Thursday, April 28, 2005
The 'Roosters vs women' question - why is it a choice?
American politics is not my field and America not my country, so the technicalities of this one are lost on me. Apologies for any resulting inaccuracies or owt.
Anyway, this issue is being posited in the feminist communities as 'putting chickens before women', so i knew it was only a matter of time before the anti-animal-rights folks would start on it. And they have.
So obviously as a feminist (against domestic violence) and an animal rights activist (against cockfighting) this is kind of strange territory for me. If it had just been a straightforward case of a lawmaker being a misogynist dickhead, i'd have jumped straight in with the rage this has produced. Likewise if the law he had passed had been some totally trivial one about, i dunno, restricting the re-painting of cars or something. (ask a new, junior MP if you want to know the extent of weirdness that goes through the legislatory process) But, of course, a ban on cockfighting is something that pleases me immensely whatever the circumstances, so i'm not about to go 'omg omg how tf can he do that!?!?!, am i? Even if the 'how can he not do that?!?! aspect is also something i agree with wholeheartedly, because of course domestic violence needs to be put a stop to. And much as i'm no fan of having a government, they might as well pull their weight on something useful instead of worrying about the poor ickle corporations being threatened by nasty scary protesters.
The thing is, i honestly don't see it as a choice. As far as i know, he could have approved both bills. But it is being portrayed as a choice, chickens or women, and he took the 'trivial' option. Like he's an arsehole for (supposedly, we'll see what he does if there aren't votes in it) bothering about animals, rather than just, well, being an arsehole because he is one. I've seen too many Ms threads disintegrate into 'all animal activists are misogynists! You have to care about either women or animals! etc', in which those of us who don't see it as 'either/or' are written off as trolls. Then of course you get some ar activist somewhere reading stuff like that and feeling just as negative about feminism. So two good ideas become, to some people, mutually exclusive, which is sad because imo both should be more popular than they are.
And of course this ignores the connection between violence against humans and against animals. In any abusive household where there are animals, you can pretty much guarantee that the animals are being abused too. There are cases of women not leaving abusive partners because they don't want to leave their pet; husbands threatening to kill the cat or dog to get their wife to return; and of course the fact that some people are just generally violent regardless of the target. One of the most dedicated animal rights people i know works for Women's Aid. The social worker who brought the concept of the non-accidental injury to the UK has been an animal rights activist for longer than i've been alive and is still protesting in her eighties. (don't tell her i said the last bit though) And you can guarantee that cockfighters are waaay more likely to be DV perpetrators than animal rights activists are, and more tolerant than us of having one in their ranks. Come on, you've seen cockfights staged to raise money for Refuge? Yeah, right.
So anyway, it's a fucked up world where it comes down to a choice between one sort of compassion or another, or even where it is assumed to be an either/or choice. No violence should be acceptable, outside of self-defence (count defence against the state in that, or don't, as you wish folks), regardless of the target. Compassion shouldn't be a zero-sum game.
American politics is not my field and America not my country, so the technicalities of this one are lost on me. Apologies for any resulting inaccuracies or owt.
Anyway, this issue is being posited in the feminist communities as 'putting chickens before women', so i knew it was only a matter of time before the anti-animal-rights folks would start on it. And they have.
So obviously as a feminist (against domestic violence) and an animal rights activist (against cockfighting) this is kind of strange territory for me. If it had just been a straightforward case of a lawmaker being a misogynist dickhead, i'd have jumped straight in with the rage this has produced. Likewise if the law he had passed had been some totally trivial one about, i dunno, restricting the re-painting of cars or something. (ask a new, junior MP if you want to know the extent of weirdness that goes through the legislatory process) But, of course, a ban on cockfighting is something that pleases me immensely whatever the circumstances, so i'm not about to go 'omg omg how tf can he do that!?!?!, am i? Even if the 'how can he not do that?!?! aspect is also something i agree with wholeheartedly, because of course domestic violence needs to be put a stop to. And much as i'm no fan of having a government, they might as well pull their weight on something useful instead of worrying about the poor ickle corporations being threatened by nasty scary protesters.
The thing is, i honestly don't see it as a choice. As far as i know, he could have approved both bills. But it is being portrayed as a choice, chickens or women, and he took the 'trivial' option. Like he's an arsehole for (supposedly, we'll see what he does if there aren't votes in it) bothering about animals, rather than just, well, being an arsehole because he is one. I've seen too many Ms threads disintegrate into 'all animal activists are misogynists! You have to care about either women or animals! etc', in which those of us who don't see it as 'either/or' are written off as trolls. Then of course you get some ar activist somewhere reading stuff like that and feeling just as negative about feminism. So two good ideas become, to some people, mutually exclusive, which is sad because imo both should be more popular than they are.
And of course this ignores the connection between violence against humans and against animals. In any abusive household where there are animals, you can pretty much guarantee that the animals are being abused too. There are cases of women not leaving abusive partners because they don't want to leave their pet; husbands threatening to kill the cat or dog to get their wife to return; and of course the fact that some people are just generally violent regardless of the target. One of the most dedicated animal rights people i know works for Women's Aid. The social worker who brought the concept of the non-accidental injury to the UK has been an animal rights activist for longer than i've been alive and is still protesting in her eighties. (don't tell her i said the last bit though) And you can guarantee that cockfighters are waaay more likely to be DV perpetrators than animal rights activists are, and more tolerant than us of having one in their ranks. Come on, you've seen cockfights staged to raise money for Refuge? Yeah, right.
So anyway, it's a fucked up world where it comes down to a choice between one sort of compassion or another, or even where it is assumed to be an either/or choice. No violence should be acceptable, outside of self-defence (count defence against the state in that, or don't, as you wish folks), regardless of the target. Compassion shouldn't be a zero-sum game.
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