Animal Rights Community Online

[sunkanrags]

 What makes an AR demo?

[Dave_81]

To me, animal rights is the idea that animals are owed unconditional respect, not because of what they do, but rather simply because of what they are. It is about protecting animals in the integrity of their individuality.

[Ray P.]

No, this was not an Animal Rights demonstration. By any stretch. It was another em-"bare ass"-ment to us.

And very interesting site about Carol Adams. I will be reading the information there more thoroughly tomorrow.

Thank you, Sunkanrags. And thank you Dave for your statement. You are, of course, right on target with this reply.

[panthera]

This says to me, "objectifying animals is equivalent to objectifying women. Since you wouldn't do one, why would you do the other?" The question of course is whether the campaign actually does objectify women, in which case the whole thing is absurd. A lot of art functions in exactly this way: presenting a provocative question, all the while being subject to the irony of undermining its own message.

The message I see is "those cuts of meat you're used to seeing as 'things to buy and do with as you will,' as pieces of property -- are actually parts of what used to be a living, sentient being. You have no business reducing that being into an object, to be bought and sold for your own purposes." I guess it might have been better to have both men and women, since there is such a strong history of women being treated this way. However, I think that's part of the whole message - we used to do this, but we've progressed beyond that point. So much so that now it's offensive to see. So now let's progress beyond this point, so that in the future, "cuts of meat" will be equally offensive to see."

Whether or not the campaign was an effective one is another question. I'm also not addressing the fact that Peta is not an animal rights organization. But I would classify this as an animal rights campaign.

Still, I recall an earlier discussion about this subject making me think twice, so maybe I need to be reminded of those points.

[panthera]

rethinking things: I have to admit that having a woman walking around in a teasing manner, using her sexuality to draw attention to the issue at hand, is offensive. Maybe I'm thinking more of the Pornography of Meat cover and the "person in cellophane-wrapped meat tray" images. I was missing the way the whole issue is being advertised. That invalidates the message, so change my vote to "not an AR campaign."

[sunkanrags]

One interesting - and unsettling - thing about this event was some of the media coverage. First, I heard by chance a radio interview by the woman who was the focus of the event. The interviewer asked why she felt she had to go to such lengths, especially on a cold November day in Ireland - but then he said, "but here I am interviewing you - I'm answering my own question". He certainly implied that, were there no nudity involved, there would be no/less coverage. Whether nudity from a male would have been enough is unclear.

Secondly, it struck me that Ireland is a Catholic country, albeit that processes of secularisation are having an effect. So, I checked the group's www and that seemed to imply that they do not get a great deal of TV coverage. Now, that could be explained by the visual media's sensitivities to showing nudity when children may be watching news bulletins etc. It is interesting, then, because PeTA pride themselves on being fairly good manipulators of the mass media (an unwise boast at the best of times). However, international sociological data suggests that the vast majority of modern-day citizens get their news primarily or only from TV news. In this circumstance, then, the event seems to fail by its own standards.

Finally - when I posed the Q about whether this could be regarded as AR or not, I was primarily thinking of the claims-making associated with the event. The claims-making, it seems to me, was almost exclusively new welfarist in character. I suppose the question is - would clothed demonstrators making rights violations claims be sufficient to transform this sort of event into something representing genuine animal rights rather than rhetorical animal rights?

Rags.

[Dave_81]

[justin jackrabbit]

While I admire PETA's drive for provocation, I think it's a shame that they have to resort to exploiting sexist imagery to convey a non-speciesiest message. Two wrongs just don't add up to a right. It's pretty clear that PETA is frustrated with the slow gains of conventional AR tactics. Provocative yes, but I would loathe to see the rest of the AR movement follow this example.

An AR demo fundamantally works to draw attention specifically to non-humans, not naked women. This is not an AR demonstration.

[panthera]

I still have to think more about rags' question about whether taking away the sexist part of it would make it valid, but I wanted to respond to this:

[Dave_81]

[panthera]