Time to the poke the bear again. Figuratively of course, poking animals is not vegan. Which takes me to an aside. Have you noticed how many similes and metaphors involve animals? The aforementioned is just one of them. So easy to slip into our daily discourse. However, a discussion about unfriendly animal metaphors will have to wait for another day. Today, let’s just say I’m going to stir the pot. Throw firecrackers into the army fortress.
There are factions out there who are using sex to try and sell veganism and vegan ethics. I think this is misguided but also harmful to our long term efforts to be taken seriously. Whoring around for the animals is not effective. I’d argue that in fact it is counterproductive.
Let me see if I can’t give some examples. Miss Hannah Minx has a whole series of videos some of which I think are about veganism. It’s hard to tell, because they’re sooo distracting. She’s got some great view numbers but take a look at the comments. Are folks really picking up on the vegan message? I don’t think so.
No I’m not trying to pick on Minxy or whatever her name is, and even her name is telling. Just a quick dictionary search of minx and you’ll understand what I mean.
Now she’s not the only one of course and it’s not just an issue with women whoring themselves out for the vegan lifestyle. There are men doing it too. Showing off their great cut physiques thanks to the vegan diet and lifestyle. I just happened upon Minxy from a Google alert that I have on the word “vegan”.
Now the bigger problem in my opinion is the women who are selling sex for the vegan cause. Why? Because frankly, we don’t yet live in an equal world and women are still viewed and allow themselves to be viewed as objects of male desire, attention etc, etc. This blog is not about the sexual politics of meat, in fact that has been very well argued by Carol Adams already in her book The Sexual Politics of Meat which you can take a look at here.
Suffice it to say that women being the physical weaker sex are objectified as vehicles of men’s sexual desires. When a man is sexualized it is more often than not for his prowess and physical strength and stamina. The female is seen as docile and vulnerable while the male is dominant and powerful. This is the bigger problem in the sexualization of veganism by women. It does nothing other than to feed on the current mysoginistic and patriarchal undercurrents of our society. It does nothing to either elevate the status of women or of animals.
In fact, I’d argue that it debases them both into objects that are used to service the needs and wants of the patriarchal shitstem (system) that is in place.
We can pretend as bleeding heart liberals or (god forbid) blue blooded conservatives that our society is built on the very basis of sexual equality. But that’s sweeping the dirt under the rug rather than out the door. Take part in any “I’d rather go naked than wear fur” protest, or read the comments posted on the kinds of YouTube videos that I linked to above and you’ll see that the issue of veganism and of animal abolition is buried in the fog of testosterone laden sexual objectification.
Elisabetta Canalis would rather go naked than wear fur. And what are the comments mostly about… and this is on a blog with editorial control over blog commenting, so you won’t hear from Joe Dufus about how he’d tap that. No, but it is telling what the comments do say. They speak to her beauty and how Clooney was crazy to dump her.
This is the problem. What words do we have for women that are demeaning? Cow, pig, pussy, bitch etc, etc. Those are animal words. We debase women by comparing them to animals. Objectifying them like we do animals is not the road to animal abolition and veganism. It is the road to hell that is paved with good intentions.
Let us rather talk about the issues and get them in front of people rather than fogging up veganism with the opium of sexual politics.
Word,
Jason