Regardless of age, political views, or educational level, women are more likely than men to be animal advocates. Studies show that women constitute 68–80 percent of the animal rights movement. Many women activists make sense of their predominance in the movement as instinctual and natural. They also say that women are more socialized to care about suffering and advocating for the vulnerable. On the other hand, many women participate in violence against animals through their purchase and consumption of the bodies of animals for food, entertainment, medicine, and fashion. The fact that women dominate the animal rights movement need not necessarily be equated with the idea that women naturally feel a greater affinity or compassion for animals.
EMILY GAARDER: One of the most striking characteristics of the animal rights movement is that the majority of its activists are women. They have been at the forefront of animal rights activism in the United States and Great Britain since the 1800s, and current studies show that women constitute 68–80 percent of the animal rights movement. The “Animals’ Agenda” report of two 1985 surveys concluded that “at all levels of participation . . . women constitute the single most important driving force behind the animal rights phenomenon”. Regardless of age, political views, or educational level, women are more likely than men to be animal advocates. In general, women are more likely than men to support animal rights and to express concern about the treatment of animals. This legacy begs the question: How do we explain the connection between gender and animal rights participation? I address a specific angle of this inquiry through a qualitative study of twenty-seven women who are animal rights activists. My focus is on how such activists make sense of their majority status in the movement — in other words, what connections they make between gender and participation in animal rights activism….
This study offers insight into the question of how gender impacts participation in animal rights activism, but more specifically, it exposes the power of cultural discourse in shaping accounts of gender and social activism. The animal rights movement is stereotyped as being overly emotional, an evaluation certainly linked to the centrality of women in it. Many of the women activists relied on social and biological discourses to explain the lack of men in the movement, with such accounts serving to justify men’s absence rather than condemning it. They suggested that animal activism held greater social risk for men, or that men were not biologically predisposed to care about animals. In some ways, their explanations or excuses for men downplayed the powerful and political meanings of their own choices to become animal activists. Women also used social or biological discourses to explain their own activism. Their macro-accounts and personal narratives reflect the complex contours that sex and gender hold for women activists. In social learning accounts, they said that women were more socialized to care about suffering, that animal work is more socially acceptable for women, because advocating for the vulnerable is considered “emotion work.”
Yet, women activists also made sense of their predominance in the movement with biological accounts, interpreting women’s involvement with animal causes as instinctual and “natural.” Perhaps some elements within the animal rights movement itself (for example, PETA’s shock campaigns) contribute to a rather narrow view of women’s participation in animal rights, by relegating women to traditionally feminine roles. These biological accounts certainly reflect the widespread beliefs regarding sex and gender held across many cultures: Primarily, that biology predetermines a human being’s nature, preferences, and/or skills. Biological determinism includes various arguments, from physical or hormonal differences to differing evolutionary pressures. All suggest that sex differences determine certain behaviors and roles in society. For example, the fact that some women have the reproductive capacity to become mothers has led to a popular perception that women are natural caretakers of the earth and its creatures. Ten of the activists in this study assimilated this belief to at least some extent. I remain curious as to whether these accounts functioned as a buffer against critiques of animal activism; perhaps relying on biological explanations that preclude choice offers safe ground from which to defend one’s participation in animal activism, especially given that all of the women in this study encountered resistance to their beliefs and actions, whether from family, friends, colleagues, or the general public.
Yet, the resistance that women activists encounter also plays a part in creating a sense of oneself as a political actor, as the women began to view themselves as taking an often unpopular advocacy stance. Other activists suggested that if some women do have an “instinctual” response to animal exploitation or abuse, it may be an empathetic reaction rather than a biological one. This might be true for anyone who has experienced systematic oppression, for a person who sees the suffering of animals may recall his or her own experiences of violence or oppression. This is not because caring is a biological calling based on hormones, but rather that oppression can stimulate feelings of compassion and understanding among those who have experienced similar situations. The feelings or motivations of women activists that appear to be biological “instincts” or nurturing “natures” may actually represent specific life experiences. This “account-making” represents one of the most important ways that women activists reformulated cultural discourses on sex and gender.
Ecofeminism’s claim that women experience empathy toward animals and nature based on shared inequities was echoed by almost half of the women. They identified links to the status of women and animals in society in symbolic ways, as well as through personal experiences that they considered to be similar to the experiences of animals. They engaged in theory-making about how experiences of injustice can stimulate empathy and action on behalf of others. These accounts highlighted gender inequity as a motivating factor in women’s animal rights activism; they also functioned as a means of empowerment, as women connected their experiences of oppression to increased political awareness and action — both for themselves and for animals. The fact that women dominate the animal rights movement need not be equated with the idea that women naturally feel a greater affinity or compassion for animals. This distortion suggests that women activists are simply following a biological calling, when, in fact, they make a conscious choice to become political activists. Biological typecasting has also been used to explain away the political choices of women who resist militarism and war.
Common stereotypes suggest that women naturally oppose war because they are the bearers of children, and women’s relationship with nature and animals has been similarly read. However, women “are not inherently more life-affirming or non-violent”;… a significant number of women support the industry and ideology of war. If women are naturally opposed to violence, war, or the oppression of animals, what is the big deal about women’s activism? After all, this is just what women are inclined to do. Yet, many women are not inclined to do this and participate in violence against animals through their purchase and consumption of the bodies of animals for entertainment, medicine, fashion, or food…
This study demonstrates that women in the animal rights movement alternatively use, reject, and reformulate cultural ideas about sex and gender to explain both their own pull toward activism and the prevalence of women in the movement. Their personal narratives and larger theoretical explanations were intricate accounts of the biological, the social, and the power of empathetic action rising from common experiences of oppression. Some adopted normative cultural narratives about sex and gender to answer my query about the predominance of women in the movement, but most were inclined to view themselves as political actors within the context of their individual pathway to activism. SOURCE…
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