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Sister Species: Women, Animals and Social Justice

Book by Lisa Kemmerer · 9 quotes · Activism, Intersectionality, Social Justice

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Sister Species: Women, Animals and Social Justice Quotes

“. . . no human being would wish to trade places with nonhuman animals in factory farms or laboratories. . . . The legal status of women and nonwhite racialized minorities has improved markedly in the past fifty years; matters have grown considerably worse for nonhuman animals.”

“I have often wondered how empathetic women have the courage to repeatedly expose themselves to trauma—entering animal labs, factory farms, and slaughterhouses to witness and record insidious treatment of nonhuman animals—while maintaining a semblance of emotional and psychological equilibrium. Authors in this anthology provide an answer: empathic people face misery head-on, not only to bring about much-needed change but as a means of coping. In a world where unconscionable violence and pervasive injustices are the norm, they have come to see activism as the lesser of two miseries. These women have found that their only hope for peace of mind is to walk straight into that pervasive misery and work for change”

“Because the oppression of nonhuman individuals is normative, it is largely invisible, and most of us are complicit in one way or another. While social justice activists now widely recognize that the poor, elderly, and non-white racialized minorities are harmed by patriarchy, few are willing to similarly recognize the harm of patriarchal dualisms and hierarchy on nonhuman animals – even ecofeminist theorists. Very few social justice activists have even a rudimentary understanding of speciesism, or of the harmful exploitation that stems from such marginalization and cruel domination of nonhuman animals.”

“Acknowledging and protecting nonhuman individuals places limits on human power, and will put an end to a host of ill-gotten gains – just as emancipation curtailed white power and put an end to the ill-gotten gains of Caucasian-Americans. Consequently, animal activists who push for change are often met with derision and indifference by those who wish to continue their accustomed diet, those who do not want to rethink their leather shoes, toiletries, or treasured forms of entertainment. Feminists and civil rights protesters who asked others to change for the sake of justice – to give up their ill-gotten gains – were and are met with similar insults and raucous rejections.”

“It is increasingly difficult for social justice activists to advocate – with a clear conscience – for women, the poor, or immigrants while eating other animals or consuming the nursing milk of cattle. Animal activists are exposing the links that connect the oppression of nonhuman animals with human oppression.”

“Those who seek greater justice in our world need to work toward a deeper understanding of oppressions. Activists need to develop the kind of understanding that will lead to a lifestyle—a way of being—that works against all oppressions.”