“Speciesism is defined as the oppression of one species by another”, says Greta in her Ecofeminism on the Wings: Perspectives on Human-Animal Relations. As per her perspective, speciesism, sexism, classism, racism are all the same with different names. In her article she mentioned Marion Young’s perspective of non-human oppression by defining five conditions, exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, cultural imperialism and violence that he believe is experienced by non- human animals. On the other hand, in Contextual Moral Vegetarianism by Deane Curtin, sees our relation with non-human animals as vegetarianism or more specifically moral vegetarianism.
Women and animals are both being oppressed by patriarchal society and that also, in terms of body. As Curtin talked about the expectations of body shape from women by patriarchal society, I believe that these same patriarchal societies have expectations of body mass from animals too. In our societies, women are expected to have what we call “zero figure”. People especially men see women’s body. Slimmer a woman the more beautiful she’d be. Similarly, the more mass the more meat. And so industries are after giving steroids injections to produce more meat and milk despite the fact that the meat and milk which is produce artificially is the one they’ll get effected from.
As read in an article by Zoe Eisenberg, she beautifully compared the foods seen as gender specific. Meat for man and vegetable for woman. Term vegetable is also used as connotation for women as described in Curtin’s article, ” Don’t watch so much TV! you’ll turn into vegetable”.
Young Woman Cooking in the kitchen. Healthy Food – Vegetable Salad. Diet. Dieting Concept. Healthy Lifestyle. Cooking At Home. Prepare Food
Based on this concept I choose this image above which clearly explains that women are linked with vegetable diets in order to live healthy life style. And men on the other hand is linked with meat. As you can see from the picture bellow, these men are having food that contain meat only. I can say that because the men in this image is my country’s politicians.
Moreover, the image bellow is the comparison of food between different food choices by men and women. Men eat meat as evident from the image however, women eats chocolate. It’s also said that the chocolates are for women and men don’t eat chocolate because that’s too girly.
Furthermore, when talking about keeping animals, having pets isn’t wrong according to me. From my perspective, keeping pets is good for them too. Rather than roaming in streets and having unhealthy stuff it’s better to have a home, being pampered and have healthy diet. Yes no one can ignore the fact that their integrity is being hurt because they cannot live according to their own rules but can you do both? Can you not hurt their integrity and also care for them simultaneously?. I think it is better than being told how to live and make pets learn the way human live rather than being raised and slaughter. I really feel bad after knowing that one of my friend keep and raise goats for months, give them food, shelter but in the end they kill them for the meat. How can you kill an animal after keeping them as a pet? So cruel for human being.
So as far as non-human animal and human relation is concerned both women and animal are being oppressed by patriarchal society especially men. And then the stereotype of men linked with meat eating is also displayed in the picture which shows a man slaughtering meat. You can see in the picture that the guy has one leg on the cutting board, from this I perceive that the guy is showing authority over the meat, as if he has the authority to kill animal for that meat and it is him that can consume the meat.
I would end my blog by coating from Greta, “… pets are offered room and board, and the possibility of affection. If the situation were offered to humans, we’d call it slavery”. She hope that one day non-human animals can live freely, but I think it cannot be achieved. No matter how much we aware people of non-human animal rights, not all of them but most of the people will not quit eating animal food. They simply don’t care enough. But your opinion can be different from mine and if they are, I’d be happy to know about your opinions.
Hi Afreen! I wanted to talk about how in your post, you talk about the article by Greta and her concerns about whether or not keeping animals as pets is ethical. In your post, you say, “having pets isn’t wrong according to me. From my perspective, keeping pets is good for them too. Rather than roaming in streets and having unhealthy stuff it’s better to have a home, being pampered and have a healthy diet.” and I too believe it is ethical to keep pets, but only if the owner takes care of them, does not neglect, them, and it is a domesticated pet such as a dog or cat, and not an animal like a tiger or panda (would be cool though). I would also like to touch on the last quote form Greta you talked about and said “… pets are offered room and board, and the possibility of affection. If the situation were offered to humans, we’d call it slavery”. She hopes that one-day non-human animals can live freely, but I think it cannot be achieved.” I also believe that this cannot be achieved because if all domesticated animals were able to freely roam around and not be considered “slaves” to us humans, we would have many more cases of animal abuse, animal death, and animal neglect such a starving and being hit by cars. Overall, I believe the human-pet interaction that we have domesticated over the centuries is a good thing for both humans and animals because it allows us to connect with another species on an intimate level by living with them and caring for them, rather than just killing them for food/fur.
It brought a lot to my attention when Greta broke down the five forms of oppression that nonhuman animals face because of humans. Nonhuman animals are so pure and innocent it is a shame they lose so much of their integrity because of our actions. I didn’t even know that there were all these different forms of oppression so it did really open my eye to the harm and damage we do to nonhuman animals that we share the Earth with. Ecofeminists see the relationship between women and nonhuman animals and how they share similar oppression from the patriarchal system. As we read about women being referred to as animal names such as cows, pigs, bird brains and so on, this is just one way that shows the relationship. We also see a similar connection with gendered foods such as women with vegetables and men with meat. We see that this connotation is negative towards women yet positive towards men. When someone is being described as a vegetable they are most likely being called stupid. Yet when a man is being thought of in terms of meat–it means they are more masculine if they are eating meat. You make a good point when talking about the bodies of women as well as animals, they both seem to be often criticized by men. Most men would consider a woman to be beautiful if she has a certain body type and we can say they think a piece of meat is more beautiful depending on how plump the animal was. I also agree with you that having a pet can be a good thing, I know I consider my chihuahua to be like my baby and try my best to give her an amazing life. Yet we can also see how their integrity is lost because as their owners we control how they live their lives. In the end I believe it is important we treat all animals with as much respect as we can. I also agree that it is very unlikely that animals will ever be able to live freely unless the human population one day becomes extinct. There will always be people who work on farms, people who hunt animals for food and especially keep animals as pets.
Afreen, you’re a really great writer! The opening of your blog really caught my attention, while bringing together all the main points of your discussion. Props on that, not everyone has that ability. I had never thought of the connection between the patriarchal system’s expectations of a women’s body and of an animal’s body. Your explanation of this really puts things into perspective. The produce and dairy industry creates this ‘door’ for animals to be treated as objects, with steroid injection and over feeding them to create more meat they are very much objectified. This whole thing reminds me of how escort services often work in our society. Men will quite literally ‘order’ the type of woman they want for the evening and pay big bucks for that women. This is practically the definition of objectification. And spotting the difference between the treatment of these women and animals isn’t exactly easy, because there is no difference. Awesome job at bringing this aspect of the discussion to the surface. I loved both the photos you displayed to show the gendered foods, it seems that despite the country there seems to always be meat eating men in power, with all the control. As I often say, the problems with our country stem from problems around the whole world; the idea that a patriarchal system is what works best. I’m not seeing things working too well, maybe we should try a system where women have more of a say, if not all of it. In regard to your closing thoughts, I agree with you. I don’t think we’ll ever see a society where people don’t eat meat or have pets. Personally, I see where the connection between pets and slaves is, but I don’t see it as that serious. I have a dog, I’ve had many dogs and they’ve all been very happy pets, living their best life being loved by their humans. Yes, we control what they do, but sometimes that’s for the best. My puppy right now loves to eat every hair elastic she can get ahold of. I prevent her from doing so, this isn’t hurting her it prevents her from eating something that has the potential to hurt her. I don’t think I could ever believe that pets should just be free. Great post this week! Keep up the good work!!