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as commodities, their bodies turned into food COW, CUNT, CRIP: TOWARD and goods. In the ad, Anderson presents herselfTOWARD as CRIP: CUNT, COW, : cows or pigs for consumption. As an A TRANSSPECIES, insult, “cow” is typically wielded against women, TRANSSPECIES, A used to describe them as fat and taking up space.3 ANTI-ABLEIST FEMINISM To be a pig is also to be greedy or overindulgent.FEMINISM ANTI-ABLEIST More and worse animal insults are lodged against people of color.4 Of course, Anderson is not a cow Watlington in any sense of the word: she has come to represent the pinnacle of normative beauty standards as a tan, thin, white, blonde woman with large breasts Fig. 1 in a PETA ad made in 2010. who starred in Baywatch and worked as a Playboy Courtesy of PETA. Playmate. Feminists have analogized their own In July of 2010 Pamela Anderson was set to debut 1 Josée Rochefort quoted objectification to that of meat, refusing to be con- a billboard in Montreal, which she had made in in “Pamela Anderson PETA sidered mere flesh for consumption and domination, Plan Denied,” Hollywood Re- collaboration with People for the Ethical Treatment rather than sentient subjects.5 But why should porter, July 15, 2010, https:// of Animals (PETA). It read ALL ANIMALS HAVE www.hollywoodreporter.com/ animals, who are also sentient subjects, be treated THE SAME PARTS and HAVE A HEART, GO news/pamela-anderson- like “meat”? VEGETARIAN (Fig. 1). A photograph of Anderson’s peta-plan-denied-25521. Anderson’s gesture asserts that she is an animal, bikini-clad body was outlined and sectioned as if 2 Dan Mathews quoted in and that’s not a bad thing. “What if instead of “Pamela Anderson’s Nearly in preparation for the butcher, labeled “rump,” Naked PETA Ad Banned in demeaning us,” asks disability and “ribs,” “breast,” etc. But while Anderson was in Canada,” US Magazine, July 15, activist Sunaura Taylor, “claiming animality could town for the ad’s premiere, the Canadian govern- 2010, https://www.usmagazine. be a way of challenging the violence of animaliza- ment announced that it would not grant PETA a com/celebrity-body/news/ tion and of —of recognizing that animal pamela-anderson-blocked- https://doi.org/10.1162/thld_a_00720 6 permit to display the billboard. They claimed the from-montreal-event-for-sex- liberation is entangled with our own?” Of seeing work to be degrading to women: it equated us ist-ad-2010157/. how, under capitalism, many different bodies with animals and commodities. Josée Rochefort of 3 See Dana Rosati, “Map- are abused, commodified, and consumed? Taylor the Montreal Film and TV Commission justified ping Milk: The Paradigm of eloquently asks, “How do those of us who have Objectification of the Female her refusal by stating that the ad “goes against all been negatively compared to nonhuman animals Body, from Bovine to Human,” principles public organizations are fighting for in Animal Instances, Spring assert our value as beings without either implying the everlasting battle of equality between men and 2018, https://animalinstances. human superiority or denying our very own women … we, as public officials representing a com/mapping-milk-the- animality?” which, I argue, Anderson achieved— municipal government, cannot endorse this image paradigm-of-objectification- yet it was misread by Canadian officials under of-the-female-body-from- 1 7 of Ms. Anderson.” PETA’s Senior Vice President bovine-to-human/. the rhetoric of a speciesist feminism. Dan Mathews retorted that “city officials are … 4 See Taylor, Beasts of Anderson sells the image of her female body confusing ‘sexy’ with ‘sexist,’” echoing decades-old Burden: Animal and Disability in order to claim solidarity with animals whose debates about the feminist ethics of pornographic Liberation (New York: bodies, like hers, are commodities. Her decision The New Press, 2017), 110. images, and whether their existence reinforces 5 See Carol Adams, The could be framed as one of empowerment in part women’s status as objects to be consumed or its Sexual Politics of Meat: A because she is regarded as capable of consent, regulation figures as yet another restriction on Feminist-Vegetarian Critical whereas animals in factory farms are not. But this women’s sexuality.2 What makes the censorship of Theory (London: Bloomsbury, conception ignores the ways in which nonhuman 1990). Anderson’s ad the Anderson-PETA image so perplexing, however, resembles the cover of the animals often actively express that they do not is that such restrictions are never placed on adver- 2015 edition of the book. consent: to posit them as voiceless is to overlook tisements depicting scantily-clad women used to 6 Taylor, Beasts of the ways in which they cry, express sadness, and sell products by arousing consumers, or to shame Burden, 110. protest their abuse and slaughtering. They don’t use them for not conforming to unrealistic beauty stan- 7 Ibid. the English language to do so, but they communi- dards. The ubiquity of such advertisements suggests cate clearly nonetheless—at least to those who care that it is fine for women to sell their bodies when to listen. Rochefort’s decision to censor the ad doing so does not threaten the status quo: ironi- because she considers the equation of women and cally, the ad was to be shown in a city known for animals offensive also robs Anderson of her agency its strip clubs. The campaign was meant to remind by overriding her consent, effectively suggesting omnivores that humans are animals, too: a simple that she has internalized misogyny and cannot and obvious fact, yet one we tend to ignore. The decide for herself. Legal scholar Maneesha Deckha logic of the censorship frames “animal” as a more takes a similar position in her analysis of PETA ads offensive slur than “object.” that use women’s bodies: she argues that “reducing Being called an animal is indeed often intended women to their bodies in a context of animality,

© 2020 Emily© 2020 Watlington as an insult. Animals are frequently encountered whether by presenting them as sexualized ‘bunnies’

170 171 Thresholds 48 KIN Cow, Cunt, Crip: Toward A Transspecies, Anti-Ableist Feminism or ‘foxes’ or simply connecting their sexualized labor for animals has been disproportionately taken bodies to the idea of animals, solidifies the trajectory on by women, my evidence of this being more of their thinghood.” But this logic reinforces the cultural than statistical. Virginia Woolf noticed this notion that animals are indeed “things,” which is disparity, writing that “The vast majority of birds exactly what Anderson is critiquing. I argue that and beasts have been killed by you [men]; not us.”11 Anderson, like Taylor, reveals instead that concepts compiled a list of first-wave of liberation, consent, or autonomous action feminist vegetarians or animal advocates, including are flawed: she insists that if animals are not free, Wollstonecraft, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Lydia then neither are we—or as Martin Luther King Jr. Maria Child, Elizabeth Blackwell, Elizabeth Stuart Fig. 2 Pamela Anderson representing PETA at Sea famously put it, “injustice anywhere is a threat to Phelps Ward, Victoria Woodhull, Elizabeth Cady World’s annual meeting. PETA holds stock in the 8 justice everywhere.” Stanton, the Grimke sisters, Lucy Stone, Frances Sea World company in order to propose changes to Questions as to if and how women can consent Willard, , , shareholders. Courtesy of PETA. and act freely while unlearning all the ways we’ve Caroline Earle White, and Agnes Ryan.12 Some been taught to see ourselves have long been at the 8 Martin Luther King, Jr., 17 “Vaccines Do Not Cause feminist thinkers have drawn analogies between heart of feminist thought. PETA’s advertisement Gospel of Freedom: Letters Autism,” Center for Disease women and animals without intending to advocate from Birmingham Jail and the could have easily been made with a man, as men, Control, October 27, 2015 for : Andrea Dworkin, for example, Struggle that Changed a Na- https://www.cdc.gov/ of course, are animals too. Typically, when we call tion, ed. Jonathan Rieder (New vaccinesafety/concerns/ began to claim solidarity between cunts and cows men “animals,” we refer to the ways they give York: Bloomsbury, 2003), 170. autism.html. in 1974, writing that “judging women according into their natural impulses, or sexually aggressive 9 Taylor, Beasts of Burden, 20. 18 “Autism Risk Linked to to their conformity to a standard of beauty serves instincts, or more generally, their consumption 10 Lin May Saeed, studio visit Particulate Air Pollution,” Sci- to make them into products, chattels, differing from with the artist, November 26, entific American, n.d., https:// with reckless abandon. 2018. This visit occurred while www.scientificamerican. the farmer’s favorite cow only in terms of literal The ad’s message has more impact with a she was in the early stages com/article/autism-risk- form.”13 And, as I’ve shown, women and nonhuman woman’s body. Not only does it touch on notions of preparing for her show that linked-to-particulate-air- animals have been likened to prove their twinned of consent, it also equates the commodification of would later be called “Girl with pollution/. inferiority: Aristotle compared women to animals Cat” at Jacky Strenz gallery 19 Taylor, Beasts of women’s bodies in advertisements and porn alike. in Frankfurt. I reviewed the Burden, 58. in order to illustrate that both lack capacity for 14 It elicits society’s impulses either to protect and show for Artforum online. 20 Nathan J. Robinson, moral thought. Spinoza remarked that advocacy defend women, or to use and objectify us: twinned See Emily Watlington, “Critic’s “Now Argues against animal slaughter was based on “superstition impulses that draw from the same conception Picks: Lin May Saeed,” That It Might Be Okay to and womanish pity” rather than on reason.15 Our Artforum.com, https://www. Rape Disabled People,” of women as passive and thus either defenseless conceptions of agency and self-determination are artforum.com/picks/lin-may- Current Affairs, April 4, 2017, or domitable, or both. In performing passivity, or saeed-79890. https://www.currentaffairs. often speciesist and misogynistic, and, accordingly, availability, knowingly—indeed confrontationally— 11 Virginia Woolf, Three org/2017/04/now-peter- the liberation of animals and women are deeply this image of Anderson asks that we reconsider who Guineas (New York: Harcourt, singer-argues-that-it-might- entangled. We can’t liberate one without the other. we type as passive and rob agency from. “There Brace, 1963), 6. Originally be-okay-to-rape-disabled- This is true not only for women and animals. published in 1938. people. has been an urgent need to challenge animalization 12 Josephine Donovan, 21 Taylor, Beasts of It warrants a broader cultural reckoning with the and claim humanity,” writes Taylor. “As urgent and “Animal Rights and Feminist Burden, 50. question of to whom agency is granted. Consider understandable as these challenges are, it is important Theory,” in The Feminist Care another illuminating PETA ad, made in 2014, which to ask how we can reconcile the brutal reality Tradition in : read “GOT AUTISM?” and showed a bowl full of A Reader, eds. Josephine of human animalization with the concurrent need Donovan and Carol Adams milk with Cheerios arranged to form a frowny-face. to challenge the devaluing of animals, and even (New York: Columbia The advertisement reinforced the stigmatization acknowledge our own animality.”9 Claiming “hu- University Press, 2007), 65. of autism by invoking fear: it framed the diagno- manity” is often equated with claiming subjectivity, Article originally published sis as tragic and blamed the disability on a moral in 1990. as if animals are not subjects, too: those seen as 13 Andrea Dworkin, Last failure, suggesting autism is proper punishment for having the capacity to consent, or to have agency. Days at Hot Slit: The Radical consuming animal products. Most of the backlash It is no wonder that women, who have also Ethics of Andrea Dworkin this advertisement faced was on the grounds that been denied subjectivity under capitalist patriar- (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, any link between dairy consumption and autism chy, and who have long been negatively compared 2019), 56. is simply not scientifically-founded, rather than its 14 Aristotle quoted in 16 to animals, are often also serving as leaders of Donovan and Adams, ableist assertion of autism as a tragedy. animal rights movements. I’ve been to countless The Feminist Care Tradition The use of fear-mongering with regard to dinners where the vegetarian/not divide conforms in Animal Ethics, 61. autism is growing and is most visibly wielded by perfectly to the gender binary. Artist Lin May 15 Baruch Spinoza, Ethics anti-vaxxers, who claim that vaccines cause autism, (Wikisource, originally 17 Saeed once remarked to me, while making a body published 1677) https:// even though this has been disproven. This perplex- of work about historical animal activists, that she en.wikisource.org/wiki/ ing logic posits that the threat of polio or measles had inadvertently focused only on women—Saeed Ethics_(Spinoza)/Part_4.) is less tragic than autism, as if many autistic people hadn’t been thinking about any women’s issues 16 Jeffrey Kluger, “Got Cred- don’t live happy and successful lives according to ibility? Then You’re Not PETA,” or feminist methodology; there were just so many Time, May 30, 2015. https:// both normative and nonnormative definitions. More prominent women figures in that history (unlike time.com/2798480/peta- recently, some climate change activists have tried many histories) that it proved inevitable.10 Care autism-got-milk/. to claim, yet again without scientific evidence, that

172 173 Thresholds 48 KIN Cow, Cunt, Crip: Toward A Transspecies, Anti-Ableist Feminism certain pollutants not only harm the earth but may advertisements and to media in general is impera- also lead to autism—as if this were a consequence tive for thinking about our relationship to animals on par with the obliteration of the human race.18 in a time when we rarely encounter living animals Factory farming does indeed produce dis- in our daily lives but rather receive them packaged ability—in nonhuman animals. Taylor’s Beasts of and consumed as objects, images, and food. Burden: Animals and Disability Liberation compre- The “GOT AUTISM?” ad makes the mistake of hensively explores the relationship between the pitting the disabled against nonhuman animals, twinned oppression of animals and disabled people, even though much of what purports to arguing that “speciesism uses ableist logic to func- contest is the disabling conditions in which dairy tion” and citing the ableist views of Peter Singer, cows and other animals are kept. The backlash who popularized the term “speciesism.”19 Singer’s against Pamela Anderson’s PETA ad likewise controversial utilitarian philosophy supports both privileges women—in this case, a cisgender, white bestiality and the rape of cognitively disabled peo- woman—over nonhuman animals. If we were to ple, on the premise that neither is capable of con- extend the logic of both cases together, we would sent.20 As Taylor points out, we consider consuming be presented with a food chain of subjectivity nonhuman animals the natural order of things that grants agency to women over animals, and because we perceive humans to be able to do things animals over disabled people, but a chain is only that animals cannot. We also genetically engineer as strong as its weakest link. them to be easier to control, giving us, for instance, bulls without horns. So many of our conceptions of what animals are able to do are based on how they conform to ableist and patriarchal understand- ings of agency. I already mentioned that animals Emily Watlington is assistant editor at do express sadness at their mistreatment and that Art in America. the labor of care and empathy seems to have fallen largely upon women. There is more: chimpanzees and dolphins have successfully been able to learn American Sign Language (ASL), which, as Taylor notes, has been twisted to support ableist rhetoric that ASL must be a simplistic language, when in fact the language is rich and complex, and these animals are also quite intelligent.21 Since animals, women, and disabled people do not always express their subjectivity in the terms set out by an ableist and patriarchal society, they are often robbed of their subjectivity by dominant culture. In reading these two ads I have aimed to describe our cultural sensibility regarding the inter- sections of gender, species, and ability. My perspec- tive stems from conversations about intersectional feminism but focuses on the categories of species and ability, which have been given less attention than other pressing matters, such as race, class, and sexuality. These two advertisements and their reception are revealing, as they pit women and dis- abled people against animals, as if all were not op- pressed in related ways under capitalist patriarchy, and as if we could free one from oppression at the expense of the other. This essay serves to remind activists that there can be no liberation for some without liberation for all; that ableist, speciesist, and misogynistic logics are deeply intertwined; that chastising one population to lift up another does not end oppression. Women, animals, and disabled people are often oppressed due to societal beliefs about what others think they can and cannot do, owing to their perceived abilities. Turning to these

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