...and that awful tirade about breastfeeding in public he came out with last week, one week after having Ingrid Newkirk on, telling us all how the raising of cattle is destroying the planet.

Ultimately, they can't see how their strategy turns off more people than it converts, because they essentially don't view those people - mothers, families, the great mass of people who live their lives in a complex network of caring for other human beings - as worthy of their notice. They've written us off.

I have a personal rule that if I leave a comment, and it exceeds three paragraphs, then it's begging to be made into a post.

As a feminist and PETA member since the 80s this post had me writing such an over-the-top comment.

So here's the resulting post. It is many more than three paragraphs.

One key point is the fact that associating paint throwing with PETA is buying into an unsubstantiated urban myth!

PS-I wish we supported trackbacks too, sorry.

Elisa Camahort
BlogHer
elisa@blogher.org

Much like the bra burning belief of the 70s, I really appreciate knowing that PeTA did not orchestrate throwing paint on women wearing coats. It is an urban myth that I will work to dispel.

It was also fnteresting to read that the myth started with Joan Rivers.

From an interview with
Ingrid Newkirk on the Blog Conversations with Famous Writers

This myth got a big boost when Joan Rivers had paint sprayed or thrown on her coat on a NY street and went on national shows saying "It was those Peta people." But we're good friends with Joan now (her daughter posed last year for our Naked series, and Joan was proudly at the unveiling of the poster) and she understands. The closest thing we've come to that, and it's a big stretch, was when one of our people jumped on the runway of a fashion show (something we routinely do) and held up his own paint covered red hands with the sign, "There's blood on your hands for killing animals." We urge people never, ever to let anyone in fur pass by, but that can mean ever-so-politely handing them one of our "Meet Your Fur Coat's Original Owner" cards or just saying "Please don't wear animal skins."

Now that we have dispelled that piece of urban legend, the point of this piece was hardly whether PeTA threw paint on fur, condoned throwing paint on fur or was happy when someone threw a pie in Anna Wintour's face.

The paint and fur issue is the least of the demeaning things PeTA does all in the name of animal rights.

A source I didn't quote in my original post because I thought I was getting very long winded comes from <Working For Change

PETA's treatment of women is more than a one-time error in judgment, and it's more than a trend. It's a clearly calculated campaign to stand out in a saturated media environment by appealing to the most prurient possible tastes. Consider:

# A television ad in which a woman is being beaten to death with a bat in a subway, with a man ripping off her fur coat, and the inscription: "What if you were killed for your coat?" The ad was pulled by PETA as "too violent in the wake of September 11," but it remained on PETA's web site.

# Another ad, this one print, with a blonde woman in an Uncle Sam outfit -- unbuttoned with cleavage showing -- and the inscription "I want YOU to go vegetarian." The woman, it turns out, is Playboy's Kimberly Hefner. The ad was distributed as a cutout poster in "Stars and Stripes," the newspaper of the nation's armed forces, distributed around the world to soldiers as they bomb away. PETA has praised the military's operations in Afghanistan, because its propagandistic food drops were, more or less inadvertently, vegan.

# Another ad, with another young, blonde woman in a come-hither centerfold pose and the bizarre inscription "Pleather Yourself."

# Another ad, featuring yet another young blonde woman, this time naked, in a classroom setting, only partly turned to the blackboard (underdeveloped cleavage showing) on which she is repeatedly writing "I'd rather go naked than wear fur." The model, it turns out, is Dominique Swain, star of Lolita, and a PETA press release touts her as "the youngest star ever to pose au natural for PETA's anti-fur campaign."

Oh, and that subway ad is still on the banned TV spots page hosted by PeTA.

In Elisa's post, she writes,

I would not agree that they particularly choose women to demean.

I would agree, however, that it's possible that the media enjoys spreading and propagating their campaigns that demean women in fur, more than they enjoy covering their campaigns that demean "reputable businessmen."

The media didn't create these ads and TV spots. PeTA did. And they did it because they know sex sells. Somewhere I thought that treating women as sexual objects to sell a product or cause was sexist.

elana
Blogher Contributing Editor,Business&CareersFunnyBusiness

I agree PETA makes the ads, however, how many people see a billboard vs. how many see coverage of same. I wouldn't know about ANY of these billboards/ads if I didn't see media coverage of them! I've never even seen them in real life.

Anyway, like I said in the part of my post you didn't quote, I'm torn about PETA's heavy reliance on sex as a marketing strategy. But I thought your repeated reference to an urban myth undermined the debate.

Your question in the very title of this post is whether one can be a feminist and support PETA's marketing strategies. Which is, I suppose, different from asking whether one can support PETA and its works.

Either way, I find myself thinking about porn. (There, I said it!) There are definitely some feminists who think one can't be a feminist unless one wants to eliminate/eradicate porn. I can't quite go there.

And I'm not quite ready to decide that the famous models and actresses who are using their beauty and image to promote their ideals in these PETA ads are being exploited exactly. Any more than they are when they do a nude scene in a movie and say it was artistically necessary. They may think this is politically necessary. And given that PETA is indeed the largest animal rights organizations out there, they may be right.

Elisa Camahort
BlogHer
elisa@blogher.org

Leather is one of the many, many products of cattle. When cattle are slaughtered, every part of the animal is used, from their meat for human and animal food, to their blood and bones for fertilizer, to their fat in manufacturing steel. As distasteful as killing animal for our use is, much research has gone into making slaughtering cattle as quick and calm for the animals as possible (for instance, Dr. Temple Grandin's work).

I don't think the same can be said for fur animals since many are wild-trapped which is cruel in itself, and as carnivores, most don't make good eating because their flavor is bad.

I just wanted to point out perhaps why PETA has focused on fur animals over leather. I am a longtime vegetarian myself and try to minimize my leather use (no leather purses or belts), though I do wear leather shoes because plastic feels soooo bad on my feet. We all have our choices and reasons.

Regarding leather...this from
The Dissident Voice

Not only is leather marketed as discrete from the slaughterhouse that makes it possible, it enjoys an enviable reputation for "cool." Shoes, boots, sneakers, skirts, pants, and the ubiquitous motorcycle jacket-no other fiber or
material can compete with the $1.5-billion-and-100-million-animal-skins-per-year U.S. leather industry.

One reason for an ever-expanding leather market is the fact that red meat consumption has dropped over the past 25 years. "Leather is not simply a slaughterhouse byproduct," says animal issues columnist Carla Bennett. "It's a booming industry and an important part of the slaughter trade, since skin accounts for approximately 50 percent of the total byproduct value of cattle." Leather is also made from slaughtered horses, sheep, lambs, goats, and pigs. Thus, the well-documented horrors of the slaughterhouse relate not only to what we eat but also to what we wear. "When dairy cows' production declines, for example, their skin is made into leather; the hides of their offspring, 'veal' calves, are made into high-priced calfskin," adds Bennett. "Thus, the economic success of the slaughterhouse (and the factory farm) is directly linked to the sale of leather goods."

And another point to ponder, much of our leather goods comes from leather manufacturered in other countires like Korea, India, China and Mexico -- countires that often have less stringent standards on how animals are treated than the U.S.

As far as exploiting women...I don't think that the actresses who volunteer to pose nude for an ad are being exploited themselves...but the message they send is one of exploitation.

Given that leather is actually as 'uncool" as fur, isn't it interesting that PeTA isn't aggressively getting in the face of people who wear leather? Instead they are encouraged to engage people wearing fur --that would be mainly women.

They continue to try to shame women for wearing fur --- when it really isn't any different than wearing leather. Or sleeping with a goose down comforter and on and on and on.

elana
Blogher Contributing Editor,Business&CareersFunnyBusiness

Awareness doesn't have to come all at once, and each step can lead to another. The fur campaign reminds me of the anti-littering campaigns of the early 60s - you first get people's attention about something obvious (animals caught in traps, or trash along the highway) and then it is easier for them to make the connection to other issues (animal suffering in general, conservation).

There was a time when, even as a vegetarian, I wouldn't have thought a thing about buying a down comforter or feather pillows. Now I choose alternatives. The changes in my life are incremental and continue. Absolute purity is not possible, so we make the changes we can live with at the time.

Creating rules about "is one a good feminist if..." is one of the reasons feminism has lost relevance and power as a social movement. Of course a pro-women, pro-queer, pro-child sensibility is still necessary in the social dialog, but "feminism" too often gets sidetracked on inconsequential battles and single-issue silo vision or sidetracked into defining the feminist viewpoint instead of allowing it to evolve (which would create much-needed momentum).

PETA targets fur not because women wear fur, but because it is much more visual depiction of the use of animals than is a belt, and because fur is a powerful cultural symbol of privilege and the exploitive nature of a "fashion industry." They're smart, not sexist.

I agree with you about creating rules and I stand guilty as charged. I'm not sure what I should call it but I am offended at the sexist nature of PeTA's marketing Maybe I am too skeptical but I believe they absolutely and with intention focused on fur first because women primarily wear it and they are an easy target.

I also do not believe they would advise members to get in the face of people wearing fur if men wore fur.

And I stand by my viewpoint that they are using "sex" to sell their point of view -- I personally find that offensive and sexist.

elana
Blogher Contributing Editor,Business&CareersFunnyBusiness

7 Things You Didn't Know About PeTA

1. PeTA has stated repeatedly that their goal is "total animal liberation." This means no pets, no meat, no milk, no zoos, no circuses, no fishing, no hunting, no farming, no leather, and no animal testing for lifesaving medicines.
2. PeTA has given tens of thousands of dollars to convicted arsonists and other violent criminals.
3. PeTA funds the misnamed Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine an animal-rights organization that presents itself as an unbiased source for nutritional information and has links to violent animal-rights groups called SHAC and ALF.
4. PeTA has used their contributors tax-exempt donations to fund the North American Earth Liberation front and the Animal Liberation Front, FBI-certified domestic terrorist groups responsible for fire bombs and death threats.
5. PeTA regularly targets kids as early as elementary school with anti-meat and anti-milk propaganda. They are totally opposed to traditional farming methods.
6. PeTA spends less than one percent of its $13 million budget actually caring for animals. PeTA kills animals.
7. PeTA has repeatedly attacked groups like the March of Dimes, the Pediatric AIDS Foundation, and the American Cancer Society, for conducting animal testing to find cures for birth defects and life-threatening diseases.
source: www.consumerfreedom.com

Further info available at www.naiaonline.org

I have been told when I was younger I was over sensitive, so maybe my perception of this is a bit extreme. If I were a young boy or girl and saw one of these phamplets, I'd have the s**t scared out of me. Perhaps even literally.

It's psychologically raping kids. It's not healthy to tell kids their parents are murderers, maybe PETA thinks that saying they'll come after kitties and doggies is cute. However, for most children, it's a quick hop and a skip to them thinking their parents might turn and murder them. After all they're "hooked" on killing right?

I say PETA should set up a foundation for funds, to pay to all the families who will now have to send their child to a psychologist to straighten them out after the truma of reading one of these informative pamphlets.

Of course, first PETA would have to realize human beings aren't all monsters, that they have feelings and compassion themselves, even if they do eat meat. I doubt that will happen anytime soon. PETA is a cult, and who is easier to recruit to a cult than children? Shock puts someone into a state where they will be open to accepting whatever is told to them.

Perhaps PETA never heard of the concept, that you discuss things with children at the age level they are able to accept it. Using terms like mommy, daddy, kitty, and doggie, don't make a message that parents are uncontrollable murderers any more age appropriate. Terrorizing children is unethical, anyway you put it.

FIrst, thanks for posting this, Elana. It prompted me to finish a piece that's been sitting in my drafts folder for weeks:
Dear PETA, women are animals too...

In keeping with Elisa's wise "3+par = a post" rule, I defer most of my thoughts to my open letter to PETA.

I did take a quick look at the paint thing, however, and I am still unconvinced that PETA does not endorse throwing paint and related destruction of property. In a recent incident in the UK, anti-fur activists - all of whom are identified as PETA members in multiple articles - did the usual red paint thing. PETA is trumpeting the actions with linkage on their media page, with nary a disclaimer about whether those are, in fact, PETA members doing a PETA endorsed action

You may argue that this still doesn't mean PETA sanctioned or encouraged them, but I am going with the logic that if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, says it's a duck and the duck organization posts the ducky articles in their press section; it's pretty much a duck. The rest of the noise is simply plausible deniablity. (And it is exactly like when Operation Rescue says they don't endorse bombing clinics or killing doctors yet lionize those who do - except nobody has died at a PETA protest yet.)

As for the initial question: can you be a feminist and support PETA's marketing? Sure. There are a lot of people who call themselves feminists and still support the use of naked women to sell consumer goods. I'm not going to tell them they aren't feminists, I'll just point out that they have a different definition of the term than I do. Maybe if they read "...women are people too." enough times they will decide that both kinds of people ought to be able to wear the blood-spattered tshirt for the cause and keep it on, not take it off, take it off, take it off!

~kitchenMage

kitchenMage
kitchenMage's Herb Garden
A Year in Bread
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