Humans inflict enormous suffering onto other animals and to justify this exploitation of other species humans categorize other animals as inferior while categorizing themselves as superior and entitled to dominate other species. The use of non-human metaphors to refer to women, assists in the oppression of women in general as it labels them inferior and available for abuse while men are labeled as superior and entitled to exploit.
Speciesism is the assumption that other animals are inferior to humans and do not warrant consideration and respect. Sexism is where by one gender treated better than the other. Through speciesism a non human animal acquires a negative trait .Non-human animal metaphors generally target women: cow, bitch, catty, dumb bunny, old crow, queen bee, shrew are but some of the nouns used to refer to women hence when the metaphor is then used on women it carries to the woman the negative. Speciesist attitudes and practices bring about non-human animal metaphors that undermine women; most of these metaphors refer to domesticated animals like cow, chicken, dog and sow those bred for service to humans.
When women are compared to chickens it communicates scorn since hens are used for their egg laying capacity or for flesh. Analogously the male desires to exploit the human “hen” as a female body, for sexual pleasure hence only values her physical service completely dismissing her world as insignificant. Like hens, women have no worth apart from their function within the exploiters world. Hens are hence symbols for physically exploited women.
When a woman is termed as a cow, it characterizes the woman as dull and fat, this is due the exploitation of the cow which has created a gender specific image since the cows exploitation focuses on her female capacities to produce milk and bear offspring. The cow is denied the active part of nurturing its calf, so that milking is done to her and not by her hence a cow is seen as passive and dull .The term cow verbally abuses women by identifying them with the abused cow which is slaughtered as her milk production declines.
Calling a woman a bitch implies malice and selfishness, though dogs are considered as loving and eager to please, breeders treat them with such contempt as a means to a useful, profitable litter. The manner in which dogs are breed is in itself derogatory. The dogs are treated as commodities hence the reason why the reason why the term bitch carries such contempt.
The comparison between the women and domesticated animals is offensive as they reflect the misconception that women are mindless servants. The offending components of this metaphors originate from speciesism attitudes and practices, this is the distinction of human verses animals without this speciesism domesticated animals would not be regarded as mindless or servants.
Exploitation of domestic animals also leads to negative images of other animals that threaten that exploitation like the fox. A woman termed as a vixen is resented, feared, known as malicious, or domineering toward men. She threatens the man’s self esteem and sense of security intruding on his domain. The term vixen expresses sexist bitterness toward the contentious woman. On the other hand a woman who is labeled as a foxy lady is dimed as attractive stylish and is seen as a sex object worth possessing. Likening women to non human animals undermines respect for women ass nonhuman animals receive lesser no respect.
While only some non –human animal metaphors demean woman they are also those nonhuman animal terms that act as attack men and boys: shark, skunk, lapdog, snake, jackass, worm, and weasel. Non human terms also serve as racist epithets as when blacks are called monkeys. Edmund Leach(1964) categorizes animal metaphors as obscenity along with dirty words (largely of sex and excretion) and blasphemy and profanity. Most animals’ metaphors are largely negative. Speciesist language like sexist language fosters exploitation and abuse, every negative image of another species helps keep the species oppressed.
Most of this images are gross distortions as the animals rarely posses this traits. Then the reason for such contempt is to keep an emotional distance that permits abuse without guilt. If the treatment and view of other animals becomes caring and respectful the non –human animal metaphors will lose power to demean. Human superiority is much a lie as male superiority, is we move beyond speciciesm t o membership in animals kind animal imagery will no longer demean women or assist in their oppression.
The border between human and nonhuman should not be cutoff for perceived worth of another species or for its exploitation. The mere thought that the woman are less that men should not have any political force. Man divides beings into two categories members and nonmembers at the same time men are assigned to the first category and women to the second. Human Language should not be the basis in which a being is defined as superior to another. Human superiority is as much a lie as male superiority, many non human animals posses more rationality and self-sacrifice than many humans.
Denoting other species as animal removes humans from animal kind the same way man and mankind excludes women from humankind. The use of animal is a speciesist belief that humans differ from non –human animals and are superior. Lack of acknowledgement of women in the women species condemns an individual to an inferior status whether it is thought true or false.
Feminine attitude has been used to explain the difference between male and female style of how they carry out any physical activity. Human existence is defined by its situation, thus the existence of a female is defined by historical, economic and cultural limits of her existence. The culture and society in which a female person lives in defines woman as other, as mere object man. Woman is therefore culturally and socially denied by the individually, independence and creativity that is definitive of being human that which is accorded to man. However there exist a contradiction in her existence, since she is human she is a free subject but her situation as a human denies her the same freedom she is entitled to.
The approach that people of different sexes take to the performance of a physical task that requires force I different women do not perceive themselves as cable of lifting and heavy manual work. This is due to the fact that man engages in sport with more free motion and open to reach than his female counterpart. Women approach physical engagement with timidity, uncertainty and hesitancy, they lack confidence in their bodies and themselves.
Women in a sexist society are physically handicapped, they learn to live their existence in accordance to the definition that culture assigns to them that they are physically inhibited, confined, positioned and objectified. Girls and women are not given equal opportunity as their male counterparts and they aren’t encouraged as much to develop specific skills .As the young girls grow they acquire habits of the feminine body as they grow up there are told on how to walk, stand like a girl that what she desires is too dangerous for her hence as she grows older her body timidity increases with age hence inhibits herself. This is but one of the factors that contributes to the feminine existence.
The source of the fact that a woman lives her body as an object as well as subject is how the sexist society defines a woman as an object and is regarded as one. The source of this objectified bodily existence is in the attitude of others regarding her as how she actively takes up her body as a mere thing, she shapes it, mirrors it, decorates it. To come out of this sexist existence the woman should not objectify herself or let society do so. The objectified bodily existence accounts for the self consciousness of the female in relation to her body.
This regard keeps her in her place as also accounts for why women tend not to move openly , keeping their limbs closed around themselves, to a women to open herself outwardly is to invite objectification onto herself. A woman lives her space as confined and closed around herself as a part of projecting some area of space in which she can exist as a free subject.
Sexism and speciesism both have in common to the fact that both are mostly employed in a huge sense to women in particularly they demean women, make them feel inferior invoke a superiority complex in men. Speciesism practices and attitudes stem from the fact that men make assumptions that they are in fact superior and of higher ranking than animals. The power to lower women’s status rest on the premise that those outside our species do not merit equal consideration. Sexism stems from a culturally point of view in that women are considered to be weaker than their male counterparts, with their work revolving around the homestead and the fact that there have to take care of how they act . sexism permits concern for non human animals to be dismissed as female sentimentally.
References
Source: Joan Dunager, “Sexist Words, Speciesist Roots” in Carol J Adams and Josephine Donovan, Eds, Animals and Women: Feminist Theoretical Explorations, Duke University Press, 1995,(11-35)
