PETA-peeved

By Kat (aka Frog)

I really, really hate PETA. (people for the ethical treatment of animals)

It's not that I have something against animal rights or vegetarianism; on the contrary, I am a vegetarian, slowly moving towards veganism, and I think the current system of animal exploitation to get meat is really horrific, on an animal-rights scale as well as on an environmental and human-rights scale.

But PETA really gives us vegetarians a bad name.

I was inspired to write this rant as I'm working on my paper for my anthropology class, the prompt being, "who are you?" and my response being, "A vegetarian."

To me, one cannot be a vegetarian without also being an environmentalist, a believer in human rights and civil liberties, an active participant in the political process, and someone who otherwise challenges the traditions and expectations society as a whole lumps onto a generation. For me, this challenging of the status quo is intricately linked with my existence as a female; I challenge the world's belief that eating meat is a necessary component of a good life and I challenge the stereotypes and expectations tied to my gender identity and my class.

PETA however, does not apparently agree with my idea of vegetarianism as a "challenge" to existing social norms--they pose naked women in their advertisements to encourage people to go vegetarian, on the premise that "no one will listen to our message unless we sell them sex." Why is it that "sex" always has to be a naked female, and not a male? Why is it that their message sounds apologetic, as though they know what they're doing is wrong, but they do it anyway to supposedly compete or fit in with the barrage of other advertisements we're faced with all the time.

Who is really going to pay attention to animal rights when women's rights are being undermined? Is anyone going to pay attention to the message of the advertisement when they could salivate over a human being turned into an object? It seems to me that by including "sex" in their advertisements, they actually glamourize the products which they try to condemn--if they had pictures of hurt animals, in my opinion, their advertisements would be more effective.

This is a strategy PETA's been taking for awhile, and this frustration against them has been slowly festering for awhile now. I was looking PETA up to help show in my paper that not all vegetarians are the same, and the brief search for more information about PETA was enough to inspire a rant. Their superbowl ad was supposedly so sexist that it couldn't even get aired--but there is speculation that was what PETA was after.

While I was browsing that page and filling up with ire, I saw another link that showed they at one point dressed up like KKK members to compare an organization which selectively breeds dogs to the KKK. Of course, the organization that selectively breeds dogs doesn't rape, torture, maim, or slowly kill the animals with which they work, which shows once again that PETA is merely interested in shock value and not facts.

It's your fault, PETA, that when I tell people I'm vegetarian they think I'm part of some freakish cult; it's your fault that when I say "I don't eat meat" I'm treated as though I'm a child going through a cute rebellious phase that I'll grow out of when I grow older; it's your fault that people think vegetarianism is a joke.

You're a bunch of hypocrites.