Fuck you, PETA
I’m a vegetarian, I care about animal welfare but, call me crazy, I’m actually more worried about the oppression and abuse of women across the globe than I am about animals.
Not so for the delightful people at PETA.
The animal rights group have long used women’s bodies to try and get their message across, and this stunt has got to be the absolute worst I have seen.
There is a video here of the woman involved explaining what she is doing.
Now I get that naked women attract attention, but I really don’t think that it’s because passersby give a shit about mistreated pregnant sows.
See, what PETA don’t seem to get is that society as a whole couldn’t really care less about women’s welfare, so showing women in exploitative or abusive situations to try and encourage us to care about animal welfare really isn’t a very effective strategy. In fact, their imagery is often very similar to that found in some genres of porn, hardly well known for encouraging the viewer to empathise with the women involved.
And, surprise surprise, many of the comments on Perez Hilton’s post express disgust or amusement at the woman’s body. There is no empathy here, no recognition of either human or animal suffering, and certainly no desire to stop eating bacon sarnies.
Way to go, PETA.
Oh, wow, thought I’d finished this post and was searching for PETA photos in Flickr, and came across this mind-boggling stupid and offensive campaign:
55,000,000 animals killed a year for meat - how many women do you think are killed by male violence and oppression PETA? And do you give a shit? One of the comments under another photo in this set reads (in Spanish) ‘Now that’s the kind of meat I do eat!’
Well, at least he’s vegetarian, that’s clearly what matters here.
I find the images of dead and abused animals far more emotive and effective as campaign materials than the images of naked women:
Naked women, even dead ones, are stock images in our media; what shocks is not the alluded to mistreatment of animals, but PETA’s complete disregard for women.
Hat tip to Feministing.
Images by cool0zor,LiveU4 and ginieland, shared under a Creative Commons License.
Posted by Laura Woodhouse on 1 March 2008, at 1:04 PM | Comments (11)
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Denise said:
It's outrageous. I think they're actually copying an awful T-shirt I once saw on some website, which had a naked woman labelled as meat joint body parts. Exactly like this. Some women had complained about it and been labelled humourless feminazis (surprise surprise).
Yes, I too am much more worried about the oppression and abuse of women rather than animals, especially when I see crap like this. Sometimes I think animals have more rights!
Posted on 01 March 2008 at 3:31 PM
Virago said:
As a vegan I find PETA's campaigns tiresome, offensive and irritating. They're using exploitative images of women to try and get attention, and while they're successful it's not positive attention, it's unlikely to change anyone's mind and ultimately adds to the thousands of images of objectified women we see every day.
Why not use women (and men) in a thought provoking way by exploiting our obsession with celebrity to catch our eye - just as the 'Here's Your Fur Coat' campaign does - and use the shocking enough images of cruelty to animals without resorting to using naked women?
Veganism and feminism are very compatible - both are against the exploitation of living things for entirely abitrary reasons. It's a shame PETA decide to use such distasteful campaigns.
Posted on 01 March 2008 at 3:36 PM
Seph said:
I can't understand what the hell this campaign is attempting to acheive, without the writing they could be adverts for perfume or knickers or just about anything. It almost seems like they're trying the cliche advertisting technique of making guys go "oh look at the hot woman! maybe if I buy/do that i'll get to sleep with her!"
Posted on 02 March 2008 at 12:27 AM
Lara said:
Thanks for posting about this! I am so sick and tired of PETA, and the unfortunate thing is that while there are lots of vegans and vegetarians who still support PETA and criticize feminists for being "prude" or "not getting it" when it comes to these ads, PETA also gives the animal rights movement a VERY bad name.
That second image of the murdered nude woman in a bag just makes me shudder. Who are the freaking morons who run PETA?
Maybe their acronym should be changed to P atriarchal E xploiters of T its and A ss :P
Jackasses.
Posted on 02 March 2008 at 6:00 AM
Lucy said:
I think it is pretty obvious that these images are not about humanising animals and meat produce because the women used are sterotypically beautiful. They have specifically chosen women who are supposed to be sexually appealing to men and therefore the message is completely lost in the various cleveages, skinny bums and hollow thighs on display. Personally i find the woman packaged to be the most offensive because of the comments made by "Australia's most senior Muslim cleric" a few years ago saying women who didn't wear the hijab were "uncovered meat" and deserved trouble/sexual harrassment/attack.
Posted on 02 March 2008 at 9:43 PM
kelly g. said:
Denise, I can assure you that non-human animals don't have more rights than women; certainly not in the US or the UK, and probably not anywhere in the world. Their "property" status pretty much guarantees it:
This view categorizes animals as property; not as legal persons with rights, but as things that other legal persons exercise their rights in relation to. Current animal law therefore addresses the rights of the people who own animals, not the rights of the animals themselves. There are criminal laws against cruelty to animals; laws that regulate the keeping of animals in cities and on farms; laws regulating the transit of animals internationally, and governing quarantine and inspection provisions. These are designed to offer animals some protection from unnecessary physical harm and to regulate the use of animals as food, but they offer no civil rights to animals, who have a status similar to that of human slaves before abolition. American legal scholar Steven Wise writes in the Encyclopaedia Britannica that the failure to recognize individual rights makes animals "invisible to civil law." [Wiki]
Posted on 03 March 2008 at 11:16 PM
ah-Q said:
your photos are very moving
--interesting and thought provoking
Posted on 01 April 2008 at 5:30 PM
Natalie said:
Tbh it isn't just the oppression of women or violence to which they are subjected to in many a culture; what about children ffs? The people who work for these campaigns should be helping charities such as NSPCC rather than PETA. Animal cruelty is disgusting but I do not think it makes me a bad person if I have more love inside of me for humans; and consequently the welfare of them, especially children.
Posted on 21 April 2008 at 5:51 PM
Stacey said:
I absolutely LOVE hearing people support women and bring attention to the fact that we are exploited beyond belief! I support the cause PETA stands for, but naked women as advertisements of animal cruelty? Is our world is so pathetic that we need a naked woman to advertise something as unappealing as animal cruelty? What’s next, a sexy abortion?
Posted on 20 May 2008 at 4:37 AM
Justin said:
In my opinin PETA doesn't care about humans, they only care about animals. Its obviously wrong for humans to kill animals, but if a bear mauls a human its the humans fault. The food chain is part of life people will eat meat its out right. Somtimes i would like to see some PETA members mauled by bears to show them how the world works.
Posted on 19 June 2008 at 10:44 PM
Elizabeth said:
If PETA is trying to use the 'naked human body' formula get attention, or to make the audience think "how would we feel", or to shock us, WHY is it always a naked woman used? I'm sick of the fact that if ad companies have to use a naked/semi naked, sexualised body, it’s always female. Why is it never a male naked sexualised body? I'm so sick of the 'hot woman' formula being used to advertise everything from things obviously aimed at men (where you could almost understand why they are using that 'bait') to ads that are meant to be aimed at us women too. I strongly object to the default sexuality constantly being pandered to always being male, (like Seph said: it "almost seems like they're trying the cliche advertisting technique of making guys go "oh look at the hot woman! maybe if I buy/do that i'll get to sleep with her!". But this ad is meant to be aimed at both men and women surely? The issue of animal rights would have a large female audience. Imagine the outcry if the default sexuality used was female: ie using images of hot men, hot male body parts, young, tanned, male skin, bums, abs, biceps, beautiful males etc used in various ways to promote products/issues that are completely unrelated or are supposed to be used by both genders. Men would object I’m sure. There’s no thought for what it feels like to be a woman watching what feels like her own body constantly being the only subject of public scrutiny/titillation. Ad companies are just reinforcing the message that the female body is public property, that it’s right and completely normal for it to be so. Surely this belief leads to a thousand problems from the obsession for only beautiful female bodies to extremes of rape or murder. If advertising companies have to use nakedness/sexualisation why can’t they use men too? At least then the issue would be more one of the 'naked human body' rather than only womens' bodies being used. The constant use of only women in this role just reinforces the belief that it’s our role to be exposed, objectified and available and men's role to 'watch, desire, judge and take'.
Posted on 20 June 2008 at 12:46 AM