you either support a corrupt system or put tons of people out of work and raise the price of food.
Large scale boycotts can make you feel good about yourself but probably wont do a damn thing to change the system; most people cant afford them and many people rely on meat as a cheap and easy source of nutrients. During the depression calories in lard probably saved my grand parents lives because they were almost literally starving. Only by directly lobbying businesses for better labor practices, while keeping prices controllable is likely to help.
*yawn* Oh look, some people don’t want to give up their privileges and thus argue in any available fashion to justify and preserve them. How thoroughly surprising. I have never seen this sort of thing around -here- before. Its like listening to antifeminists. Whatever made y’all see the light about feminism, it’ll take something similar about the ways of veg (or class privilege or what have you). Good luck with that.
I wrote something, but it’s lost in the spamulator. So sad.
Dang. Does this mean no more Morsel Institute posts about foie gras & hamburgers?
Oh. I just scrolled down to “Bacon, I Bid You Farewell.”
End of an era.
Langsuyer - I think any of us who can pick and choose and refuse food based on moral principles is pretty damn privileged. This is one of most classist and ethnocentric threads I’ve ever read on Twisty’s blog.
Ok, I lurv this blog. I struggle with ethical food choices and my own personal hedonism, and I confess to being a meat-eater. I appeal to the people here because I am in a swayable moment, and some good arguments are made on both sides, so what do you blamers think:
Does ecology equal morality?
Like many, I have had some pretty negative interactions with animal activism and I am trying not to paint all vegans with the same brush. People claiming to “speak for the voiceless” squick me out, and I find a lot of similar personality traits between many in the anti-abortion camp and some animal-activists. A fetus is not a person, and neither is a chicken. Arguments that are based on “well, how would you feel if YOU were in a cage” don’t make much sense to me. Tell me about what’s really going on with the chicken, and not what you imagine it might be like to be a chicken. Twisty, this is where I have to ask about the cat scenario. Should we let all domesticated animals fade away, so as not to impose upon them? In a vegetarian world, the domestic cow must cease to exist. And that might be OK.
Or is this all just a shallow justification for my own hedonistic desires?
BadKitty: “Langsuyer - I think any of us who can pick and choose and refuse food based on moral principles is pretty damn privileged. This is one of most classist and ethnocentric threads I’ve ever read on Twisty’s blog.”
I’m not seeing this at all. Rice and beans are cheap, cheap, cheap. I started eating beans back when I was on W.I.C. and living below the poverty level. A pound of beans a month came free with the program, so I thought I should learn to use ‘em. We had very little dough, but we ate well. VERY well.
goblinbee - Who harvested the rice? Who picked and dried and processed the beans? How did the food arrive at the shelter?
The point some of us are trying to make is that for the vast majority of us, the very act of eating is oppressive. Our question is, who do we choose to oppress? The animals? The migrant workers in the fields? The people working in the food processing plants?
The cheap and abundant food most of us find at our local co-op or grocery store is costing us dearly in the form of soil destruction, pesticide and herbicide usage, the use of fossil fuels to transport it, and the exploitation of cheap labor. We have 89 cent mangos in our stores because workers in South America are working for pitiful wages.
As I said above, all of our hands are bloody. It’s a more complicated issue than simply swearing off meat.
Eating, in the society that we live in, which is already privileged, is difficult to do without any oppression from behind the food. I got it. But whereas plant-based food may exploit workers and the natural environment, animal based food exploits workers, the natural environment due to all of the feed that has to be grown and the waste that is produced, as well as the animals who are consciously enslaved and killed for the food and the consumers, who are rarely getting as high quality food as they believe they are (because corn- and soy-fed meat, which is the most common in the country, is actually significantly lower in nutrients - omegas, heme iron - than “naturally” grain-fed animals who eat what their biology digests best). It seems to me that the better choice is obvious.
And do you think all the cheap beef in the grocery store comes from close by, at the local ranch? Hell no. We consume and export American beef. American industry also imports huge amounts of cheaper Argentinian beef. And a lot of foreign-made food gets into the market, allowing chicken “producers” China and Thailand, two of the strongest chicken-exporting nations, to ship their tinned and frozen chicken bits to the US.
And if you wanna talk pollution, take a look at how Carolina hog farming is literally destroying river ecosystems. The overwhelming amount of ammonia - from the overwhelming amount of pig urine, from the overwhelming amount of pigs - is impossible to manage in a cost-effective and non-environmentally-detrimental way when there are tens of thousands of pigs being raised on one confined “farm.” And waterways are great for transporting the pollution introduced to them all over to other ecosystems in their path. Neat!
And then if you say that people should just buy responsible meat, you’re back to being “classist,” because it costs more - it costs what meat should cost.
And any time we talk about truly cheap food, I agree - think it’s relevant to note that nothing ever costs less than it seems it should. Eggs – a cheap source of omegas, protein, and other vitamins and minerals? They are only cheap if they were produced by de-beaked, caged, psychologically fucked chickens that are kept in “layer houses,” the extreme conditions of which far surpass concentration camp bunkers. And things aren’t so great for the people who have to feed them, gather the eggs, and clean up, either. Consider then the hundreds of acres of corn and soy cultivated to feed the chickens (and how much of it ended up in the form of chicken shit dropping down onto neighboring chickens in cages below) and the pesticides used – this is many times more acres of cultivated vegetation than would be needed to feed the same people with vegetables, grains, beans. And don’t be under the illusion that farm animal feed is processed in a justifiable way. Machines, helping us get a leg up on erosion, may be used for much of the process, but because no one wants to pay a lot of money for the food that goes into the chickens, cheap cheap cheap labor and materials are used in the mills, the processing plants, and the shipment.
I’d take the vegetation production over the soy and corn and then chicken production any day.
I think things are different when we are talking about societies where people might need to hunt for their food or where certain nutrients found in animal food are not reasonably accessible elsewhere, but I don’t think most critique of animal use and consumption is aimed at societies and situations where this is the case. If that makes this thread ethnocentric, then my, my, I’m never critiquing anything again!
The whole situation of eating may not be simple, but that’s not a sufficient argument for eating meat.
Americans spend less than 10% of their income on food, compared to more like 15% in Europe. Despite higher costs here for other things, for many people - not everyone, and I trust that all of you know more about your own financial and health situations than I do - there’s room to spend more on food as a percentage of their income.
Yes, if your choices are mass-produced vegetables/grain or mass-produced meat, mass-produced vegetables/grains are less objectionable. But those are not the only two choices. They just aren’t. And once you get into small local mostly-organic farms, the cost-benefit shifts radically.
As a point of information, my partner, who manages a local-food retailer, cannot find farmers to grow dried beans because it is too much work for them and too hard on their land. As a further point of information, I cannot think of a single practical downside for pastured eggs, which cost $3.25/dozen at her establishment. The chickens are happy, they get to indulge their basic chicken-ness and run around in the grass, and they help maintain ecological balance at the farm. A solid chunk of responsibly raised, cruelty-free protein for me (2 eggs) thus costs 54 cents. This is not meant to be a “why doesn’t everyone eat like I do?” argument. People have a lot of different reasons for what they do, and as BadKitty said, we all have blood on our hands. There are a lot of ways to make a thoughtful, good faith decision about what you eat, and some of them involve eating meat.
I think it must take an incredible amount of intellectual dishonesty to be anti-meat — anti-meat to the point that you’d be willing to call into question the sincerity of the feminist values of your fellow blamers — while continuing to participate in the domestication of animals.
I agree with what’s been said here in that it’s clearly impossible to erase completely one’s culpability in the suffering of animals, but I would think that a good place to start would be: not locking them in you’re house when they’re clearly meant to be left outside, not ripping off their claws, not putting a collar around their necks to shock them if they get to close to an imaginary fence, not nailing “shoes” to their feet, not sitting on their backs while forcing them to run around your yard, etc.
In my estimation that people who have “pets” clearly don’t respect animal life any more than meat-eaters. It’s just easier and more obvious to say “killing animals is wrong” than it is to say “perhaps locking them in my home and surgically removing their reproductive abilities is wrong, too.” It takes quite a bit of effort to remove all meat and animal-derivatives from one’s diet. But in order to capture and enslave animals for your own amusement you have to go out of your way. One’s a “sin” (though I necessarily have religiously loaded language) of omission and one’s a sin of commission.
Domestication removes an essential animal component from the animal. People with pets don’t love animals; they love pets. They love furry things that run around their homes or gallop around in their yards. Animals who behave as animals should behave are the worst kinds of pets. And people who have pets need — by necessity — to remove at least a component of their pets’ animal instinct and nature.
I find it hilarious — in a completely eye-widening way — that a post about the hypocrisy of feminist meat-eaters opens with a photo of a bridled horse!
*Wipes tear from eye* Ah, dear. So good to see you back Twisty.
Ah, basic chicken-ness. You read Michael Pollan?
Although the eggs of which you speak (the ones that are, by their very nature, in limited supply) appear to be free of serious injustices against said chickens, the chickens are still being commodified, which is where one of the main arguments against animal food comes from. These chickens become something that can be bought or sold. Seeing animals in that kind of way is what leads to the commodification not only of what they produce, but of their personal bodies and lives. That is not unlike what happens with women stuck in the grinding cogs of patriarchy - female labor (both the labor of birth and the labors of domesticity) was something that became quite commodified, and the attitudes that licensed that kind of thought also licensed later traditions of rape and kidnapping and spousal abuse. Another appropriate example would be that of the American enslavement of all ilk of indigenous people. Heck, slavery world-wide tends upon the same kind of commodification-domination line. And I don’t think that commodification-domination of another aware, sentient animal is a very thoughtful, good faith decision.
I’m not saying why are you worried about cows while something worse is going on with soy(like why are you wasting your time about lipstick when women face worse things), but rather that cows and soy are not produced differently but part of a single system. They may be produced sustainably or unsustainably, they may involve the same amount of human labor exploitation and environmental impact.
If you wanna argue that responsible meat isn’t the aim of true revolution but is merely reformism, that might be true. But it is also true that all farming of anything is some form of it as well, farming is labor intensive and energy expensive and requires fertilizers which are gonna come from decomposing materials or animal shit and animal shit. Farming uses up tons of space and requires vast quanities of water be pumped places.
This is the price we pay for wanting to live in one place all of our lives, and since we are stuck with it, we need to do a better job of it. A huge amount of lobbying needs to be done to produced food -animal and vegetable-can be farmed with less bad impact while remaining affordable by most of the population. Small farming is great, and when I buy meat it is from such places, I am glad there is an alternative that I consider better than big agro. However I don’t think it is currently possible to eat guilt free, or that large scale conversion to green farming is something individual buying practices alone can accomplish for reasons I have already stated.
I too, yawn - I am sure that because we cannot be perfect we should be depraved — that is your argument in a nutshell.
No one is being morally superior - especially since we did not wake up one morning vegans - it took time. You say we feel superior but the truth is we feel happy. Happy we are able to not contribute in our own way to the evil all around us. I buy at farmers markets from local farmers during the summer, grow my own vegetables and in the winter buy at the organic section of the local supermarket. Those organic sections have become huge because of vegetarians. I AM PROUD OF THAT.
Instead of whining about how it is all bad and nothing is worth doing we support sustainable farming and pressured supermarkets to do the same. Others are working to stop argri business from exploiting workers. animals and the land mainly by our economic clout. Is anything even near perfect? Of course not. That is not the point of my choices. I just want to do the best I can.
I am just saying it is ethical to walk as far away from animal cruelty and toxic food production as you can get. It does have an impact - it is a good thing. I have cut down on the cost of eating when I gave up eating meat and dairy. Your use of the PC word “class” is inappropreate in the context which you use it.. We discussed the class issues in the previous thread. School lunch programs, etc require institutional change.
I am comfortable with my choices and everyday I get better. I am able to accept something that I could not do before. It is one of the few areas in my life that pleases me. I live with my cats and have to feed them meat, have to buy my mother meat but at least I am not consuming animals. You do the best you can. It is an evolution everyday. No one said we vegans are pure or totally clean — that is your argument and I think it is silly and worse. It ridicules the good that people can do.
Now THAT post is a wonderful display of privilege. Thank you, Virginia Ray, for so beautifully illustrating my point.
{applauds}
Badkitty: “Langsuyer - I think any of us who can pick and choose and refuse food based on moral principles is pretty damn privileged. This is one of most classist and ethnocentric threads I’ve ever read on Twisty’s blog.”
Hear hear!
Virginia Ray: “Others are working to stop argri business from exploiting workers. animals and the land mainly by our economic clout.”
Wow, about time someone just finally came out and said it, there’s no need for action by people like me. I’ll just get out of the way so the people with economic clout can do their good works. I just wish to fuck someone would use that to solve the human problems, not just the carrots and the Banty hens.
Being able to pick and choose what we eat based on moral principles is the result of privilege, therefore what?
We shouldn’t pick and choose?
I agree with Kate and Badkitty. I have worked for nearly three years with children from poor and working class families, run often by mothers who can barely make ends meet and sometimes cannot even feed their kids as much as is needed. These women cannot even support themselves and their kids nutritionally because healthy food, just fricking produce at a regular old grocery store, is WAY too expensive for these women to afford. The kids end up always eating processed crap and fast food because their parents simply do not have the time, money, or resources to even FATHOM to refuse to eat meat, or to buy organic, or what have you.
To expect everyone to do the same as you, VR, and then turn around and accuse them of not trying hard enough, is really ridiculous and really classist.
I think the best solution is for the prices to go a lot lower (and the accessibility to increase) on fresh produce and organic foods if we ever want to help those of working-class backgrounds eat more ethically. They can barely have ENOUGH to eat let alone eat ethically.
Gender, race, and class ALWAYS intersect in every single damned situation, and we cannot deny that.
The problem is that whenever prices for products go lower, you can bet that some workers in the fields are getting even more exploited and dehumanized. It’s a vicious fucking cycle because the capitalist white supremacist patriarchy is a system and it controlls everything.
What are we to do?
Laura
I am one of those people - that is the big laugh.
It was the same at the beginning of women’s liberation — You people come in and “work with us” and don’t ever respect us or our politics. I was a feminist organizer for 30 years and am poor because of it. I am on food stamps right now. I have made significant social change - for poor women. Started the second battered women’s shelter in the U.S. - won institutional change for rape victims and always worked sh-t jobs so I could do it. I guess you could say most of my life I was half in half out of the working class. About 1/3 of the time I was a professional because I was admitted to the professional world based on my community work. Now I am poor again.
BECAUSE of that community organizing work and because of my hard life, I made the link between cruelty to animals and all other types of violence including class violence.
It is pathetic I have to defend my ideas in this way. Who are you to make such judgements about me? Really, look in the mirror.
BTW, there is a new program for food stamp people by the USDA wherein you can get an extra 60.00 in stamps to buy vegetables at the farmers markets as long as the farmers are locally based. Spread the word. Other women here talked about being on WIN. Try to listen to poor women instead of talking about us to make your arguments.
Lara, prices paid to farmers can’t reasonably go lower on organic, if you want it to remain sustainable (i.e. not turn into Earthbound Farms, a gigantic, highly erosive, totally unsustainable corporation that has literally acres of baby greens). I think two huge structural changes are called for:
1. Shift subsidies from petroleum and big commodity farmers to small family farmers. The only reason processed food is so cheap is that the government has been subsidizing production since the 1970s by guaranteeing a minimum price; before that, excess crops were bought up and stored in case of shortages. Our policy rewards producing as much of a commodity crop as possible, and farmers often have to maximize production in order to keep their farms. Other countries (especially in Europe) subsidize small farmers to maintain pleasant countryside, traditional food, and ecological health. No reason we can’t do the same. Shifting subsidies means the same money goes to farmers, but less money is paid by individuals - so it’s sustainable and accessible.
2. A more equitable distribution of wealth so there’s less poverty and more people have more choices.
Wow, you’re really active for a woman who is 160 years old.
Also, North, word.
It’s interesting that so many people here think that just because an individual is vegan she is saying that everyone else has to be vegan rightnow. It’s kind of like saying, “I am an educated radical feminist, and everyone else should immediately become an educated radical feminist.” Although that sounds all nice and cheery, it’s completely unrealistic. Not everyone has access to education; plus learning about radical feminism - let alone core principles of feminism, and breaking out of roles of patriarachal complicity - can take years! The same thing goes for vegans. I think we all know that not everyone is in a position to make an immediate switch - their minds might not be in the right place for it (and their wallets may be holding too much sway over them, as may be mainstream ideas of what it means to be in pursuit of a “successful” life). But we sure as hell are going to lobby for it and share our knowledge, just like we want to lobby for a feminist knowledge and attitude among the people. All this about us being “higher than thou” and expecting people who are supposedly less privileged than us to immediately become radical feminist vegans is ridiculous. It’s a process.
And although it’s not irrelevant that some of the women who are vegan may or may not be privileged to some degree, I think it is safe to say that everyone involved in this discussion is quite privileged. Think about it - we are all individuals who have the time to read a radical feminist blog, a computer and internet access to get to it, and the education and brains (a privilege, mind you) to understand and discuss it. If that means that we have no right to espouse vegan diets, then it also means we have no right to suggest books to read (because on privileged people with time on their hands can afford to read books) and we shouldn’t criticize people in any position who do things to support the patriarchy. But that? That’s not something I can agree with.
Yes we have to stop subsidizing agri-business but local slaughterhouses will never get my vote. To make money from cattle you need to enlarge the herds and kill the babies - separate the mother from the child. There is no ideal life for animals raised to support their owners. The farmer’s child is taught to distance them self from compassion and empathy.
I would like to see organic fruits and vegetables subsidized - green houses built in the colder climates not just for the weather but to protect organics from genetically modified seed drift. I would like to see the government subsidize community gardens and greenhouses with security in urban centers. I would like to see govt subsidies for supermarkets with security in poor neighborhoods stocked with whole foods products.
We need nutritional education that is not funded by the meat and dairy industry (who write the curriculum for most nutrition programs, college and high school). I want to see the WIN/WICK programs expanded as they teach both nutrition and cooking to uneducated women and provide healthy food. I want the program expanded to include singe women. I want all benefits untied to reproduction so that poor women do not have to produce children in order to get assistance in this country. Because the production of children makes it harder to rise out of poverty so birth control and planned parent clinics are a part of the solution. But for women who do have children we need expanded Head Start programs that teach nutrition and not the kind of nutrition funded by the meat and dairy industry but the kind the Hollywood types get from their expensive trainers.
Most of all we need the school lunch programs to stop being a dumping ground for the subsidized products of agri-business and to start being an education in healthy life sustaining and energy producing eating. There is a whole foods woman doing this now I forget her name and it is in several high schools in this state. We need those football fields plowed so children can plant and grow the produce they eat in their cafeteria instead of playing silly games to seed the gambling industry.
So much is needed and can be delivered even right now.
But manifestation of what is needed means not using race, class and “privilege” to attack one another but instead turning our attention to producing what people actually need to live in harmony with this earth and the other species on it. This always starts with the self. Reduce cruelty and oppression in your own life while reaching out to others to reduce it in the world.
Twisty has done that. That is where we all started. This blog is one individual’s manifestation. See how powerful it has been.
This is a comment I wrote earlier that got stuck in moderation, I think because of all the links:
There are two important points that need to be brought up here. First, where is there required killing in your story here. None of your fertilizing and clearing out bugs requires killing. Second, and more important, it takes farmed plants to raise animals for meat.
OK. So I don’t want to be having a crazy blogwar here. I just think a lot of people don’t think through the ecological (not legal/rights) implications of what they eat. My partner works in the organic/local food movement, as do my parents, and I have done a certain amount of academic study of all this. AoT, I think you are wrong on both points above.
1. Clearing and plowing land kills creatures. It just does. You plow under the nests of ground-nesting birds, crush tunnels and burrows for ground-dwelling animals, and eliminate forest and grassland habitat for wild animals, which then die. Here’s an article about an endangered falcon species losing habitat to plowed land. Here’s another about genetically modified crops (which I’m not advocating for) that includes numbers about land (and habitat) cleared for crops and the damage done by plant agriculture to various species. Plowing land gets rid of wildflowers and the wild animals they support, gets rid of forest, leading to erosion, and is not a neutral choice.
2. It does not take farmed plants to raise animals for meat. Cattle and bison can graze on land that is not suitable for grain or vegetable farming because it lacks water or soil fertility. Pastured chickens can help prevent pests in organic farms by eating grubs that are not a usable human food. It goes on and on. Pastured animals at responsibly run, ecologically careful farms are net contributors to the health of the farm’s ecosystem. Polyface Farm, run by a really awesome, really conservative, really creative guy, has managed to improve the ecosystem on his land using several decades of animal husbandry.
Eating vegetative food means we only have to farm about one seventh the land area.
Mia, this would be accurate if all land had the same quality, but there’s a lot of land that can easily be used for animals that just won’t last under vegetable production, which is much more intensive. In other words, vegetable production there isn’t sustainable; in fact, for a vegetable/grain farm to be sustainable - to not need massive external inputs made from petroleum - you need manure to maintain soil fertility. (We could use human manure, but that’s not as effective ecologically because of the ways you can use animal behavior to keep an ecological balance on the land; also human manure is a lower quality input.)
You might also be interested in a recent study from Cornell, which argues that a low-meat diet (exactly what I’m arguing for) is most efficient in terms of land use.
How about this: oppressing the powerless (the right ones) can be good for the patriarchy. Not just a compromise, but a positive choice. To me, it all sounds frighteningly similar to arguments that have been made to justify the oppression of African Americans in slavery, women, and Native Americans. And a similar argument to that which is currently made to justify the use of torture.
I don’t really know what to say to this, other than that it’s a patently disingenuous argument aimed at making me feel bad about myself. As human beings, we can substantially rework our social arrangements. There are no laws of physics in the way of that. But we can’t rework ecology - we can only choose how we cooperate with it or fight it. If we want to eat, the nutrients that support our food have to come from somewhere, and so far the only two options we have are animals and petroleum.
I want to be extremely clear that I am not justifying or defending factory farming, which is torture and brutality to animals. I was a vegetarian for many years, and have started eating meat in large part to support farmers I know who are treating their animals with kindness and respect and for whom the pastured animals they raise are a crucial part of keeping their farm’s ecosystem healthy. I don’t see any value in comparing such people to genocidaires and torturers, nor in arguing that it is somehow anti-feminist to support them. I fully respect people who are vegetarian or vegan so as not to participate in the active killing of animals. I think it’s important to acknowledge that that choice has many consequences, only one of which is the stated goal, and that it is not the only dietary decision that can be made in good faith.
Hi VR
That’s awesome that you did all of that activist work, and it’s great that you devoted so much to helping other women out, but don’t ever take your experiences and make it look like any other poor woman who hasn’t done what you have done is not trying hard enough (if that’s what you meant).
You complained that I am making judgements about you, then you go off about how I don’t “listen to poor women.” Is that not a judgement itself too? I worked with these mothers every day for three years, I am not making some sort of cold scientific “observation” about them. I am only telling you what I have heard, from what the children and moms tell me, from what foods they talked about eating, or had access to. How does that constitute “not listening to poor women”?
What’s wrong with making some sort of judgement based off of what someone writes or says to you? Everyone makes judgements, there’s no way to avoid that. If anything, one has to make judgements based off of someone’s beliefs. And telling someone to “look in the mirror” is just really patronizing and I’ve heard it way too many times.
There are no farmer’s markets I know of that are even remotely close the area where I used to work (where these women live). How about we work on spreading knowlege about these farmer’s market food stamps you’re talking about? Hell, I never even knew about them, and a lot of the poor moms I worked with everyday didn’t know about them either.
And why do people keep adding a “u” in my name? It’s always the people that want to argue with me and always misjudge me that add a “u” in my name. It’s weird.
“It was the same at the beginning of women’s liberation — You people come in and “work with us” and don’t ever respect us or our politics.”
Who is “you people” and who is “us”? Who are you even talking about? Are you implying that feminists intruded on the lives of “real women” of all classes, races, etc? and never respected them??? Makes no sense, honestly.