Animals and Women: Feminist Theoretical Explorations by Carol J. Adams

Animals and Women: Feminist Theoretical Explorations Reviews

• 
  Peacegal

  This rather weighty volume is a collection of scholarly essays exploring the interconnectedness between animal exploitation and human oppression. As can be expected from a compilation of many different writers, the results vary in quality and interest. Unfortunately, most of the essays are so couched in academia-speak that the result is dry-as-a-bone reading.
  
  One can understand the need for philosophical entries in the discussion on animal exploitation. However, I found myself at times thinking that there comes a time to stop writing theses and just get out and do something about injustice in the world.
  
• 
  Stephen Kelly

  A mixed bag, but overall quite illuminating. Some notes on the essays included here:
  
  Joan Dunayer's essay provides an overview of the ways in which language objectifies animals, which won't be especially groundbreaking to anyone already familiar with animal rights issues.
  
  Lynda Birke explores intersections and conflicts in the discourses of science, feminism, and animal rights and yields some interesting stories and insights.
  
  Carol J. Adams's project here covers different terrain from what was seen in her landmark THE SEXUAL POLITICS OF MEAT, but unfortunately this particular essay seems a bit outdated almost 25 years later. Her thesis is to prove that harm towards animals should be seen as a separate category of domestic violence toward women rather than a subcategory of "harm towards property." Her work is well-researched and convincing, but more recent works (by Piers Bierne, Frank Ascione, and others) have explored the links between violence towards animals and violence towards humans with greater depth and nuance.
  
  Marti Kheel groups modern justifications for hunting into six philosophical arguments that she calls the "happy hunter," the "holist hunter," the "holy hunter," the "hired hunter," the "hungry hunter," and the "hostile hunter" (though in this essay she only focuses on the first three). Aldo Leopold receives especial attention for his role as a pivot point between the first two approaches. This essay should be a vital starting point for anyone analyzing pro-hunting literature.
  
  Maria Comninou's essay explores an interesting historical moment that I knew nothing about: a period in the late 80's and early 90's when free speech advocates seemed to hypocritically endorse the absolute rights of pornographers while condemning the actions of protesters who would interfere with hunters. In the latter case, it seemed as though hunting itself was defended as "speech" in the "privacy" of public land while the criticisms of protesters were derided as harmful and infringing--which seems quite ridiculous. Comninou posits that the apparent contradiction between these two viewpoints can only be resolved once one accepts that in both cases it is the actions of men being privileged over the actions of women. I'm not sure I agree with her points (which are rather simplistic when it comes to portraying pornography) and I'm not sure if this legal issue is still relevant today, but the history explained here is very interesting (albeit frustrating).
  
  Gary L. Francione attempts to argue that recognizing the rights of sentient animals doesn't require that someone therefore adopt an anti-abortion stance (i.e. recognizing the rights of sentient fetuses). It boils down, I think, to the fact that animals don't live literally inside of women's bodies. This is an interesting line of inquiry, but I would've appreciated greater clarity.
  
  Likewise with the essay (slash-personal-narrative) of Linda Vance, which contains some very interesting material--critiquing deep ecology, analyzing how we tell stories about animals, etc.--but which ultimately leaves me quite befuddled. At one point, after analyzing the flaws of other ways of viewing animals, she announces that she has no answer for how to correctly tell a narrative about an animal--not having an all-encompassing answer is, indeed, her point. Rather, she offers an illustration by rewriting the personal nature story about frogs with which she began her essay. This bookended story has clearly changed quite a bit from beginning to end, but I'm not sure what the point was or why one was supposed to be ethically superior to the other. This essay was ambitious, intriguing, and a pleasure to read, but I'll be damned if I have any idea what its point was.
  
  Karen Davis expands the the field of consideration in environmental ethics to include domesticated factory farm animals and not just wild animals. Animal rights and environmental activists tend to dismiss farm animals like cows and chickens as being products of human culture, more object than true animal. Davis rigorously disproves this fact while also denouncing the viewpoint that would insist upon the importance of that fact even if it were factual. She compares feral chickens, wild jungle hens, and recently freed factory farm chickens and concludes that they're all almost exactly the same--the idea that thousands of years of agriculture and genetic breeding has made farm chickens incapable of existing as real animals in the wild is conclusively rejected. She also draws (very intimately, movingly, and memorably) upon personal encounters with chickens and details the shortcomings of a heartless (although putatively ethical) academia. This is one of the most outstanding essays in the collection.
  
  The essays of Diane Antonio and Marian Scholtmeijer didn't do much for me, and Reginald Abbott's analysis of Virginia Woolf's editorial about the misogynist rhetoric found in a newspaper article about the use of feathers in women's fashion is interesting albeit narrowly focused.
  
  Brian Luke's essay is clearly a rough draft and outline for his book BRUTAL, which is a must read for anyone interested in this subject. He argues that animals rights activists need no longer accept the insistent claim that emotion and feelings have no place in "rational" ethical argumentation--that, indeed, emotions should be the key to an ethical framework and all attempts to dismiss them have been motivated by the forces of a patriarchal power that has written the rules and insists others must follow them. Luke furthermore insists, as in BRUTAL, that humans have a natural affinity towards other animals and an aversion to cruelty, and he details some of the institutionalized ways in which these feelings have been shortcircuited in anthropocentric culture. His prose, as always, is lucid, persuasive, and full of fascinating research.
  
  Susanne Kappeler covers many issues in her concluding essay, and perhaps some of them (like the idea of global nationalism as a Victorian zoo) are far too weighty and yet far too briefly detailed to carry sufficient impact. Her examination of rhetoric surrounding rape during the Bosnian war (and how in many accounts rape is transformed from an act of violence against a particular woman to an act of assault against the reproductive forces of a nation) is interesting, as is her analysis of how discourse figures victims vs. survivors... but ultimately this essay seemed like it should be the launching point for an entirely different book, one that's not even necessarily about animals.
• 
  Corvus

  I actually had to put this book down and give it away because it hit me too hard. If you're a person who is not yet convinced of the connections between the struggles of animals and women, this book should convince by the end of the first third. If you are a person who already understands this connection and is looking for something to shake hands with and feel validated, please know that some essays in this book detail some of the most horrific instances of simultaneous and parallel human and other animal exploitation, sexual violence, and abuse. For this reason, I moved on from it but gave it 4 stars because what I read of it was well written and extremely important information.
• 
  Diane

  Animals & Women is a compilation of essays written on the relationship of humans with nonhumans written from the feminist perspective. I found it to be a surprisingly easy read having expected it to be difficult. It was well written and interspersed with excerpts and passages from writers whom I know and have read and writers new to me. I especially enjoyed reading the article by Virginia Woolf and the essay regarding her article but all of the essays were very enlightening and interesting.
• 
  Zillah

  From the few essays I had to read for a class, I still don't know how much I actually like this book. I guess I should probably rate essays one by one to be able to rate it correctly. But in any case, for anyone interested in ecofeminism, it should definitely go on to-read shelf.
• 
  Cheryl

  A great collection of high-quality articles that address a number of issues related to connectedness of the oppression of both women and animals.
• 
  Stephanie

  Read a few of the articles for a research paper. I don't think I unilaterally agreed with any of the essays, but the collection was well-curated, interesting, and helpful.
• 
  Rachel Rose

  This is one of my favorite books. The essays evoke compassion for animals as well as a vital critical analysis of our human relationships with them.