That Which We Call a Feminist by Any Other Name...

WORDS MATTER

My completed PETA crossword puzzle. I got them all. (Yay!)

The first principle of a free society is an untrammeled flow of words in an open forum.
~Adlai E. Stevenson

   First of all, I need to pre-emptively admit that there are some things I need to sort out before I tackle untangling today's readings. First of all, don't worry, I'm not going to preach any defense of  feminism, itself, head-on here unless it applies specifically to animal issues. I can always leave that for later. 

         This is the reason why--- words matter. Rather, I could say that titles matter. Gross over-generalizations and assumptions are a fact of life. With that in mind, and for what it is worth, I want to really look at all the different individual opinions of animal worth and inherent rights with a completely open mind. Hopefully, you can journey along with me. Now, I know that calling one's self a feminist is just begging for someone to find you abrasive and to put people off, and the last thing I want to do is create a divide between you and I, dear reader. We're on the same team, remember? This is just an open forum for discussion.

I pulled this off of a feminists for animal rights web site. Is this what you imagine when you think of a feminist--militant Rosie the Riveter? I assure you, many of us are lovers--- not fighters.  

"Boundaries involve knowing who one is and who one is not." (397)

         After all, one of the main features of disregarding and distancing one's self from others (be it based on race, gender, religion, species, or whatever) is to create said boundaries, and create the ominous "other." I'm not saying as Derrida did, that there's:

" a war being waged, the unequal forces of which could one day be reversed, between those who violate not only animal life but even and also this sentiment of compassion and, on the other hand, those who appeal to an irrefutable testimony to this pity."

I leave the confrontational methods to my peers and to those who came before me, such as this lovely young lady, who was mentioned in the reading:

Anna Kingsford--- an advocate to the anti-vivisection cause who was accused of being "hysterical" in her time. (That would be the mental term, not the sense of humor, friends.) She quoted Derrida's sentiment.

Still, "impartial or misleading characterization of an issue can make it seem obdurate, unresolvable." There needs to be some kind of improvement. I can accept small steps rather than all-encompassing broad philosophies. 

Now, to be honest,  I should tell you that I'm guilty of abusing rhetoric as a self-centered specieist. That's part of the problem. If you need someone to tell you so, just look at ......

However, I admit it I do it. I didn't say I am proud, but I've been know to refer to particular men as dogs:

Which is completely unfair... to dogs. Now, you may laugh, but this is literally how I imagine my best friend, Jack, interacting with girls. He is that dog. However, Jack is as loyal and innocuous as a puppy, too, so he's also as endearing as one.

Now, I joke about misconceptions of animals, neatly pigeon-holing them into ideals and values manifest in flesh rather than seeing them as individual beings.

Still, it's how we jumble human and animals together, and how each comes out in the hierarchy and pecking order that begs the question of how caring humans are here. I'm not saying any of these are true, but as the misinterpretations go: Pigs are dirty. Cows are fat. Old horses are uncooperative. Female dogs are, well, you know, the "B" word. The list goes on and on.

In my nod to feminism, for all of you who ask "why buy the cow when
you can get the milk for free," I say this.


Look at the words in the bingo chart. Now, this was actually used as a learning tool for children, but think about how these terms are used in the popular vernacular. How many have you used to refer to people? I know I had a friend named David back in high school known as the "Italian Stallion." I've called my guy friends studs before. Moreover, I'll be the first to tell you that when I get the anger-munchies, hunger is "stalking me like a lioness." However, think about how many sex-related words there are. (You can use bunny, and C-U-Next-Tuesday.) There's a lot, right? What does that say about our relationship with animals? In some ways, it helps identify with them, admitting our baser levels, but what if that's all that it is? That's not good either. And now I apologize that I've apparently brought up sex a lot today. My bad.

"Whatever words we utter should be chosen with care for people will hear them and be influenced by them for good or ill." ~Buddha

Think about it. Do you use "she" to describe all prey animals? (393( (I know that my Papa did, and I used to drive him crazy correcting him when I was little. I didn't really think about what implications that had until now.) How many hold negative connotations? This could be likened to the new ads about abusing the word "retard" or "gay" to talk about something negative. I tend to agree, abusing words somehow does probably perpetuate the bad behavior and ingrain some sense of social acceptance associated with it.

Now, in Adams' "Caring About Suffering: A Feminist Exploration," I have to really back away from my platform and start analyzing just how abrasive some of her sentiments are. For one, many of the generalizations she makes about men and women are just that--- generalizations--- and more than that, they are mostly remarkable in a very specific context. In this case, that would be the media. She talks about the porn industry's dehumanization and degradation of women.  I can agree in some cases, though there are some facts being disregarded here; however, that's a different topic. She cites how women have been depicted as "bitches in heat" who cannot control themselves, that we are constantly being bombarded with the propaganda that "what women have to sell, what we are, what we are valued for" is sex. This selection even goes as far as to indicate that women are we victimized by birthright. (395)

I don't know if I necessarily agree here. I mean, I know that media is a tool that can create more harm than good. I know that they often depict things unjustly and commodify living things. Whatever. Still, I don't know if that is art imitating life or art imitating life, you know? Is that disconnect people's actual opinion of women or certain races or animals or is that disconnect a by-product of the media? I know that if any of my brothers had ever referred to women the way that Adams mentions, I would be horrified. I've never heard a decent person say those things, at least not out loud, and certainly not to my face. But I digress. What I really want to focus on is this idea of the ability to feel sympathy and care. After all, when I was called names in my younger days and when boys would say things that they shouldn't about me, my brothers did suffer along with me. (At least one of the three did. The other two went into "beat some respect into that kid" mode.) Ironically enough, that's also the brother who watches my cats for me now that I've moved to Austin. My point is that I don't buy too much into the idea that "suffering is distinctly feminine," nor the ability to care unique to women. I give you gentleman more credit than that. Please prove me right.

Real men cry. I've seen it. This is what my brother looks like when he watches "Old Yeller" or "A Walk to Remember." Don't let him tell you any differently. So you can't tell me that he doesn't feel for dogs... or.... Mandy Moor.

Moving on, I think the point I want to make is that I'm still trying to figure out what kind of caring I am comfortable with. "Submission to authority requires... objectification [of feelings]."  To live in a society where meat-eating and human dominance are a reality, people apparently become afraid to care. I'm not saying that that is my issue, but it's a fair argument. As an overarching idea, people don't like to feel anything, especially anything uncomfortable, and as an individual who is as unconfrontational as they come, I can recognize these qualities in myself. Dealing with things that we do not relate to, thus creating anxiety or negative feelings, becomes an issue.

"If feelings were not objectified, we might have developed the ability to interact with the fear, to respect it and the being who is causing it, rather than try to destroy both the feeling and the being."

In this instance, the author was discussing human fear of animals, but I think it goes without saying that this is a fair statement to encompass many facets of life.

But realistic or not, that does not answer the question of what is "right." If we kill each other, if we kill animals-- all signs point to the fact that we are an uncivilized society. However, I must ask if being "civilized" is paramount here? I guess it depends on how one defines being civilized. The connotations I always associate with it are very human, law, order, crime, punishment, (wow, somehow I can string books and tv shows together in a very cliche way) but ultimately something akin to Kohlberg's idea, and perhaps I'm going out on a feminist ledge with this one here, but I have to say I'm leaning towards Carol Gilligan's idea of the capacity for caring (and acting upon that.)

  In In a Different Voice (1982) -

"a women's conception of morality that is concerned with the activity of care... responsibility and relationships as opposed to men's conception of morality as fairness, which is more concerned with rights and rules." (358) *The Feminist Care Tradition in Animal Ethics

"morality of responsibility" vs. "morality of rights"

Martha Nussbaum, however, adds something that I don't necessarily find mutually exclusive, a "capabilities approach...  "The emotion of compassion involves the thought that another creature is suffering significantly, and is not (or not mostly) to blame for that suffering. It does not involve the thought that someone is to blame for that suffering." (363)

Developing (or redeveloping) Your Sympathetic Intellectual Capacities (379)

    As my last and final point, I think that I need to look at Nussbaum's idea here. Blame does not affect whether something is right or wrong. Moreover, one of the most interesting applications of sympathy I saw was imagining one's self physically as whatever animal individual  you are trying to relate to. 

"As one becomes more and more familiar with the organism and its behavior, one becomes fully sensitive to the particular way it is living out its life cycle... The final culmination of this process is the achievement of a genuine understanding of its point of view and .... and ability to "take" that point of view." (380)

My favorite aspects of this article in particular is the acknowledgment that "animals express pain differently"  and "show unique pain behavior. It just doesn't happen to be human pain behavior." 

I am really interested in the hippy-dippy ideas of energy balancing and communication in that medium. Just go with me here. Just go with me here. I'm not saying that you have to agree, but this argument, which really transcends the whole (non-satient/non-communicative) issue would free up the argument that humans can have a real, intimate relationship with animals as individual beings. It's "feeling" another and from what I've heard, "feeling" another in a way that would theoretically be the closest form to compassion, sympathy, and unity that there is. Just a thought. 

Women's alliance with animal rights. 

Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with deeper meaning. ~Maya Angelou 

A good read. Look into it.

Grant that my words may be sweet, for surely someday I will have to eat them. However, for now, I stand by them. 

Oh, and as an added bonus, I'm going to inform/hopefully not be judgmental by sharing this email I just got from my mom less than 15 minutes ago (because she loves me and worries). Moreover, I'm about 95% sure that she did not send this to my brothers. Obviously, she believes that females (i.e. "moi") are the ones who would be preyed upon and duped into bad situations because of their love of helping those in need (also known as morality entrenched in the care principle). Yay emotional maturity--- you make me vulnerable!

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