AR-News: DawnWatch tip: Interview with Carol Adams on KPFT -- listen live on line - Monday July 28

[Karen Dawn]

Carol J. Adams is the author of many groundbreaking books.  "The Sexual
Politics of Meat," one of the first books to lay out the parallel between
speciesism and sexism, is now a popular college text book. Her brand new
book, "The Pornography of Meat," presents the argument in an easily
digestible form, using advertisements and posters from popular culture to
show the ways in which women and non-human animals are similarly
objectified.

Today's (Sunday, July 27) Dallas Morning News ran an op-ed by Carol J. Adams
headed, 'Marketing Women: Anthropornography treats females like meat.' It is
in the viewpoints section, page 5H. The op-ed is not available on the Dallas
Morning News website, so I will paste it at the bottom of this alert. It
would be great if the op-ed generated some veg-friendly letters; is it right
to treat animals like meat?
The Dallas Morning News takes letters at: Letterstoeditor at DallasNews.com
Link: mailto:Letterstoeditor at DallasNews.com

On Monday, July 28, following Go Vegan Texas (Farmed Animal Watch's Mary
Finelli will be the guest), Carol Adams will be my guest, live in the
Houston Pacifica studio, KPFT, for a DawnWatch Open Journal interview.

You can listen to Go Vegan Texas at 11 Central, (noon Eastern, 9am Pacific),
and then the DawnWatch interview with Carol Adams at noon Central (1pm
Eastern, 10am Pacific) in Houston, on 90.1 FM, or anywhere, live on line at
http://www.KPFT.org .

I hope you can tune in. Warning - the KPFT website tends to get jammed so I
recommend trying to hook up early.

We will be taking callers. The call-in number is:
(713) 526 5738
or
(713) JAM KPFT

Supportive feedback keeps shows like these on the air. If you like what you
hear, please let the station know. KPFT takes feedback at:
http://www.kpft.org/contact/feedback.htm

Those in the Houston area can join us Monday night for a book signing of
"The Pornography of Meat" and a presentation of Ms Adam's renowned slide
show. That will be upstairs at Azteca's, 2207 Richmond at Greenbriar, at
7:30.

Yours and the animals',
Karen Dawn
www.DawnWatch.com

Here is the Dallas Morning News op-ed:

MARKETING WOMEN: 'Anthropornography treats females like meat'
Carol J. Adams

"Hunting for Bambi" has generated a lot of media attention during this
summer vacation, including a Viewpoint column Tuesday. This supposed
$10,000 hunting spree was said to allow men to chase two naked women
(except for sneakers) and try to shoot them with paintball.

Now it is debated whether "Hunting for Bambi" is anything more than
one man's creative promotion for a pornographic video of that name. If I
were still writing my latest book, The Pornography of Meat, Hunting for
Bambi might get a mention. But it wouldn't dominate its pages.

Even as a video, it is really only a further extension of a pervasive
viewpoint in our culture that sees women as meat, or at least has fun
with implying that they are, and sees animals eaten as meat as female.

Often, the media participate in this rather than commenting with horror
on it. From my files I could pull out the image of a sexy, anorexic cow,
with bangles on her arm, with spots that look like a sports bra, holding
a picture of a big, fat, old cow. The image is akin to a weight loss ad.

And where was this image? In a national newspaper, illustrating an
article on a low fat hamburger. It seemed to announce, "I used to be an
old cow, but now with this low fat hamburger I am thin and sexy again."

The idea of cows eating a low-fat hamburger might be laughable if mad
cow disease hadn't entered the scene precisely because cows were fed cows.

Another newspaper, this time from the West Coast, another image: a very
sexy cow, clad in a very skimpy bikini with one high heel pump kicked
off, the other about ready to fall, her pink fishnet stockings pulled
thigh-high. She has big pink lips, mascara-ed eyes, and a large feather
standing erect at the top of her head.

And right there, with her rump hanging way over a champagne glass are
the words A REAL CHEAP DISH, showing us all just who is a real cheap
dish -- a cow. The article that is dwarfed by the headline and this posed,
sexually attractive 'come-and-get-me-big-boy' cow is about fixing cheap
cuts of meat.

In fact, these images are so prolific a friend coined a term for
them, 'Anthropornography' -- animals posed as strippers and prostitutes.
Here are some more examples:

 A local Dallas place advertises, LIVE NUDE LOBSTERS, as though one
were going to a girlie show. Live nude lobsters. Another local
restaurant with a cardboard cow with a chicken’s head posed near its
front door asking, 'do you want a piece of me?' STRIP TEASE screamed a
billboard on 635 near Marsh; over a photograph of a strip steak.

Recently in California, Carl's Jr. ran a TV advertisement that began
with a statement like, "We can't usually show large breasts on national
television." The visual was a white chicken with a black censored bar
across it's chest. The ad went on to say, "...unless it's on a sandwich."

And then there was the restaurant in Chicago. It offered a 'double d cup
breast of turkey sandwich.'

A local bookstore, in a very upscale mall, sells Playboar, a spoof on
Playboy, subtitled 'The Pig Farmer’s Playboy.' It is positioned next to
the check out counter. When I asked them why they were selling this, I
was told, 'We can’t keep this in stock!'

With anthropornography the attitudes towards women found in pornography
can be expressed freely yet in a disguised way -- with nonhuman animals as
the objects. How much safer it is to think the problem is in Las Vegas,
that the problem is over there, not here, or in Seattle, or in New York
or in Chicago.

Anthropornography provides a way for men to bond publicly around
misogyny. Men can publicly consume what is usually private. Like
Playboar, these images, these advertisements, these menus assure their
consumers that everything is OK, their world view is OK.

It makes the degradation and consumption of women’s images and of meat
appear playful and harmless, "just a joke." Because women aren't being
depicted, no one is seen as being harmed and so no one has to be
accountable. The degradation of women can be enjoyed without anyone
being honest about it.

Everyone knows that at one level they aren't talking about pigs or
turkeys or cows. Sexual jokes at the expense of women can be made
without being upfront about it. They might not be Hunting for Bambi, but
they want the next best thing.

Unfortunately, our culture is giving it to them.


Carol J. Adams is the author of ‘The Sexual Politics of Meat’ and most
recently, 'The Pornography of Meat'.

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(DawnWatch is an animal advocacy media watch that looks at animal issues in
the media and facilitates one-click responses to the relevant media outlets.
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