that their reproductive organs can be One of the basic tenets of the animal exploited, many believe that the original liberation movement is that there is no point of patriarchy was to control the moral difference between human and reproductive systems of women. non-human animals. If something ought not be done to humans, then it ought • Sex Tourism not be done to animals. And vice-versa. SPECIESISM If we are serious about animal liberation, Nobody likes to talk about it, but it’s then we must work for the liberation of true. Right now, in many impoverished all animals, human and non-human. If & SEXISM countries and even here in the United we are serious about feminism, then States, women and children are literally we must shun speciesism just as we enslaved by the sex industry. The shun sexism. customers — the men who knowingly impose sex on girls, boys, and women who are not free to say no — men who sometimes travel to other cities or For more ideas and information about foreign countries solely in order to be these intersections, read the work of able to do so — are almost exclusively Carol Adams, Greta Gaard, pattrice jones, from the United States and other and Marti Kheel. Online sources include wealthy countries. Locked up and raped the Feminists for Animal Rights website, daily, these women and children suffer the Intersections section of the Eastern unspeakable physical and emotional Shore Sanctuary website, and pattrice trauma. Like the hens in egg factories, jones’ blog, SuperWeed. many are murdered when their bodies have become so exhausted by the abuse that it is no longer profitable to This piece was reprinted with permission maintain them. from the author, pattrice jones. pattrice is the cofounder of Vine Sanctaury (formerly Eastern Shore Sanctuary). For more of her essays on this topic, see vine.bravebirds.org. 317 West 48th Street, Minneapolis, MN 55419 612.822.6161 • www.animalrightscoalition.com regard for their own wishes or subjective global public health emergency of the WHAT’S THE CONNECTION? experiences. The same attitude highest order. Here in the United States, The drug Premarin is made from the urine of pregnant horses. Mares are cruelly underlies a host of abusive practices partner violence is the number one confined and subjected to invasive procedures throughout their pregnancy only to toward animals, ranging from circuses reason women visit the emergency room have their colts taken away from them after birth. This perversion of the reproductive to factory farming. Animals are raped and at least two out of every ten cycles of female horses produces a harmful drug that is marketed to women by too, sometimes for the pleasure of the pregnant women are beaten by their convincing them that their own natural reproductive cycles are abnormal signs of male human rapist but more often to male partners. Very often, domestic sickness. Marketed as a cure for menopause, Premarin hurts both female horses control their reproduction so that violence includes abuse of companion and female humans in order to provide profits for a pharmaceutical corporation. corporations can have the pleasure animals as a way to frighten, traumatize, This intersection of the oppression of women and the oppression of animals is of profits. or control women. Many women remain not unique. Women and animals, along with land and children, have historically been seen in dangerous households because as the property of male heads of households. Patriarchy (male control of political and • Cockfighting battered women’s shelters do not accept family life) and pastoralism (animalherding as a way of life) appeared on the historical animals and they are afraid of what will Sex role stereotypes hurt both human and stage together and cannot be separated, because they are justified and perpetuated by happen to their animal companions if non-human animals. In cockfighting, the same ideologies and practices. they leave them alone with the abuser. the natural behavior of roosters (who will Both women and animals have historically been considered less intelligent and closer to No one knows how many companion fight to the death to protect the flock nature than men. Tactics like objectification, ridicule, and control of reproduction have animals have been killed by domestic from predators) is perverted in order to been and continue to be used to control and exploit both women and animals. abusers or how many women are dead force them to act out human ideas about because they stayed to protect a masculinity. The birds are traumatized companion animal. Here are a few of the current symptoms of the and then deliberately placed in harm’s way sick intersection of speciesism and sexism: so that their handlers can feel like big • Eggs men. They die in stylized spectacles of Can any of us imagine the life of acceleration in the onset of menses in masculinity that have nothing to do with • Milk battery hens — birds! — crowded into girls and are also correlated with breast natural bird behavior and everything to cages without enough room to spread Milk may be defined as the exploitation cancer in women. Thus the mammary do with human ideas about gender. their wings or lie down comfortably... of the reproductive capacities of the glands of cows are exploited in order to Meanwhile, human boys are also unable to nest or spend time with cow in order to produce profits for the produce a product that harms the traumatized in order to make them roosters or lay their eggs in privacy... dairy industry. Cows are forcibly and mammary glands of women. conform to cultural ideas of masculinity. repeatedly impregnated so that their Those who do not may find themselves the tips of their beaks burned off so bodies will produce the milk intended to “gay bashed” to death. that they don’t peck themselves or • Rape sustain their calves. People then steal each other to death out of frustration both the milk and the calves. The cows One out of every three women is • Domestic Violence and misery? And why? So that suffer painful physical ailments, such as sexually assaulted in her lifetime — one corporations can profit from the fruits Domestic violence is one way that men mastitis, as well as the emotional in four before the age of 18. Experts of their reproductive systems: their maintain control of the women, children, distress of having their children and agree that rape is about power, not sex. precious eggs. Control of reproduction and animals in their households. The their own freedom torn away from Rape puts into action the idea that is one of the foundations of both World Health Organization has identified them. Meanwhile, milk products are women and children are objects that speciesism and sexism. Indeed, just as domestic violence against women as a responsible for an unhealthy can be used for pleasure without the hens are oppressed specifically so.