Animals and Women Feminist The

by Carol J Adams

  Hence we are becoming alarmed at the doings of genetic engineers — whose ideological, not to mention in some cases personal, provenance from the “ scientific research ” of Nazi Germany is well documented 10 — only when they propose to apply their technology to ourselves, the human “ race, ” as, for example, in the recent case of the cloning of a human embryo in a U.S. laboratory. However, knowingly or not, we have long been consuming the products of their labor in the form of genetically manipulated medicines, fruit, vegetables, dairy products, and — for those eating meat — manipulated animals, benefiting from their experiments moreover in the form of an increasingly polluted and poisoned environment. 11 That is, we have had little problem with the principle of breeding and genetic experimentation so long as it has not apparently been applied to humans — although “ eugenic ” abortion of fetuses with suspected “ disability, ” a mechanism of breeding “ healthy ” people — has already widely gained acceptability. Similarly, it is becoming increasingly obvious that the experiments we have tolerated in relation to animals and plants have also been the testing ground for techniques to “ improve ” the human race 12 — to breed more efficient, more resistant, and more useful human beings — say, workers resistant to the perilous and poisonous conditions at work 13 or babies made to measure, 14 not to mention the promise of eliminating the “ genes ” of homosexuality or violence. In other words, we continue to make “ biological ” categories the basis for political decisions, from the acceptance of genetic manipulation in the case of animals and plants to the demand that the “ biological ” no longer be allowed to have political significance in the sphere of human society — that is, the decision to relegate the political significance of biology to the world of animals or “ nature. ”

  As Lynda Birke argues elsewhere in this volume, the animal world now seems to be the epitome of the biological: “ Everything about animals — including their behavior — is [seen as] biological. ” With regard to animals, in other words, humans continue to feel justified not only in making typologies based on biological differences, but in making “ biologist ” arguments in relation to issues that are in fact political and social issues — as, for instance, the social behavior of animals under human observation and manipulation, that is to say, in conditions of human dominance and rule. Thus the “ animal world ” of science is the “ legitimate ” sphere where biologist thinking — behaviorism, sociobiology, etc. — continues to be developed, ready to be reimported into the “ human sphere ” as the “ scientific ” basis of apparently “ human ” sciences such as sociology, politics, and psychology. The primary ideological function of the significance of “ animal, ” as of “ biological, ” is to designate the “ natural. ” But while there has been considerable critique of the ideological meaning and function of the concept of “ nature, ” “ biology ” not only continues to fulfill the same function but enjoys the additional significance of being accepted as the scientific and objective truth about nature.

  From Human Rights to Species Rights

  Political critiques of racism and sexism have insisted that physiological differences among humans must be regarded as insignificant as far as political rights are concerned, emphasizing, like the definition of human rights, that no factors of sex or skin color or body structure nor any other factors of physiology or biology must be used to discriminate between humans. All humans shall be equal in their rights — whatever their diversity as humans. While in terms of human politics this constitutes a major ethical (even if mainly theoretical) advance, animal liberationists point out that it has been achieved at the cost of all other animals and living nature: through the shoring up of the dichotomy between humans and other animals or nature as a whole.

  As Lynda Birke points out, in the dichotomy between humans and animals, the term “ animals ” is used in a universalizing way, as if all animals were the same. Yet we know this to be a feature of all dichotomous and hierarchical oppositions, affecting the subordinate category: under the perspective of sexism, all women are “ the same, ” exemplars of the sex and interchangeable; under the perspective of racism all black people are “ the same ” and exchangeable. The very point of categorization is to create discriminating identities, “ types ” of people allegedly sharing the same (typical) feature(s), thus to justify their social and political roles — in this case their usefulness to men or whites, respectively — and to invalidate their rights as individuals. Hence the use of the generic form — sexist discourse speaking of “ Woman ” or “ the Sex, ” racist discourse of “ the Black man ” [ sic ]. And as Birke and others have shown, speciesism speaks not only of “ the lion ” and “ the fox, ” but generally of “ the animal(s). ”

  However, to me the problem seems less that feminist or animal rights approaches that implicitly rely on speciesism universalize, generalize, or stereotype animals, than that the basis on which they wish to secure the rights of women and now of animals is no different from that on which they were previously denied . That is to say, the same hierarchy of categories is presupposed, only the boundary of those included in the group with rights is extended “ downward ” along the ladder, shoring up a different dichotomy as the crucial — that is, exclusionary — boundary. The idea of the ladder of categories — of the “ objective ” classification of given, “ natural ” species — remains unquestioned and unchallenged, in the interest of those who see the chance of being adopted into the top class. Equally unchallenged is the power of the original group that sees itself at the uncontested top of the ladder, arrogating to itself the right to classify and to decide over the rights of others — the epitome of the speciesist paradigm.

  Thus white men, in their endeavor to buttress white male supremacy, used to draw the line defining “ human ” — and thus “ rights ” — between (among others) whites and blacks as well as between men and women, on the basis of an alleged natural and evolutionary hierarchy that placed both the race of black people and the sex of women on a stage of development below that of white men and hence closer to “ the animals. ” In turn, the struggles for the emancipation of black people and of women in the U.S. in the nineteenth century led to various proposals of how the crucial boundary should be reshuffled: should it run between whites and blacks, including white men and women and excluding blacks (men and women), or between men and women, including white and black men and excluding (black and white) women? 15 Both black men and white women had something to gain (though it never was equality) depending on how the line was drawn; but white men ’ s membership and their power to classify and to grant rights was unaffected either way, as was the certain exclusion of black women, their assured position below any boundary. The eventual emancipation of both black people (men and women) and women (black and white) in Western societies may have led to their inclusion in the category of humans, even of citizens, yet without either group having become equal to the white men who previously occupied that category exclusively. The boundary of inclusion/exclusion has been shifted “ downward, ” yet the idea of a hierarchy of categories and the supremacy of the group at the top has been left unshaken. The ladder of categorization (and subcategorization) continues to exist, both within the category “ human ” and outside of it.

  Hence to speak of “ humans and the other animals ” so as to signal the inclusion of humans among the animals — in the interest of promoting animals into the class of those deserving rights — equally leaves the hierarchy intact, shoring up instead the dichotomy between animals and nonanimals. As we know, the boundary between what we consider to be animal life on the one hand and plant life on the other is less “ natural ” and less clear-cut than we would like to think and these categories tend to imply, as is the dividing line between living and so-called dead matter. But we need not even go that far “ down ” the ladder to see that what is at stake is not equality, that the crucial boundary still exists, and the question simply is at what precise point it shall for now be fixed.

  The zo
ological — and archetypally speciesist — subdivision of animals into different species has led animal rights advocates to do with animals what on the level of humans we are trying to overcome: to affirm and maintain an evolutionary hierarchy and to grant rights to some and not others on the basis of zoological differences — say, to primates but not to worms. Or to wild animals, perceived as “ natural ” animals, but not to farm and domestic animals, seen as “ subanimals ” (see Karen Davis ’ s article in this volume). The zoological classification, however, is less biological than biologist, including factors concerning the animals ’ lifestyles, habitats, and political history — that is, criteria concerning the sociopolitical coexistence of animals and humans. Although the perspective of classification masquerades as the “ objectivity ” of no standpoint at all, 16 it reflects the human-subjective — that is, speciesist — standpoint: crucial principles of evaluation and hierarchizing are the animal species ’ alleged similarity with or difference from humans (the evolutionary order), their usefulness to humans, complemented by traditional human (male, white, etc.) sympathies (or antipathies) for particular species (see Diane Antonio on wolves in this volume). That is to say, the subjective norm of valuation is incorporated within the very objects being constituted, even as the scientific subject disappears from its object-science.

  The specific criteria by which it has been proposed that rights should be granted or withheld are either the animals ’ ability to feel pain (sentience) or to lead a life “ worth living ” 17 — both being judged by a jury of self-appointed, white, human, scientific experts. Not only is sentience more likely to be perceived the more the animals ’ expression resembles human expression, but such expression tends to be tested in response to human infliction of pain, thus revealing the real objective behind the withholding of rights from animals, namely that humans may abuse animals. Similarly, assessing whether another ’ s life is worth living involves recognizing factors dear to the judges: consciousness (long considered to be the defining characteristic distinguishing humans from animals), intelligence (ditto), and moral agency, extended by Tom Regan to include the passive experience of so-called “ moral patients. ” 18 The proposal that rights should continue to be withheld from domesticated or farm animals shows up the fundamental cynicism behind “ scientific ” rights discourse: the disastrously violating — “ inhuman ” (!) — conditions that humans impose on farm animals are acknowledged not in order to change them, but in order to disqualify the animals from rights, as though these conditions were objective factors of biological capacity — the kind of life of which these animals are capable.

  As is well known among critics of Peter Singer and Helga Kuhse, the latters ’ consideration of “ the differences ” among animals (and humans) as well as of their alleged capacity to lead lives “ worth living ” — also measured as “ objective ” capacities of the “ objects, ” while excluding the social and political construction of living conditions — has led them to reshuffle the ladder of rights at the bottom line: not just so as to include some animals but so as to exclude simultaneously some humans — be it at the level of eugenic breeding (selective aborting) or “ euthanatic ” killing. 19 What masquerades as an antispeciesist defense of (some) animals in fact is a form of superspeciesism, redefining a superrace of the “ healthy ” and “ whole ” with lives “ worth living. ”

  Similarly, the pseudo-objective “ classes ” (or “ races ” or “ species ” ) of people whose rights were up for discussion in the “ civil societies ” of the West over the last few centuries were classes of “ domesticated ” — farm, factory farm, factory, plantation, and domestic — people: slaves (having been literally factory farmed and bred), peasants, domestic servants, workers, women, and black people (former slaves). Similarly, in Western European societies today, it is migrant workers, however settled, whose political rights are still being debated — that is, whether they should be granted any or continue to be deprived of them. In other words, “ species ” or “ kinds ” of people are not only defined by those at the top of the human hierarchy, but defined specifically in terms of their usefulness to and usability by them. Who shall be considered for rights at all, and hence by what criteria rights are to be granted or withheld, was and still is defined by white, male, property-owning, expert citizens, who also judge the candidates ’ ability to fulfill these criteria — be it women ’ s or black people ’ s ability to think politically and to hold political office, or migrants ’ ability to assimilate sufficiently and embrace the national political and cultural concerns of the country. 20 What we consider to be the speciesist paradigm has never been the simple binary opposition between “ humans ” and “ animals, ” but the complex interaction of speciesism, racism, sexism, classism, nationalism, etc., which crystallizes a narrow yet historically changing group of masters who give themselves the name “ human. ” The zoological (including the racist) continuum of classification blends with the classist instrumentalization of those classified, with the sexist division thrown in as and when required.

  Whether the criterion for animal rights now be sentience — judged not only from a human point of view, but from that of white Western scientific experts — or a life worth living, judged by a similar self-appointed assembly of human experts, these approaches to animal rights or animal liberation have nothing to do with challenging the power hierarchy: they simply aim to adjust some positions in the middle, leaving the hierarchy as such intact, above all leaving the position of judgment unchallenged. It is not speciesism that is being challenged, but merely the content of the categories constituted by speciesism. Even the most radical animal rights position, which would grant rights to all species of animals, is no different in theory from that which denies such rights: not only does it need the crucial boundary shored up between animals and nonanimals (or animals that qualify and those who do not), but it continues to arrogate to itself the right to grant rights. Neither does it help if we speak of intrinsic value: value is a fundamentally relational category, which implies the possibility of a lack of value as well as a subject defining and recognizing that value. The very project of granting and extending rights is fundamentally speciesist, exempting the human agent and judge into the category of subject ruling over an object world.

  Speciesism, or the Constitution of Power

  In the political context of the behavior of humans on this planet (not to say in the universe), the question is not so much who else, apart from humans, shall have what are considered to be rights: the question is how the massive abuse of power by (specific groups of) humans, their exploitation and destruction of the lives of others (human and nonhuman) and of the so-called environment, can be stopped. Talking of rights and the extension of rights to other groups and species masks that what humans (differentially privileged according to the human species ladder) have been exercising are not any rights to life and survival, but the power and privilege to dominate, exploit, and destroy others — to rob others of their lives and existence (and on given occasions to grant it). Not only do these specific humans require no protection of their own “ rights, ” they are the very reason why protecting (the rights of) the majority of people and animals and nature becomes a necessity. In particular, the rhetoric of rights and groups of “ objects ” in line as candidates for rights disguises that the position of the subject — of this discourse of rights and its classification — is itself a crucial position of power, based on the same power structures that enable the exploitation that “ rights ” are to grant protection from: power over others, over those it makes the objects of its discourse and classification. The shared “ scientific ” perspective, the common focus on objects, be it objects of exploitation or of rights, lets the subject disappear from view — and with it the human agency necessitating (and on choice occasions granting) human rights, animal rights, and protection of the environment. Power, as well as the human agency of exploitation and violence, are implicitly legitimated and affirmed, as an axiomatic ( �
� natural ” ?) force in need of regulation.

  The question is, rather, why such an abuse of power and such a will to dominance — constituted in white, male, Western, adult, expert supremacy, but exercised in the name of humanity — continues to be seen and defined as a right What does it mean if rather than exposing it, we are trying to extend such a right, making it the implicit standard of rights? Power cannot be democratically extended to all, since it requires others over whom it is exercised, privilege being an excess of rights at the cost and to the detriment of others and their rights. If we really want freedom for all to live and exist — to live free from violation by the powerful — power and privilege must not be more widely shared, they must be radically dismantled. What masquerades as an extension of rights down the ladder in fact is a degree of protection extended to groups previously exploited — granted by the very exploiters now playing protectors, and passing exploitation “ down ” the ladder. Not only does the inclusion of groups as worthy of protection legitimate the continued exploitation of all and everything “ below ” that boundary; the mandate to protect moreover consolidates power in those entrusted with it, requiring power over the most powerful from whom protection is to be granted.