Tag Archives: animal rights

Quiet Piggy: Misogyny, Speciesism and the Legitimation of Hate

As I’m sure many of you did, I watched the video of Donald Trump saying “quiet piggy” to a female journalist, Catherine Lucey, yesterday with horror. But also with deep sadness: sadness caused by the fact this wasn’t a career-ending statement for a man in public office. How low we seem to have sunk.

I was also struck by his demeanour. He seemingly leant in close to her and pointed in her face as he said those words. Acts of a bully, maybe, but certainly acts of a man who thinks he can legitimately demean and control women. And that he can do so by referring to them as animals.  

The use of pig as an insult here was no coincidence. It was a deliberate attempt to silence a woman, put her in ‘her place’ and undermine her professional credibility.

Moreover, it was likely intended as a comment on her looks and/or behaviour, given the cultural association of pigs and ugliness. For example, Aaron Stibbe in his analysis of the British National Corpus – 100 million words taken from a wide range of media and everyday speech – found that pigs feature more than any other animal in our idioms, metaphors and similes. They featured in the corpus in non-literal usage 62 times. And the vast majority of those uses were negative – e.g., ‘awful pig’, ‘as fat as a pig’, ‘making a pig of herself’.

In short this seemingly candid moment caught on camera was an exercise of misogynistic power; one that goes beyond mere sexism.

Richardson-Self argues that sexism includes a ‘justificatory component’, providing reasons that men are naturally superior to women: A hierarchical belief system that is then idealised to support a patriarchal gender order. Misogyny, however, has a ‘hostility component’, that directs hostility toward women who are seen to be subverting deeply held patriarchal norms. A female reporter – and one who dared question the behaviour of a (powerful, white) man – in an entrenched patriarchal political space might well be seen to subverting patriarchal norms.

But Trump’s use of the word ‘piggy’ goes beyond sexism and misogyny. It is also a form of speciesism. Here, sexism and speciesism work together to construct women as inferior because of their perceived closeness to nature – something we see in a focus on their/our bodies as well as in sayings like “putting lipstick on a pig”.

Feminist animal studies scholars have long demonstrated the way language assists in the oppression of both women and other animals. In 1995 Joan Dunayer in Sexist Words, Speciesist Roots argued, “Symbolically associating women with “animal” assists in their oppression. Applying images of denigrated nonhuman species to women labels women inferior and available for abuse” (p. 11).

And, of course, Carol Adams in The Sexual Politics of Meat pointed out how referring to both animals and women as meat is a function of cultures that see both as objects to be consumed.  

In other words, as Dunayer pointed out, this form of language use assists in normalising the oppression of other animals: “With contemptuous words, humans establish and maintain emotional distance from other animals” (p. 18).

She notes that pigs in particular are a focus of misuse in this way because they are bred purely to be killed. This, she argues (using the work of Leach [1964]) is a shameful thing that leads to the shame being attached to the pigs themselves: “using pig” as a pejorative lends acceptability to their massive abuse” (p. 18).

More recently researchers have linked the use of animalised slurs aimed at women to the highly toxic, misogynistic and hate-full Manosphere. Here, animal metaphors are used to describe women who are considered too ugly to have sex with (‘seals’, ‘whales’), women who are considered sexually appealing (‘bunny’, ‘vixen’), and to make comment about women’s mental abilities and their presumed willingness to manipulate men (‘vixen’, ‘viper’). As well as normalising the oppression of both animals and women these discursive tactics, the authors argue, are clear examples of one of the phases to online extremism – dehumanization.

Research into online extremism consistently shows links between violence against women, extremist ideologies and hostile sexism. It also shows there are crossovers between extremist misogynist groups and online child abuse. Research has also shown links between right-wing authoritarianism, social dominance orientation, and the acceptance of animal exploitation.

I don’t know about you but I’m seeing patterns here. The main connection seems to be an assumed right to power based on a hierarchical understanding of the world. In turn that power often expresses itself as hate for the Other, in this case women and other animals.

To return to my opening sentiment then, watching a man with political power refer to a woman as a ‘piggy’ is truly horrifying.

And it seems as though there is an unexamined understanding of this. Take for example, Hank Green’s bluesky post: “I don’t know why the “Piggy” thing is bothering me so much. It’s one more unforgivable thing in a list of 20,000 unforgivable things, but I’ve been mad about it for like 12 straight hours”.

Despite this, most of the outrage directed at this event refuses to analyse the connections between the discursive positioning of women, other animals and oppression.

Perhaps because sexism and misogyny are (at least nominally) frowned upon but speciesism isn’t?

And yet, we won’t end one without the other.

Artwork credit: Heather Fraser

Reposted from Animals in Society: Animal Studies Scholar Advocacy

Pouakai Zoo and an Ethics of Sight by Shannon Johnstone

This weekend I visited the Pouakai Zoo in New Plymouth, Aotearoa New Zealand, which has recently received national attention over accusations of neglect and poor living conditions evidenced in a series of photographs. An investigation by the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) and a petition promoted by Taranaki Animal Save has ensued. The initial MPI check began on Wednesday, March 6 with a zoo visit accompanied by a veterinarian. They found “no urgent animal welfare issues to be addressed.”

As a photographer, photography professor, and PhD candidate studying the ethics of picturing animal suffering, this story piqued my interest.

Located about 13 kilometers south of the New Plymouth city center, this Taranaki zoo is privately-owned, unaccredited, charges an admission fee, and exhibits both wild and domestic animals. Animal rights activists have a term that they use for places like this – “roadside zoo” – and they legally exist in almost every Western nation. While there is no legal definition for a roadside zoo, they share several common characteristics, such as being privately owned; having no accreditation by a third-party (i.e. AZA, ZAA); charging an admission fee; and exhibiting non-domesticated ‘wild’ animals.

In New Zealand, it is legal for someone to own certain wild animals (i.e. elephants, lions, bears, monkeys, butterflies, alligators, frogs, and owls) as long as they operate as a ‘zoo.’ All zoos must be licensed by the government. Licensing in NZ is much stricter and more comprehensive than in other countries such as the USA. For instance, New Zealand’s Animal Welfare Act 1999 provides a 40 page document called “Code of Welfare: Zoos” that outlines the minimum standards of care for zoo animals. Under NZ law, the term ‘animal’ includes warm- and cold-blooded animals as well as invertebrates. While this document is not species specific and is open to interpretation in many areas, it provides an example of how a government can offer some welfare protection to animals in non-accredited zoos. However, an NZ exhibitor license is limited. It is, for example, nowhere near as comprehensive as the standards required to become an accredited zoo. In fact, there are several places within the Code of Welfare document (i.e. zoographic, rehab, and reproductive policies) that recommend consulting with a ZAA accrediting body.

During my visit to Pouakai Zoo, the owner of the zoo approached me as I was photographing and told me about the bad press they had received. He explained how easily photographs can manipulate truth. He said that while the photographs shared by the Taranaki Animal Save are beautiful, they don’t give the full story. As an example, he explained that the capuchin pictured, Cora, has a form of alopecia and she is 38 years-old, and her small size and body condition are due to gender and old age. He told me that capuchins are very smart and examine everything. He explained that in the image where Cora is peeling a bit of paint off the walls, she was just getting into mischief and exploring her enclosure. I was struck by this conversation because framing the issue of animal captivity as a photographic problem is exactly what my research is about.

The owner has an astute point—photographs will always give a biased account and cannot show the full picture. Most often, a photograph fails to show the complex cultural conditions that allow what is seen in the photograph to exist. These invisible conditions embodying the photograph are what photo historian Shawn Michelle Smith calls photographic “blind spots”— and they shape what we see, but we don’t “see” them.

In the case of the Pouakai Zoo, the photographic blind spot lies not in the conditions of a particular animal, but in anthropocentrism— the premise that human lives matter above all else. With zoos, our anthropocentric cultural blind spot is a type of affected ignorance because we ignore the science proving wild animals suffer brain damage  and chronic stress in captivity.

However, there is nothing uniquely cruel or unusual about the Pouakai Zoo. The animals who live there fare far better than some of the others I have seen in my visits to 30 different roadside zoos.

What is cruel are the laws and culture that make roadside zoos possible in the first place.

In order to change this we need what Lori Gruen calls “an ethics of sight”—an opportunity to reflect not just what we see, but how we see. Gruen calls on artists and authors to help change this gaze.

In response, I created a series of inverted photographs called “Roadside Zoo: Captive Glow” that hopefully allow us to see these zoo animals differently. My hope is that these images create empathy as they highlight the loss of agency and the untenable cruelty of keeping animals in zoos, a cruelty that exists in plain sight.

Image information (in order):

  • Don’t Throw Rocks, from a roadside zoo in Virginia, USA
  • Bear Spectacle, from a roadside zoo in Wisconsin, USA
  • Michael, from a roadside zoo in West Virginia, USA
  • Tiger World Cub, from a roadside zoo in North Carolina, USA
  • Ostrich,  from Pouakai Zoo, New Plymouth, Aotearoa, NZ

Artist statement – Roadside Zoo: Captive Glow

I began “Roadside Zoo” as a documentary style photography project with an emphasis on seeing these captive animals as beings forced to live as a caged spectacle. (Roadside zoos are privately owned unaccredited zoos that typically charge an admission fee.) Although the “straight” photographs speak to me about isolation and despair, I fear they don’t communicate the boredom, rage, and loneliness that comes with a life spent in captivity. I fear the unmediated image looks far too similar to what someone else might see as a fun outing. Thus, I have inverted a selection of these images illuminating the captive animals. The animals literally glow with their bodies emanating heat, and along with it a loss of agency and a lifetime of confinement. By inverting the image, I hope our perception of imprisoned animals is also inverted.

“Roadside Zoo: Captive Glow” is a series of inverted photographs that highlight the loss of agency and the untenable cruelty of keeping animals in zoos.

Shannon is a PhD candidate at NZCHAS. more about her various projects can be found HERE.