PETA gets worse

PETA has a new fatist billboard campaign in Florida.  This billboard just went up in Jacksonville:

Save the whales.  Lose the blubber: Go vegeterian?!!  PETA is notoriously sexist and racist in their campaigns, and now they are fatist as well.  From their press release:

A new PETA billboard campaign that was just launched in Jacksonville reminds people who are struggling to lose weight — and who want to have enough energy to chase a beach ball — that going vegetarian can be an effective way to shed those extra pounds that keep them from looking good in a bikini. [....]

Anyone wishing to achieve a hot “beach bod” is reminded that studies show that vegetarians are, on average, about 10 to 20 pounds lighter than meat-eaters. [...]

“Trying to hide your thunder thighs and balloon belly is no day at the beach,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA has a free ‘Vegetarian Starter Kit’ for people who want to lose pounds while eating as much as they like.

This is absolutely shameful, tactless and tasteless, but is not very surprising considering PETA’s track record.  Trying to hide your thunder thighs and balloon belly?  Way to fat shame and make women feel even more pressured to be thin.  PETA is completely inconsiderate and unempathetic of people’s feelings.

One woman wrote a heartbreaking letter saying:

I would like to express my outrage at a billboard I recently saw in Jacksonville, Florida.

My family was visiting, and I was planning on taking them to the beach to enjoy the beautiful day when i saw a billboard that made me want to cry. It says “Save the Whales,” with a picture of an overweight woman in the foreground.

We all sat there and stared at it for a minute and everyone in the car was silent. No one wanted to mention my weight. I laughed it off as usual, but it really had made me so embarrassed, so self conscious and so ashamed about my weight that I dropped off my family at the oceanfront and left to go home, making the excuse that I wasn’t feeling well.

My embarrassment turned to outrage as I was sitting at home contemplating that distasteful, disgusting billboard. I can’t believe that PETA would be so disrespectful as to use the terms “whales” and “blubber” when referring to obese people. I wish there was something I could do. I’ve already written to them expressing my outrage at their malicious terms and asked them to take it down.

Unfortunately PETA does not care that they are consistently offensive and outraging.  H/t Holly at Deceiver.

PETA’s Next Move: Recruiting Che Guevara’s Granddaughter

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has recruited Che Guevara’s 24-year old granddaughter, Lydia Guevara, to promote vegetarianism for their South American campaign that will premiere this October in Argentina, a big beef eating country.

The posters and print ads will (shockingly!) feature Guevara scantily clad, “wearing nothing but the infamous Che beret and an ammunition belt of carrots”. Again PETA, must you use female bodies in order to promote vegetarianism?

The campaign’s tag line: “Join the vegetarian revolution.” This will be PETA’s first campaign in South America. Thoughts?

PETA FAIL, yet again

PETA is exploiting Dr. George Tiller’s recent murder and launched a completely callous and offensive ad campaign in Wichita, Kansas:

You’ve got to be kidding me, right?  PETA is consistently offensive and insensitive, hoping that shock value will gain sympathy for or legitimize their cause.  I am a vegetarian and oppose animal cruelty, but I cannot stand PETA.  I do not believe that the means justifies the ends.  Exploiting Dr. Tiller’s murder (many people are still in mourning and his loss has been a blow to the feminist community) and employing racism and sexism in their marketing campaigns is just wrong.

There are more tactful, appropriate and effective ways to go about promoting vegetarianism/veganism.  You don’t have to capitalize off tragic events or reproduce oppressive constructions that further marginalize the marginalized to push for an end to animal cruelty.  PETA mistakenly seems to believe that any kind of attention is good and that by shocking and outraging they are gaining more support.  Wrong and wrong again.

According to Lindsay Rajt, the campaign manager:

The discussion of the value of life is front and center right now in the public conversation.  We think we would be irresponsible if we don’t talk about how we’re all guilty of extreme cruelty to animals every time we sit down to a meal that includes meat.

WTF?  How can you compare or equate a cold-blooded murder of a man so deeply committed to women’s health  and health care, a man who dedicated his life to helping women in need  in spite of continuous violence and threats, to animal cruelty?  A good man was just murdered and PETA shamelessly views this as an opportunity?  It’s sickening and vomit inducing.

This ridiculous ad campaign, like so many of their previous ad campaigns, is devaluing and disrespectful to life – funny for an organization who is supposedly committed to respecting all life.  PETA, have you absolutely no common human decency or basic respect and courtesy?  Apparently not.

PETA

So I have been getting a lot of protest from one commenter about my position on PETA.  I just want to provide a little more evidence to back up my claim about sexism or racism in PETA’s advertisements.  I simply do not think that undercutting other movements is a way to further one’s movement, no matter how noble the cause.

 

 

 

 

The list goes on and on.  Displaying women and African Americans as cuts of meat, animals, or sexy and battered really is counterproductive and offensive.  Juxtaposing the lynching of African Americans and the slaughter of animals can be interpreted as insensitive and dehumanizing.  The historical implications of presenting minorities as “wild” animals and women literally as pieces of meat may get attention, but negative attention can undercut a movement and cause offense.

PETA: Are animals more important than people?

PETA fights for animal rights, but in the process seems to throw humans under the bus.  The amount of racism and sexism in PETA’s demonstrations and ads is appalling.  I am a vegetarian who has always hated PETA for many reasons, but this one set me over the edge.

Is that the KKK? Nope, it's PETA.

PETA members dressed up as members of the KKK for a demonstration against the American Kennel Club.  The PETA organization claims that the AKC is trying to create a “master race” and therefore the KKK comparison is applicable.  PETA has made all sorts of overblown comparisons in the defense of animal rights, including comparisons to the Holocaust and to lynching of African Americans.  To me, these demonstrations are ridiculous and offensive.  Dressing up as the KKK is just not okay, no matter what the point of the demonstration.  These tactics do not foster support, but offend people and scare them away.

PETA’s ridiculous tactics don’t stop with overblown comparisons.  PETA’s ads are often racist and sexist.

 

Is this woman an animal? Don't treat her like one.

And this recent banned Superbowl ad was equally ridiculous.

Again, I believe in animal rights and I try my best to be a decent vegetarian, but watching scantily clad women practically have sex with vegetables doesn’t make me want to not eat meat.  But it does make me want to blog about how much I HATE PETA.

p.s.  Where the heck did they get those “studies?”

Angry Green Girl sexualizes women for a good cause

via Sociological Images

You may already know that I have some serious issues with the way that PETA uses women’s bodies to promote vegetarianism (along with PETA’s other offenses which we have blogged about here and here and here and here and here).  Well, here’s another example of a similar situation.

Angry Green Girl, according to her website is “shamelessly exploiting everything I got to save our world!”

The site has some mildly educational videos about environmental issues, all using scantily clad attractive women to attract heterosexual men to environmental causes.  Some of the videos include a fully clad man called “Can’t Get Laid Guy,” to whom the “hot” women are downright mean. By conforming to stereotypes of the shallow, ditzy, self-centered, and rude but attractive female, the site seems to attempt mainly to attract “geeky” heterosexual men.  With statements such as “As for you, think about turning off the lights before you leave your apartment and maybe some day a sober girl will give you her real phone number,” the site attempts to attract these men with the vague hope of one day being able to gain sexual access to beautiful women (as long as they go green).  The site also reinforces the stereotype of the smart but nerdy male who has absolutely no social life and no chance with the beautiful but cruel and shallow female.

Will watching attractive women parade around in bikinis really convince heterosexual men to care about environmental issues and change their lifestyles accordingly?  I highly doubt it.  In the videos, the environment seems less of a focus than heterosexual male access to beautiful female bodies.  Personality is treated as an unimportant factor on the site (the girls are downright mean and extremely shallow, but are still presented as the height of sexual desirability.)  So what is Angry Green Girl really selling?  Sex.  And it may be sad but true that “sex sells,” but sex sells Calvin Klein underwear and string bikinis, not causes like environmental activism.

But don’t take it from me.  Watch some of the videos from the site and decide for yourselves.

And here’s a video from an Angry Green Girl hybrid-only waterless bikini car wash.

Good cause?  Yes.  Good tactic?  In my opinion, not so much.  What do you think?

Intact hymens and the fetishization of virginity

Via Sociological Images, an older ad marketing a tampon:

The beginning text of the ad goes like:

I really wanted to use tampons but I heard that you had to be, you know, ‘experienced’. So I asked my friend Lisa. Her mom is a nurse so I figured she’d know. Lisa told me she’d been using Petal Soft Plastic Applicator Tampax tampons since her very first period and she’s a virgin. In fact, you can use them at any age and still be a virgin.

It’s laughable that this is the actual text of the ad. It’s also ridiculous that people used to fear that girls could lose their virginity by using tampons. “In fact, you can use them at any age and still be a virgin” – OMG Yay! What a relief! Oh gee, society and its fetishization of virginity.

When A Man Stays Home and Takes Care of the Kids…

The July 2009 issue of Bazaar shows us the catastrophic results of gender role reversal in this photoshoot.

via Sociological Images:

To me, it seems that the shoot is telling us that “Mr. Mom” is incompetant and cheats on his selfish, cold-hearted career-obsessed wife.  It is also interesting to note the way that the homemaker is unappreciated by the breadwinner for his work taking care of the kids.

Check out the captions on the images.  They are quite interesting.

Sociological Images notes two of the commenters’ reactions to the images.  They both made good points, so here are the two comments.

Amber Y. said:

I don’t think that this photoshoot mocks a man’s ability to take care of his kids. Raising (three) children is a lot of work, especially if your partner is not an active participant. Switch roles and what images do we get? An overworked stay-at-home mother and a distant negligent working father – a very common image thrown at us from all angles. What this photoshoot shows me is the dynamic between the hard-working breadwinner and the hard-working family caretaker, and the *lack of appreciation* for the one who watches the kids. “Mr Big gets downsized.” The breadwinner ignores the caretaker in every photo. The message here isn’t that men can’t take care of kids; it is that people who take care of kids aren’t as important.

EKSwitaj replied:

Amber, I definitely see what you’re saying, but if we say that’s the point of the photoshoot then why are the usual gender roles reversed?

I see a few possibilities:

1) Because men aren’t typically expected to take the primary responsibility, it’s easier to imagine a man having difficulties with children and/or considered to be less of an insult.

2) If a woman were shown as having trouble with children it would be seen more as “female incompetence” than as a sign of general difficulty. This is in part because of our typical gender roles and in part because of women being the marked gender.

3) Because of the expectation that women be more nurturing, it is more upsetting to see a woman ignore children than to see a man doing the same. (Women being the marked gender, however, means that it’s more difficult to transfer this into a general statement about breadwinners.)

What do you think?

Saturday Stupidity

We are back with more Saturday Stupidity.  Here is a compilation of ignorant, offensive comments we’ve heard/received recently.

My friend and I were talking about PETA and he sent me a text message saying:

Nah PETA has naked chicks against fur.  I don’t care if someone supports Hitler, if they look good naked I can excuse it.

We don’t need to go over the many things wrong with PETA again, but this statement evokes a pretty obvious WTF?! response.  It’s also incredibly shallow.  He also later texted me saying:

There are all these girls walking around in tight tanktops and short shorts and dresses, but someone oughta have told them that they’re too fat to go out like that.

What?!!!  If you’re female and it’s hot outside, you’re only allowed to wear summery clothing if you’re skinny and fit our unrealistic and completely absurd standard of beauty?  Fat shaming is all too common in our society especially as summer comes upon us.  I also don’t understand how exactly the sight of a “fat” woman offends, and I don’t get what fat shaming another person does for you.

My friend who switched majors so that she’d be in more male dominated classes also told me:

The office I’m working in is full of women.  I mean, it’s a small office, but everyone is a woman!!!!  I can’t stand it!  Thank god I’m doing Business now so I can be around manly men.

After she told me this, I was just um…lolwut?  First of all, it bothers me that she can’t stand working in her office simply because all of her co-workers are female.  Secondly, not all males studying or working in Business are “manly men”.  And what exactly constitutes a “manly man”?

While trying to figure out how much to tip at a restaurant, I took out my phone to calculate, and my guy friend said:

Of course you have to use a calculator.  Girls can’t do math.

First of all, it wasn’t like he could figure out the tip either.  Secondly, a new study just came out demonstrating that when girls do more poorly in math it’s because of cultural conditioning not because girls are inherently just bad at math.

Then someone else said,

Why do you care about sexual assault?  Were you sexually assaulted?

Like we’ve said before, sexual assault  is an issue that affects the entire community.  One does not need to have been sexually assaulted in order to care about sexual assault.  Furthermore, the statistics show us that we all personally know somebody who is a survivor of some form of sexual assault.

And then:

Oh, there must be a lot of rape up there.  Those Boston people are all crazy and Red Sox.

Huh?  This statement just doesn’t make sense.  Rape and sexual assault are not specific to Boston or Tufts.  Also, being a Red Sox fan does not make you more likely to be a rapist.

Another comment:

Why are you a feminist?  Do you believe in equality for the sexes or do you like want women to take over?

Of course the latter.  Feminism is all about getting women to take over, duh.

Sometimes you just wonder, is it even worth trying to convince people who you know just won’t listen with an open ear and mind anyway?