Pointlessly Gendering Cats and Dogs

Last December in Aldi (an Irish grocery chain), my partner and I were looking for a Christmas present for his dog. While sifting through the pet section, we noticed that perhaps it was a good thing his dog isn't female, because the only doggy stockings for sale were for male dogs. 

According to Armitage Pet Care ("The largest independent manufacturer and distributor of branded pet accessories and treats in the UK"), kitty treats are for "good girls" and doggy treats are for "good boys." The cat and dog caricatures and packaging colors appear to be gender neutral, but the labels are unnecessarily gendered. Upon further investigation, the gendering process extends beyond Santa's workshop: "Good Boy" applies to their entire line of canine treats, and "Good Girl" refers to their line of feline treats. What's more, this gender assignment is presumed to be implicit. The Armitage website does not clarify which product line refers to which species.

Here, the gendered identity of companion animals is taken for granted

Sociologists have noted that humans tend to transfer their gender role expectations onto nonhumans (and nonhumans also become extensions of human gender expressions). Dogs tend to be masculinized; cats tend to be feminized. Regardless of the animal's actual sex, they will be socialized according to the gender of their owner. My brother's pit bull is female, for example, but she plays rough and rowdy. She practically jumps off the walls because of how my brother has socialized her and how he engages play with her (as other pit bull guardians can attest, many pits are quiet and gentle). We also know that that many men are hesitant to have their male companion animals spayed for fear of emasculating them (a serious problem given the high death rates in kill shelters for discarded and homeless animals). Gender may be socially constructed, but its consequences are real indeed.

Dr. Lisa Wade of Sociological Images regularly deconstructs "unnecessarily" or "pointlessly" gendered cultural artifacts on the website and its corresponding Pinterest page to demonstrate how powerful gender roles are on the social imagination. Of course, gendering products is not "pointless." This action has a very intentional social purpose: to maintain and reproduce difference (which, in turn, maintains and reproduces social inequality). Nonhuman bodies are often politicized in the process, becoming representations of human stratification.

In many cases, the aggravation of these differences is much more conscious because it also serves to increase consumption. A heterosexual couple can't just share body wash, for instance. He has to have the forest-scented, blue soap in the black bottle labeled "For men;" she has to have the pink strawberry soap in the flowery bottle. Not surprisingly, there is often a feminine tax as well, with women's products costing more than equivalent products for men. As sociologists understand the economic sphere to be the origin of social structure (and inequality), it is no surprise to see such heavy representation of difference in the marketplace.

My male cat is not going to care either way if he is a good "boy" or "girl" as long as he gets his paws on that catnip. My partner's dog probably doesn't care if he is a good "doggy" or a good "kitty" either, and would gladly chomp down on anything and everything in the "Good Girl Christmas Cat Stocking." In the end, we settled on a gender neutral (and, subsequently, a much less annoying) chew toy.

References

Adams, C. and J. Donovan. 1995. Animals and Women: Feminist Theoretical Explorations. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Ramirez, M. 2006. "'My Dog's Just Like Me': Dog Ownership as a Gender Display." Symbolic Interaction 29 (3): 373-391.

STK Open Call: Exploring Species-Gender Intersections in DC Steakhouse

A new steakhouse  has opened in Washington, DC that relies heavily on sexualized women to glamorize animal flesh as sexy, trendy, edgy, and available.  Many of the photographs used to promote the restaurant utilize thin, young, and mostly white female models.  This is done to create a sense of pleasurable consumption. As Carol Adams has argued--sex and animal foods are often overlapped to give an impression to the privileged consumer that the products of oppression are given freely and happily. Just as patriarchy convinces us that women really want it (sex, rape, violence, humiliation, etc.), it also convinces us that other feminized bodies really want this violation, too. Indeed, this fetishization becomes marketable.

Unfortunately, what this means for women and animals is that the violence enacted against them is sexualized, romanticized, and normalized. Notice the disembodied woman in high heels with a meat cleaver--extreme violence is being associated with sexual desire. Given the epidemic levels of violence against women, this should be serious cause for concern. As for Nonhuman Animals, like the woman in this image, they are fragmented and only made visible in consumable pieces of chopped up flesh.  These images want us to stay focused on meat; they don't want us thinking about the woman or cow they were attached to. That isn't sexy--that makes us think, and thinking interferes with sales.

Customers can come to STK to get their meat served up pretty. The website is careful to frequently juxtapose human meat with nonhuman meat. Human and nonhuman bodies are presented as interchangeable, fragmented, and completely and utterly objectified.

Models hired to promote the restaurant are literally branded with the store logo, marked as STK property as cows are in the feedlots of STK suppliers.  Again, this logo is quite indicative of the close association between the oppression of women and other animals. With a pouty lipsticked kiss, the mass murder of Nonhuman Animals and the objectification of women is made flirty and sexy.

Sexualized women routinely show up in STK adverts as well, even when they have nothing to do whatsoever with the product. Notice there are not even any pictures of food or drinks in the Apple Pie Day advertisement. In the happy hour advert, it is suggested that female customers at STK drink booze in positions of sexual availability (the mixing of alcohol with the sexual availability of women, incidentally, is the symboblic language of rape culture).  Women are used as signifiers:  Enact your privilege here.

A sexualized woman is even used to sell dead animal parts for charity. Ironically, the charity, UNICEF, is concerned with childhood hunger...and the Western animal-based diet that STK satiates is one reason why this hunger exists. Third world nations are often left unable to provide food for their own inhabitants, as much of the food they grow is used as feed for those Nonhuman Animals destined for Western consumption.  The violence enacted on these colonized peoples, like that which is enacted on women and Nonhuman Animals, remains largely invisible behind the glamour of youth, beauty, sex, and money whipped up in STK campaigning.

The vegan-feminist critique featured in this essay is based on the work of Carol Adams.  Thanks to Ivy Collier for bringing this steakhouse ad campaign to my attention.

The Sexual Politics of Vegan Food

Carol Adams has written extensively on the sexual politics of meat, arguing that women and other animals are both sexualized and commodified to facilitate their consumption (both figuratively and literally) by those in power. One result has been the feminization of veganism and vegetarianism.  This has the effect of delegitimizing, devaluing, and defanging veganism as a social movement.

But this process works within the vegan movement as well, with an open embracing of veganism as inherently feminized and sexualized.  This works to undermine a movement (that is comprised mostly of women) and repackage it for a patriarchal society.  Instead of strong, political collective of women, we have yet another demographic of sexually available individual women who exist for male consumption.

Take a browse through vegan cookbooks on Amazon, and the theme of “sexy veganism” that emerges is unmistakable.

Oftentimes, veganism is presented as a means of achieving idealized body types.  These books are mostly geared to a female audience, as society values women primarily as sexual resources for men, and women have internalized these gender norms.  Many of these books bank on the power of thin privilege, sizism, and stereotypes about female competition for male attention to shame women into purchasing.

To reach a male audience, however, authors have to draw on a notion of “authentic masculinity” to make a highly feminized concept palatable to a patriarchal society where all that is feminine is scorned.  Some have referred to this trend as “heganism.”  The idea is to protect male superiority by unnecessarily gendering veganism into veganism for girls and veganism for boys.  For the boys, authors have to appeal to “real” manhood. Thankfully Meat Is For Pussies (A How-to Guide for Dudes Who Want to Get Fit, Kick Ass and Take Names) appears to be out of print.

The vegan movement also favors the tactic of turning women into consumable objects in the exact same way that meat industries do.  Hardee's might have nearly naked women writhing on automobiles with dripping hamburgers, but vegan organizations mimic this by recruiting “lettuce ladies” or “cabbage chicks” dressed as vegetables to interact with the public.  PETA routinely has nude women pose in and among vegetables to convey the idea that women are sexy food.  Vegan pinup sites and strip joints also feed into this notion.  It is the co-optation and erosion of what is essentially a women’s movement.  Instead of empowering women on behalf of animals, these approaches could be disempowering women by preserving a patriarchal framework.

Arrow Pierces Deer's Face and Lives to Tell the Tale: The Importance of Survivor Images

This morning, the story of a young deer in New Jersey who's face was punctured by a hunting arrow went viral.  The story ends happily enough: Through human intervention, he survived and lives to see another day.

While the news coverage was problematic for many reasons (mockingly nicknaming the deer "Steve Martin" after an arrow through the head gag he popularized, referring to him as "it," celebrating the wildlife department for saving him when the same agency is actually responsible for facilitating "hunts"), the shocking image is powerful enough to transcend speciesist media and offer a glimpse into the real horrors of killing Nonhuman Animals for "sport" and/or "food."

"Hunting" (I place the term in quotation marks to denote it as a euphemism) is like a private club or secret society for men who seek to consolidate their dominance in exclusive yearly meetings made inaccessible to the public.  Men convene in the woods to "bond," "appreciate nature," "get some fresh air," "catch up with friends," "learn life's lessons," etc.  All of these charming sentiments obscure the primary activity that differentiates "hunting" from a camping trip or a hike:  The intended slaughter of deers, bears, and other free-living animals.

Men use the seclusion of the back country to enact patriarchy in these male-only spaces.  The practice is reinforced with highly ritualized behavior.  "Hunters" spend thousands of dollars on licenses, guns, gun accessories, camouflaged dress, lures, etc.  Boys are initiated young and forced (killing is not usually a natural or desirable thing for children) to fire weapons at the Nonhuman Animals they once considered friends.  Killers often end the ritual by consuming the flesh of their victims.

For us advocates (women in particular) who are "uninitiated" in these secret male gatherings, killers assume that we "don't get it" or "don't understand" when we protest the violence.  Like all displays of male power, "hunting" is presumed necessary and any disagreement is thought to indicate ignorance.  This deflection of feminized resistance only reinforces "hunting" (a practice of male supremacy) as for men only and legitimizes male power.

Survivors offer a glimpse into this protected, hidden world.  "Hunting" classes recommend that killers keep their dirty work out of view of the public who would be offended.  Taxidermied corpses portray the animals still alert in life.  But survivors show us the horrors that the patriarchal pro-"hunting" ideology and murder-scene cleanups obscure.

Another survivor in Colorado.
At the time of the news report, wildlife authorities were seeking to help her.

The fact that many National Forest areas and parks practically shut down to the public for men to enter with weapons and inflict genocide on the innocent civilians of the woods demonstrates state-supported male entitlement to feminized spaces.  As eco-feminists explain, Nonhuman Animals and the environment, like women, are treated as resources that exist for men to pleasurably consume.  "Hunting" survivors are not unlike refugees living in farmed animal sanctuaries, rape survivors and slave narratives--they live to tell the tale of male violence.  They make the invisibility of oppression visible again.

See Brian Luke's Brutal:  Manhood and the Exploitation of Animals for more information on masculinity, speciesism, and "hunting."

Men Come from Apes; Women Come from Cows

Image from BuzzFeed:  The 13 Worst Plastic Surgery Ads in the World

This advertisement for a plastic surgery clinic in Bucharest plays on the classic image of man evolving from ape.  That image has long been criticized for normalizing "man" as the epitome of evolution (What about women?  Or people of color for that matter?).  This image feeds into the sexist undertones of the evolutionary story by showing us where women come from:  ugly cows.

Image from Skeptical Raptor

The cow is laden with symbolism--they are seen as unintelligent commodities in need of husbandry (similar to how women are perceived).  Of course, women are often insulted in being labeled a cow--something ugly and undesirable to men.  Comparison to the ape, on the other hand, tends to be more flattering, as apes are often seen as clever, adaptive, and independent.  They're also seen as the most human of the "animal kingdom."  When being "human" generally defaults to being "male," these images clarify that men are privileged and women must manipulate their sexual desirability to achieve social worth.

"If She Can't Stay Pregnant, What Else Will She Do?"

This advertisement selling vaccines for dairy cows is a regular smorgasbord of oppression.  The first assumption made is that dairy cows are commodities whose worth is tied to their productivity and usefulness to humans.  If she can't be pregnant, she better be earning her keep serving men in some other way--in this case, it is assisting men in their commodification of other species.

Secondly, the statement, "If she can't stay pregnant, what else will she do?"  pulls on powerful gender stereotypes of women that construct the primary purpose of womanhood as the production of children.  So women (thus animalized) and dairy cows (thus feminized) are made to produce offspring for the benefit of male dominance.  In doing so, both are stripped of their personhood and agency.

The dairy cow is also intended to represent a dog, with the implication being that the purpose of dogs is also to serve human interests.  Furthermore, the plight of the pheasants goes completely ignored.  Five pheasants have been the victim of male violence and their purpose in this advertisement amounts to nothing more than a prop.  Their death goes completely unexamined.

Centered, is a man, the epitome of patriarchal control, surrounded by his conquests and the subservient female, brandishing a gun and a smile of contentment.

This dairy advertisement speaks volumes to the normalized violence inherent to the male relationship to women, Nonhuman Animals, and other vulnerable groups.  There is a sense of entitlement in his wanton destruction of the five birds and the joking exploitation of dogs, cows, and women.  The privilege to manipulate the female body by men for men is made apparent in advertising a vaccine that is intended to prevent the diseases that regularly afflict cows under the routine practice of their exploitation.  If she will not bend to his will, he can force her to.  If her broken body cannot comply, she will simply be put to work elsewhere.

See the work of Carol J. Adams for more on the intersections of speciesism and sexism.