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“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.”

Quote by Lisa Kemmerer

Book:Sister Species: Women, Animals and Social Justice
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Sister Species: Women, Animals and Social Justice

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Lisa Kemmerer

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“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.”

ChangeJusticeSocial JusticePrivilegeActivismAnimal RightsAnimal LiberationIntersectionalitySpeciesism
Book:Sister Species: Women, Animals and Social Justice
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“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.”

JusticeSocial JusticeActivismOppressionAnimal LiberationIntersectionalitySpeciesismAnimal Activits
Book:Sister Species: Women, Animals and Social Justice
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“working on behalf of social justice – working on behalf of nonhuman animals – requires immersion in the horrors of oppression. For the women who have submitted essays for this anthology, immersion in the ugliness of injustice, in the hope of change, seems preferable to turning away. . . . ... There is a reward for courage and determination in the face of helplessness and trauma: By walking into extreme misery in the hope of exposing injustice and bringing change, these women have moved from helplessness and despair to empowered activism.”

WomenCourageDeterminationBraveryInjusticeTraumaActivismIntersectionalitySpeciesismSocial Justice Warrior
Book:Sister Species: Women, Animals and Social Justice
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“Violence is central to patriarchy, and Western society’s various forms of systemic violence are interconnected. Recognizing similarities across forms of oppression such as racism, child abuse, speciesism, and sexism, for example, is essential . . . . We can curb this tendency only if all forms of violence are exposed and challenged—rape and slaughter, rodeos and brothels. We cannot expect to put out the fire by removing only one coal.”

ViolenceSocial JusticeActivismSexismPatriarchyIntersectionalitySocial Justice Warrior
Book:Sister Species: Women, Animals and Social Justice
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“But activists must not work against one another in their single-minded dedication to one specific cause. Those fighting to protect horses must not eat cattle. We do well to specialize, we do not do so well if we specialize without knowledge of interlocking oppressions—or without the application of that knowledge.”

Social JusticeActivismOppressionInterconnectedInterconnectednessIntersectionality
Book:Sister Species: Women, Animals and Social Justice
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“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. . . . This requires us to be open to change as a response to what other social justice activists say—especially those advocating against parallel interlocking oppressions. We cannot end just one form of oppression, so we need to be on board with other activists. If we are not, we doom social justice activists to perpetually pulling up the innumerable shoots that spring from the very deep roots of oppression. Furthermore, inability to see one’s own privilege and ignorance of the struggles that others face (in a homophobic, racist, ageist, ableist, sexist society) are major impediments to social justice activism. Those who are privileged must get out of the way so that others can take the lead, bringing new social justice concerns and methods to the activist’s table.”

EducationSocial JusticePrivilegeActivismOppressionIntersectionalityLifestyle Change
Book:Sister Species: Women, Animals and Social Justice
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“There is an ugly, unmentioned truth behind a feminist’s tendency to associate women with men, rather than with similarly exploited pigs or cattle: Those who purposefully distance women from other female animals hope to liberate female humans while leaving nonhuman animals in the category of exploitable “other." But it is reprehensible for individuals who are seeking release from oppression to purposefully leave others in the dungeons of exploitation—even to condemn others to such exploitation—in the process of working to extricate themselves. In any event, this selfish approach has not worked, and the reason for this seems somewhat obvious: As long as we foster power-over—whether over pigs or turkeys or women—most human females will remain under the control of men, along with pigs and cows and chickens (who will generally remain yet lower on the rungs of power). In seeking to stand above nonhuman females, women help to maintain a hierarchy through which they are held below men. As long as we support a hierarchy, as long as we support a system which grants some individuals power over other individuals, men will dominate over women. Hierarchies entail power-over, and the power of one individual over another inevitably supports oppression.”

PowerFeministActivismOppressionExploitationPatriarchyHierarchyAnimal LiberationOtherSpeciesism
Book:Speaking Up for Animals: An Anthology of Women's Voices
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“Not only do we harbor patriarchal indifference to uniquely female suffering, but additionally, most of us are ignorant of the horrible cruelty inherent in factory farming. It is easy to buy a bucket of chicken or a carton of vanilla yogurt without even knowing about the females whose sad lives lie behind these unnecessary products. It is easy to forget that mozzarella and cream come from a mother’s munificence—mothers who would have desperately preferred to tend their young, and to live out their lives with a measure of freedom and comfort—or not to be born at all. Most consumers are unaware of the ongoing, intense suffering and billions of premature deaths that lurk behind mayonnaise and cream, cold cuts and egg sandwiches. Even with the onset of contemporary animal advocacy, and the unavoidability of at least some knowledge of what goes on in slaughterhouses and on factory farms, most of us choose to look away—even feminists. Collectively, feminists remain largely unaware of the well-documented links between the exploitation of women and girls, and the exploitation of cows, sows, and hens.”

WomenFeminismActivismEggsMothersPatriarchyDairyIntersectionalityFactory FarmingSpeciesism
Book:Speaking Up for Animals: An Anthology of Women's Voices
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