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1 Linking Sexism and Speciesism 1 (forthcoming in Hypatia ) Jason Wyckoff University of Utah Abstract: Some feminists and animal advocates defend what I call the Linked Oppressions Thesis, according to which the oppression of women and the oppression of animals are linked causally, materially, normatively, and/or conceptually. Alasdair Cochrane offers objections to each version of the Linked Oppressions Thesis and concludes that the Thesis should be rejected in all its forms. In this paper I defend the Linked Oppressions Thesis against Cochrane‘s objections as well as objections levelled by Beth Dixon, and argue that the failure of these objections illuminates the idea of linked oppressions as well as misunderstandings of the Linked Oppressions Thesis, and may provide guidance to philosophers theorizing animal rights from a feminist perspective. 1. The Linked Oppressions Thesis There are two ways in which feminist philosophy can inform a theory of animals‘ oppression. First, a particular feminist approach to theorizing women‘s oppression might be adapted to develop an account of animals‘ oppression, the thought being that women‘s oppression and animals‘ oppression are structu rally similar in ways that allow the latter to be illuminated by a theory developed primarily to address the former. Second, a feminist approach that is attentive to the existence of linked oppressions — oppressions along different dimensions, such as gender and race, or along the same dimension but across different cultural or geographic 1 A version of this paper was presented at Wayne State University; I would like to thank those who attended that session for their very insightful criticisms and comments. I would also like to thank Peter Higgins, Theresa Tobin, Rebecca Tuvel, and two anonymous Hypatia reviewers for their detailed and helpful comments on earlier drafts of the paper. 2 contexts, that may be shown to have a common basis or to reinforce or intensify each other — might be used in an attempt to link the actual oppression of women and the actual oppression of animals. The goal of such a project would be to reveal the ways in which these two apparently different forms of oppression depend upon and mutually reinforce each other. It is possible to use feminist insights fruitfully in both of these ways to shed light on the oppression of non-human animals, but here I will focus mainly on the issue of linked oppressions. Many other theorists have attempted to demonstrate the precise ways in which the oppression of women and the oppression of animals are entangled and interdependent, and it is not my objective either to summarize their arguments in detail or to develop an alternative view from the ground up. 2 Instead, I will address a series of objections to the thesis that women‘s oppression is linked to animals‘ oppression in order to lend indirect support to several compatible variants of that thesis (henceforth the Linked Oppressions Thesis). I will focus primarily on Alasdair Cochrane‘s (2010, 117-23) and Beth Dixon‘s (1996) objections to approaches that use one or more of the following ideas to link the oppression of women and the oppression of animals (supplementing Cochrane‘ s objections with others where appropriate): (1) man‘s domination of nature; (2) the valorization of meat-eating; (3) objectification of women and animals — particularly through the legal institution of property. 3 I hope to show that these objections fail in ways that reveal some interesting features of the Linked Oppressions Thesis. More specifically, I aim to demonstrate that there are at least four versions of the Thesis, and that 2 See, e.g., Tuvel, 2013; Glasser, 2011; Adams, 2010; Kheel, 2007, 2004; Slicer, 2007; Bailey, 2005; MacKinnon, 2004; Nibert, 2002; Dunayer, 2001 (esp. 157-61); Kappeler, 1995; Gaard, 1993; Gruen, 1993; Warren and Cheney, 1991; Warren, 1990. 3 Cochrane also considers the thesis that women and animals are oppressed through similar linguistic practices. I do not consider his objections to that view in this paper, partly for reasons of space but partly because my own thesis can be established without consideration of that issue. 3 the inclination to reject it may often be rooted in confusion about which version is actually being offered. Before proceeding further, it is worth taking a moment to reflect on why the Linked Oppressions Thesis, if it can be established, is significant and worth exploring. There are at least three reasons: first, if the Linked Oppressions Thesis is true, the liberation of women and of animals might, in practice, depend on addr essing women‘s oppression and animals‘ oppression as a bundled political problem rather than as independent, discrete forms of oppression. (The same is true of any other linked oppressions that we might locate.) Second, the issue of animal rights 4 is frequently dismissed by many on the Left who claim to care about social justice across a range of systems of domination and oppression, and therefore it is important as a theoretical and a practical matter for defenders of animals to dispel this belief among potential political allies in order to open up the possibility of productive coalitions that adopt a comprehensive approach to social justice and political advocacy. Third, insufficient sensitivity to the Linked Oppressions Thesis frequently leads feminist activists and animal activists to adopt tactics that reinforce the oppression of animals and women, respectively. If, for example, animal activists were to make the connection between sexism and speciesism, they might be less likely to launch sexist campaigns in defense of animals —such as PETA‘s ―I‘d Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur‖ campaign, or the organization ‘ s XXX website — that exploit one form of oppression in order to raise awareness of another. The Linked Oppressions Thesis recommends a more comprehensive approach to social justice and political activism. 4 Since some feminists may balk at the notion of “rights,” (see, e.g. Kheel, 2007) I should say that I use ‘right’ to refer to a pro tanto moral claim (a) to or against some action performed by a moral agent, or (b) against a disadvantageous social status, or (c) to consideration in the distribution of some social good or goods. Thus, the expression “animal rights” is used here to refer simply to a position according to which animals are the subjects of such moral claims, and nothing more robust than that. For a feminist defense of rights in animal ethics, see Kelch, 2007. 4 2. Sexism, speciesism, and linked oppressions In what follows, I will assume structural accounts of both sexism and speciesism, which is to say that neither term is used here to refer simply to a psychological prejudice (against women, against animals). While many people harbor such prejudices, and therefore may properly be called sexists or speciesists, my focus here is not on ―the sexist‖ n or ―the speciesist,‖ but rather on sexism and speciesism as ideologies — systems of socially shared beliefs and practices that legitimate some actual or desired social order. 5 In order to foster precision in the defense of the Linked Oppressions Thesis, I offer the following definitions: Sexism : a system of socially shared beliefs and/or practices in which: (a) any individual S whose physical features are used to mark her as a woman is, in virtue of being so marked, generally thought to be someone who ought to occupy certain kinds of social position that are in fact subordinate (and this marking motivates and justifies S‘s occupying such a position), and (b) satisfying (a) plays a role in S‘s actual systematic subordination. 6 Speciesism : a system of socially shared beliefs and/or practices in which: (a) any individual S whose physical features are used to mark him or her as non-human is, in virtue of being so marked, generally thought by members of a human society H to be someone who ought to occupy certain kinds of social 5 In so defining ‘ideology’, I closely follow Nibert (2002, p. 8). Niber t’s account of oppression and ideology closely follows Iris Young’s (1990) account. For an application of Young’s theory of oppression to animals, see Gruen, 2009. 6 I r ely heavily on Haslanger’s (2000, 42) descriptive genealogical analysis of ‘woman’ in f ormulating sexism in this way. 5 position that in fact systemically subordinate S‘s interests to lesser i nterests of humans (and this marking motivates and justifies S‘s occupying such a position in H), and (b) the fact that S satisfies (a) plays a role in the actual systematic subordination of S‘s interests to the lesser int erests of humans, and (c) the systematic subordination of S‘s interests involves one or more of the following: i. S has the legal status of property in H. ii. S‘s interests are not protected by any legal rights in H. iii. S is regarded within the dominant ideology of H as something that may be killed for food, clothing, sport, or the production of any products made from the body of S. iv. S‘s pain is regarded within the dominant ideology of H to have less moral disvalue than the pain of humans. v. The dominant ideology of H permits S to be bred with other members of S‘s species to produce offspring exclusively for human use. vi. S may be used for humans‘ ends in ways that the dominant ideology of H would regard as impermissible if such use involved human beings whose cognitive capacities, intelligence, or degree of language mastery approximated those of S. We should also have some clear notion of what it means for oppressions to be ―linked‖ in the ways in which defenders of variants of the Linked Oppressions Thesis have in mind. Here,
