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Jul. 24th, 2008 07:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
furyofvissarionThanking the Monkey: Rethinking the Way We Treat Animals - Karen Dawn. Let's get it out of the way first: this is not an animal rights book, despite what it's billed as & what surely it will be categorized as; it's an animal welfare book, & on those grounds there was much I disagreed with, which I won't spell out here. I also think that she does a little bit of demonizing abolitionists, probably in hopes of catering to a wider audience.
Also in service of a larger audience (I assume), the book is decked out with lots of glossy photographs of celebrities & quotes from them about animal-related issues. I suppose there are people who will be positively influenced by this--either because they think that veg*nism, etc. is more popular/normal if celebrities do it (to which my reaction would be, since when are celebrity lives normal ones?), or simply because they like a particular celebrity. Several years ago I remember reading something where a celebrity was talking about how easy it was to be vegan, & my reaction then was something along the lines of, of course it'd be easy for you, you have tons of money & lots of people seeking to curry favor w/you: if you want vegan dessert at 3 AM, I'm sure someone will get it for you! Now in general I don't think being vegan is particularly hard, & I have heard people living in very many different places saying the same thing--I would just not be persuaded by a rich privileged celebrity saying so.
Anyway, the book also has kind of a cutesy tone, lots of little jokes (about celebrities, hypothetical boyfriends, etc.), & I guess again, that's supposed to make veganism/animal rights fun--like Skinny Bitch. I'm sort of questioning why the emphasis on fun all the time (more about that later & on another blog), but anyway, the light, flippant remarks also included casual fatphobia, & at least one snark about people taking drugs like Prozac (because obviously anyone on anti-depressants is faking it/just being trendy/a mere sucker of the drug industry). Also, in a discussion of an experiment in which sexual preferences in male sheep were tinkered with, she notes that queer people were v. offended by the implications of this study, as they should be (because it's obviously tied to hoping to find the "gay gene" in humans & turning it off). She then mentions that PETA, so "often accused of being on the fringe," has a stance against this experiment that "has to be mainstream. Surely a ban on same-sex animal marriage should be enough." Oh, har har, cuz the lack of marriage equality is hilarious!
I'm also disgusted by her listing of PETA as a resource; she also touts their PETA2 site as "particularly fun. It lets you know what all the hot musicians and actors are doing for animal rights and even gives you a chance to win tickets to their shows or other prizes." Forget PETA's racism, sexism, & many problematic campaigns--it's all about the hot celebs! I find it interesting that, in the small section on working with other movements, Dawn focuses on how other movements are alienating people who care about animals, while saying nary a word about how groups like PETA alienate people from animal rights (or even animal welfare). In discussing PETA's Running of the Nudes (ie. activists baring skin to protest Spanish bullfights), she notes approvingly that the nudity gets press attention; what I noticed from the 3 photographs of the protesters, is that they appear overwhelmingly skinny & conventionally attractive (& yeah, light-skinned). Gosh, I'm shocked (& if anyone is going to make a remark along the lines of "PETA isn't sexist because Ingrid Newkirk is the president! And those women choose to do those things!" then don't waste your time, because wow, simplistic bullshit argument much?).
She also says that she doesn't care more about animals than people, & yet says that it is acceptable to vote for animal-friendly legislators whose stances towards other issues of oppression are not progressive; she doesn't seem to have any recognition as to why this might be contentious & even off-putting to, say, people of color, to name just one group. She critiques tactics of people like Jerry Vlasak, who's said that killing vivisectionists would be a justifiable act, & talks about how animal activists need to "say things in a way that other people will be willing to hear." Well! A lesson for PETA as well, even if she doesn't recognize it as such.
And given Dawn's affection for the pit bull she shares her life with, what does she think about PETA advocating for breed-specific legislation banning pits & even stating that pit bulls should all be euthanized? Given that her book is kind of a non-stop cheering squad for PETA, I guess I shouldn't be surprised that she doesn't mention it. She also mentions that lots of people keep vegan cats & the cats do fine, but neglects to mention the many cats on vegan diets that have died or nearly died (I have heard such stories a lot online, & even from two well-known vegan podcasters).
On the bright side, the book is useful as a reference tool; there is a ton of information in it, on many aspects of animal use & abuse, & I am sure many people will read it all & find themselves considering more deeply why they feel the need to kill animals, whether to eat or wear or to see prancing around in a circus. And yes, I know, we need the celebrity junkies to understand why animal issues are important too. I just wish the underlying message here wasn't a welfarist one, & that so many of the little jokes didn't seem to pander to common, easy hatreds in Western society (what was that about working w/other movements?).
The James Tiptree Award Anthology 3 - Edited by Karen Joy Fowler, Pat Murphy, Debbie Notkin, and Jeffrey D. Smith. A strong anthology, although I seem to have read more of the contents before than with the other volumes; that doesn't make it a worse anthology (as they were all pieces I enjoyed), just one that had a bit less of the thrill of discovery. Of the stories new to me, Ted Chiang's "Liking What You See: A Documentary" stood out the most; it very thoughtfully questions what beauty is, & whether or not seeing beauty is bad, & should we try to compensate for looksism, & if so, how? I also loved Pam Noles' essay "Shame," on being a fan of color, particularly how it feels to grow up loving fantasy & realizing that the books don't show any people like you. This anthology contains another LeGuin story set in the same world as the one in the last volume, & I must say it struck me as tl;dr as the last one (although I did persevere & read it).
Halfway to the Grave - Jeaniene Frost. I don't generally like vampire books that revolve around vampire hunters, but that's mostly because I find imaginary worlds where vampires are uniformly evil boring. In Frost's novel, Cat Crawfield is a half-vampire who goes around killing vamps because she thinks they're all evil (her vamp dad raped her mom). Then she meets Bones, a vampire bounty hunter of sorts who claims that lots of vampires subsist peacefully with humans, & he only goes after the ones that really are evil (serial killers of women, etc.). While I could see why Cat took so long to believe him, & to erase all those years of her mother's vehement hatred of vampires, that part of the book was tiresome to read. However, I enjoyed pretty much everything else--Cat herself is fun & gritty & tough without being boring about it, & there's lots of hot smut & also surprisingly touching emotional stuff from Bones. I did wish Bones wasn't English; while Frost does a better job of Brit-speak than some other paranormal authors I've read, I ended up hearing Bones' voice in my head as Spike from Buffy, which is annoying. Also, I found the ending annoying--it's a bit too Spiderman for me, & I am not looking forward to wading through the repercussions of such in the second book, even though I do want to see further adventures of Cat & Bones!
Interfictions: An Anthology of Interstitial Writing - Edited by Delia Sherman & Theodora Goss. I was disappointed in this anthology, actually. I felt like there was a bit too much preciousness, a little too much of trying hard to be interstitial. There were a few stories I liked a lot: Leslie What's "Post Hoc," about a woman who lives in the post office after trying to mail herself to her ex; Veronica Schanoes' "Rats," about the self-destruction of an angry, mentally ill teenage girl; Colin Greenland's "Timothy," in which a woman calling her cat indoors for the night ends up with something unexpected; & Vandana Singh's "Hunger," in which the everyday people around the protagonist seem v. much like aliens.
Also in service of a larger audience (I assume), the book is decked out with lots of glossy photographs of celebrities & quotes from them about animal-related issues. I suppose there are people who will be positively influenced by this--either because they think that veg*nism, etc. is more popular/normal if celebrities do it (to which my reaction would be, since when are celebrity lives normal ones?), or simply because they like a particular celebrity. Several years ago I remember reading something where a celebrity was talking about how easy it was to be vegan, & my reaction then was something along the lines of, of course it'd be easy for you, you have tons of money & lots of people seeking to curry favor w/you: if you want vegan dessert at 3 AM, I'm sure someone will get it for you! Now in general I don't think being vegan is particularly hard, & I have heard people living in very many different places saying the same thing--I would just not be persuaded by a rich privileged celebrity saying so.
Anyway, the book also has kind of a cutesy tone, lots of little jokes (about celebrities, hypothetical boyfriends, etc.), & I guess again, that's supposed to make veganism/animal rights fun--like Skinny Bitch. I'm sort of questioning why the emphasis on fun all the time (more about that later & on another blog), but anyway, the light, flippant remarks also included casual fatphobia, & at least one snark about people taking drugs like Prozac (because obviously anyone on anti-depressants is faking it/just being trendy/a mere sucker of the drug industry). Also, in a discussion of an experiment in which sexual preferences in male sheep were tinkered with, she notes that queer people were v. offended by the implications of this study, as they should be (because it's obviously tied to hoping to find the "gay gene" in humans & turning it off). She then mentions that PETA, so "often accused of being on the fringe," has a stance against this experiment that "has to be mainstream. Surely a ban on same-sex animal marriage should be enough." Oh, har har, cuz the lack of marriage equality is hilarious!
I'm also disgusted by her listing of PETA as a resource; she also touts their PETA2 site as "particularly fun. It lets you know what all the hot musicians and actors are doing for animal rights and even gives you a chance to win tickets to their shows or other prizes." Forget PETA's racism, sexism, & many problematic campaigns--it's all about the hot celebs! I find it interesting that, in the small section on working with other movements, Dawn focuses on how other movements are alienating people who care about animals, while saying nary a word about how groups like PETA alienate people from animal rights (or even animal welfare). In discussing PETA's Running of the Nudes (ie. activists baring skin to protest Spanish bullfights), she notes approvingly that the nudity gets press attention; what I noticed from the 3 photographs of the protesters, is that they appear overwhelmingly skinny & conventionally attractive (& yeah, light-skinned). Gosh, I'm shocked (& if anyone is going to make a remark along the lines of "PETA isn't sexist because Ingrid Newkirk is the president! And those women choose to do those things!" then don't waste your time, because wow, simplistic bullshit argument much?).
She also says that she doesn't care more about animals than people, & yet says that it is acceptable to vote for animal-friendly legislators whose stances towards other issues of oppression are not progressive; she doesn't seem to have any recognition as to why this might be contentious & even off-putting to, say, people of color, to name just one group. She critiques tactics of people like Jerry Vlasak, who's said that killing vivisectionists would be a justifiable act, & talks about how animal activists need to "say things in a way that other people will be willing to hear." Well! A lesson for PETA as well, even if she doesn't recognize it as such.
And given Dawn's affection for the pit bull she shares her life with, what does she think about PETA advocating for breed-specific legislation banning pits & even stating that pit bulls should all be euthanized? Given that her book is kind of a non-stop cheering squad for PETA, I guess I shouldn't be surprised that she doesn't mention it. She also mentions that lots of people keep vegan cats & the cats do fine, but neglects to mention the many cats on vegan diets that have died or nearly died (I have heard such stories a lot online, & even from two well-known vegan podcasters).
On the bright side, the book is useful as a reference tool; there is a ton of information in it, on many aspects of animal use & abuse, & I am sure many people will read it all & find themselves considering more deeply why they feel the need to kill animals, whether to eat or wear or to see prancing around in a circus. And yes, I know, we need the celebrity junkies to understand why animal issues are important too. I just wish the underlying message here wasn't a welfarist one, & that so many of the little jokes didn't seem to pander to common, easy hatreds in Western society (what was that about working w/other movements?).
The James Tiptree Award Anthology 3 - Edited by Karen Joy Fowler, Pat Murphy, Debbie Notkin, and Jeffrey D. Smith. A strong anthology, although I seem to have read more of the contents before than with the other volumes; that doesn't make it a worse anthology (as they were all pieces I enjoyed), just one that had a bit less of the thrill of discovery. Of the stories new to me, Ted Chiang's "Liking What You See: A Documentary" stood out the most; it very thoughtfully questions what beauty is, & whether or not seeing beauty is bad, & should we try to compensate for looksism, & if so, how? I also loved Pam Noles' essay "Shame," on being a fan of color, particularly how it feels to grow up loving fantasy & realizing that the books don't show any people like you. This anthology contains another LeGuin story set in the same world as the one in the last volume, & I must say it struck me as tl;dr as the last one (although I did persevere & read it).
Halfway to the Grave - Jeaniene Frost. I don't generally like vampire books that revolve around vampire hunters, but that's mostly because I find imaginary worlds where vampires are uniformly evil boring. In Frost's novel, Cat Crawfield is a half-vampire who goes around killing vamps because she thinks they're all evil (her vamp dad raped her mom). Then she meets Bones, a vampire bounty hunter of sorts who claims that lots of vampires subsist peacefully with humans, & he only goes after the ones that really are evil (serial killers of women, etc.). While I could see why Cat took so long to believe him, & to erase all those years of her mother's vehement hatred of vampires, that part of the book was tiresome to read. However, I enjoyed pretty much everything else--Cat herself is fun & gritty & tough without being boring about it, & there's lots of hot smut & also surprisingly touching emotional stuff from Bones. I did wish Bones wasn't English; while Frost does a better job of Brit-speak than some other paranormal authors I've read, I ended up hearing Bones' voice in my head as Spike from Buffy, which is annoying. Also, I found the ending annoying--it's a bit too Spiderman for me, & I am not looking forward to wading through the repercussions of such in the second book, even though I do want to see further adventures of Cat & Bones!
Interfictions: An Anthology of Interstitial Writing - Edited by Delia Sherman & Theodora Goss. I was disappointed in this anthology, actually. I felt like there was a bit too much preciousness, a little too much of trying hard to be interstitial. There were a few stories I liked a lot: Leslie What's "Post Hoc," about a woman who lives in the post office after trying to mail herself to her ex; Veronica Schanoes' "Rats," about the self-destruction of an angry, mentally ill teenage girl; Colin Greenland's "Timothy," in which a woman calling her cat indoors for the night ends up with something unexpected; & Vandana Singh's "Hunger," in which the everyday people around the protagonist seem v. much like aliens.
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Date: 2008-07-25 12:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-25 05:32 pm (UTC)