Fat Pregnant Woman = Pig
February 28th, 2008
A PETA protest as reported on Perez Hilton, sent in by Donna. (The larger size may be NSFW; hopefully this small version is okay.)
I have no words.
[ETA: From the comments, I've learned that the woman is actually pregnant, hence the "Mother's Day" slogan, and the protest isn't necessarily going for fat = pig at all! I might have just had a knee-jerk reaction.]
Posted by mo pie
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I guess I don’t really get this ad. I mean I see that the PETA people are trying to use shock tactics to protest meat but putting a naked human in a so called “pen” doesn’t really tell me anything about pigs suffering. I guess I don’t think of it as being “anti-fat” so much as “stupid, sensationalist and obscure”. And what’s with PETA always using nakedness for their protests. If anything it makes me NOT want to look at their protest and those poor naked women that are always freezing their nipples off.
The picture here:
http://www.ww.tmz.com/2008/02/28/yes-shes-pregnant-and-in-a-cage/
shows her as not so much a naked fat woman as a naked pregnant woman. This MAYBE makes a point about brood sows. But “stupid, sensationalist and obscure” pretty much covers it.
I’ve kind of had it with PETA. I don’t find much of their action particularly helpful. I’ll be over here supporting the Humane Society, who doesn’t send gruesome images unsolicited to my inbox (and the numerous animal charities and shelters that need support).
Oh, that explains the Mother’s Day thing, then! I was confused by that.
Yeah, I really doubt PETA was making any connection between female fatness and pigs. The woman isn’t particularly fat – she’s probably just a protester who agreed to be naked. They like pigs – they aren’t going to insult pigs by associating them with fat women (I say that with huge amounts of sarcasm). As for what they’re trying to do – just humanize mother pigs is all. Why is she naked? So everyone will post her on their websites and talk about it.
Then again, they did cause a huge ruckus on my campus when they equated dog pounds with human slavery – particularly among African Americans, who felt they were being compared to dogs. So maybe they know exactly what they are doing.
A word of advice, don’t read the comments at Perez’s site or you’ll just want to smash something. ;)
Oh, and the TMZ photo makes more sense. A much better angle. Sorry!
It is a shame how farmers force pregnant sows to go around naked and on all fours…
I couldn’t care less anymore what PETA does. Actually that’s a lie. I *thought* I couldn’t care less and then I saw “I Am An Animal” about Newkirk and now I actively despise them even more than before. They’re the pigs IMO.
However, it doesn’t look like this was any kind of slam on fat people. Let me know next time they decide to throw paint on a bunch of leather-wearing bike gang instead of fur-wearing opera-goers and I’ll watch with interest.
PETA has never, not once, made me want to go vegetarian. Nothing they do connects with me or impassions me about their platform at all. They know how to get media attention, and that’s pretty much it.
Annie – I would pay to see PETA throw paint on the leather-wearing bikers, oh how I would pay to see that! Somehow, I don’t think it’s going to happen. It’s a lot less dangerous to throw paint on fur-wearing opera goers or models or actresses, and comparing a nude pregnant woman to a sow is a cheap shot. I don’t expect a lot more from PETA than that.
I might have just had a knee-jerk reaction.
Woman = pig is bad enough.
I already disliked Peta for their rabid anti-fatness. Then I was referred to PetaKillsAnimals.com and learned of their hypocrisy. Now I despise them.
Vesta I’d pay to see that one too lol. They’re no better than the actual eco-terrorists they support, but they ARE cowards :)
Fat or pregnant- this is appalling and its usually around this time of year (and T-giving) that I really get fed up with PETA.
Also, PETA’s rabidly anti-fat attitudes drive me crazy. They talk about how meat makes you fat and ugly and.. Well, it’s just annoying. And upsetting.
Yeah, this isn’t anti-fat from what I am seeing, but it seems certainly as sexist and dehumanizing as just about everything PETA does is.
Unless they honestly believe pigs and humans (or women) have the exact same worth, and it’s equal to all other humans (or, you know, men), but I dunno, I don’t think this would be necessary or shocking if it were true.
Whatever, PETA, stop being sexist and maybe I can over look your terrorism-lite past.
As a person who actually does animal research and has been personally threatened by animal rights activists, I am as anti-PETA as they come. But petakillsanimals.com is a creation of the Center for Consumer Freedom, a group which represents the interests of the fast food industry, including their financial interest in horribly mistreating animals raised to go in their food. On the credibility and conscionability scale, I’d say PETA and the CCF are about equal.
Regardless of their motives, PetaKillsAnimals has their facts straight.
Or is the San Francisco Chronicle some champion of fast food I’m not aware of?
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/06/23/EDG11DC9BK1.DTL
PETA’s actions do seem somewhat exploitative at times. Why do they have to use nudity so much?
Whether PETA made the connection between fatness and “pigs” that is commonly made my fat-haters – and I find it hard to believe that they wouldn’t at least think of it briefly – I betcha a lot of people who see that ad will make the connection. When you send a public message, I always feel that your intention doesn’t matter half as much as how you come across – and that you need to be thoughtful and careful of how you present yourself. Pregnancy is not the same thing as fat, of course, nor are they mutually exclusive – but pregnant women are often subject to fat-hating comments, whether they’re apparently fat in the public eye or just apparently pregnant. I am upset by this, Mo, so I don’t think it’s just knee-jerk. It may be more subtle than some other things, but no less important!
Unless they honestly believe pigs and humans (or women) have the exact same worth, and it’s equal to all other humans (or, you know, men), but I dunno, I don’t think this would be necessary or shocking if it were true.
I don’t know about women vs. men, but from what I’ve heard about PETA, they do indeed believe that pigs have the exact same worth as humans, so meat eating is the moral equivalent of cannibalism (and owning dogs is the moral equivalent of owning slaves).
Yet another reason why this vegetarian refuses to support PETA. I can’t support an organization that purports to be for the ethical treatment of animals while simultaneously treating women like a piece of meat.
I would acquit PETA of being misogynistic assholes if they used naked MEN in their ads, but if they have, I’ve never seen one.
PETA = Psychos For the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
Their messages are treated with so much amusement and ridicule now, why do they continue to pull dumb stunts like this? They’re a joke.
I do believe they are anti-fat. Remember the ads with Star Jones before her WLS? They also made a reference to “I am the Walrus” when criticizing Aretha Franklin over her wearing fur. They didn’t mention Eva Longoria or Beyonce’s size when getting on their case. So in their eyes, being fat is just as bad as eating meat, wearing leather, and having pets.
Rachel, I’m with you. I get so annoyed with PETA’s tactics, both as an advertiser and a vegetarian — they make both groups look awful. Not only that, I don’t think their approach is effective; the only people who respond are those who already agree with them. The rest are as repulsed as we are. So yeah, they get a lot of PR attention, but do the people who look actually make a change? Probably not, judging by the representative sample here, and other conversations I’ve had with people about the group over the years.
So not only are they annoying, but they are wasting their contributor’s money by producing ad campaigns and protests that simply do not work. There are many, many other organizations do a lot more, and more effectively, to help animals. And I am certain they are perfectly aware of the fat=pig connection many people will make. They play that kind of thing up to get people to look; they’ve taken similarly misogynistic approaches in other campaigns, though not necessarily with fat.
Their anti-fatness is probably because they assume that if everyone were a Vegan, there would be no obesity; and/or they want to lure in self-hating fat people to their cause by claiming veganism as a cure for obesity.
You’re absolutely right Midsize Lurker. We were discussing this on the fat studies list and here is what I wrote:
PETA tries to promote vegetarianism and veganism as something “sexy.” They believe, that by making the lifestyle “hip” and “cool,” they can better win over the current and future generations by making vegetarianism en vogue. Unfortunately in our disordered culture, fat isn’t sexy, admired or envied.
PETA also plays off the anti-obesity hysteria fear mongering by promising prospective vegetarians that they will lose weight and become healthier if they stop eating meat and meat by-products. This is why books like Skinny Bitch – which promotes a vegan lifestyle – are so popular. People who read Skinny Bitch don’t see veganism as a choice to make out of moral, environmental or overall health-related concerns; they read it because they want to lose weight. In essence, what PETA is doing is successfully marketing veganism/vegetarianism as a diet. Fat vegans and vegetarians derail this message, so they distance themselves from us as much as they can.
PETA is really shooting themselves in the foot with this. Not only do their sizeist campaigns alienate a demographic the organization could instead be converting to vegetarianism, such offensive campaigns are unlikely to win over the scores of vegetarians and vegans who are not thin and who, if not for PETA’s prejudicial campaigns, might be counted on as members and financial supporters.
Regardless of their motives, Peta Kills Animals have their facts straight.
Unless the San Francisco Chronicle is a champion of fast food I’m not aware of?
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/06/23/EDG11DC9BK1.DTL
“Regardless of their motives, Peta Kills Animals have their facts straight.
Unless the San Francisco Chronicle is a champion of fast food I’m not aware of?”
That’s not a news article, but an opinion piece by a longtime conservative columnist. And, honestly, even if it were a news article, it’s not like I am continually (or even occasionally) bowled over by the incisive, critical, investigative reporting done by most of the mainstream press in this country. The fact that a group is mentioned in the newspaper does not automatically confer credibility.
Should add that that’s not to say I don’t think PETA is ridiculous. But I think the other group is equally suspect.
Well, I at least trust newspapers to fact-check. It’s not the mention of the group that confers credibility, IMO. It’s the mention of the data Peta itself filed with the state of Virginia I find credible. Not only does it come straight from the horse’s mouth that Peta put down 10,000 animals in five years, but again, I trust a major city newspaper to corroborate the info.
Conservative or not, the fact remains that the SF Chronicle columnist appears to have no motive related to the fast food industry, which is why I refuted La Wade’s original comment by mentioning the article. Peta killed 85 percent of the animals it took in. That fact has zip to do with fast food. Don’t kill the messenger … the fact remains despite who brought it to our attention.
I don’t like PETA much either, but I knew by looking at the picture what they are trying to illustrate: that gestating sows are locked into pens like the one in the picture for the duration of their pregnancy, and sometimes give birth and raise their young in the same space. A good sized sow is much larger than that woman, but we would agree that putting a woman in a pen that size (for any reason without her consent) is inhumane. What they are trying to illustrate is that it is inhumane to do the same to pigs (and indeed the sows exhibit behaviors of extreme stress in such circumstances).
I believe that, at least, one state has legislated against such penning (FL maybe) and I would encourage any of you who hear of such bills in your own state to vote for it. Just because they are our prey, does not mean we shouldn’t have some respect for them.
Well, I at least trust newspapers to fact-check.
You’d be surprised at how much they don’t fact-check.
Rachel:
That’s a shame then, since it’s a major part of their job.
PETA has always struck me as less about loving animals and more about hating humans.
There is this PETA ad featuring a guy that I saw recently:
http://www.furisdead.com/feat-cross.asp
Oh, just found one with Steve-o
http://blog.peta.org/archives/2007/10/steveo_id_rathe.php
And some others:
* http://www.PETA.org/pdfs/ADmola.pdf
* http://www.FurIsDead.com/pdfs/ad-kristoff.pdf
but I agree their campaigns tend to feature women. And the women tend to be young, naked, thin and attractive.
Others have long commented on the slant of PETAs ad campaigns:
http://feministing.com/archives/008699.html
http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2007/01/28/those-maligned-peta-ads/
Am I the only one who saw “I Am An Animal”? Because FFS you’d have to be a moron to support these guerilla tactics that DO support ACTUAL terrorist organizations (like ALF and ELF). And YES PETA equates humans and animals alike – or did anyone miss the hideous Holocaust Death Camp=Chicken slaughterhouse ad campaign?
No one – no one with a conscience, meat eater or not, wants animals killed cruelly. But no matter HOW cruel (and I agree they can be) a slaughterhouse is, it is NOT Sobibor FFS. No…no no no no, a THOUSAND TIMES NO it is not.
And by the way, they feature women, because who the hell wants to see a naked man? Both men and women would rather see a pretty naked chick than a naked guy. I don’t think there’s anything misogynistic about that – just that THAT’S what people would rather see and will get the most ATTENTION. Ant PETA are notorious attention whores. They’ll do whatever gets them noticed.
I’d rather see an attractive naked man, AnnieMcPhee.
spinsterwitch, I thought the message was pretty obvious, too, once I saw that the woman was pregnant–and I am neither a proponent of PETA nor a vegetarian.
I know that everything can be read in many ways, but the pregnant woman willingly decided to participate, and I don’t see her participation as degrading or misogynistic so much as misguided and ineffective (i.e., I doubt people will decide to become vegetarian because of this kind of spectacle, so PETA is an oddly self-defeating and self-indulgent group).
Anonymous? I knew as soon as I read what I’d said (I was er…in my wine cups at the time) that the next comment would be that “Well *I’d* rather see a naked man” lol. I was talking in generalities. And frankly I’d rather see no one fully naked, as I think a little artful draping is *much* more seductive. But if it must be nude, I’d rather see the woman. And I’d say a majority probably agree – the female form is a pleasing thing, IMO. YMMV of course.
Naked men on the other hand, sometimes make me laugh. I’m sorry – there’s no misandry in that, but it’s still true lol. My husband laughs with me when I say that actually. It’s like in that movie “The Story of Us” where Rob Reiner explains that a man’s ass is no ass, it’s just the top of his legs. It’s not universally true, but it is in a general way – and when it is, it makes the naked man funny. To me and to others. Oh well, I’m taking some pretty strong cough medicine right now so forgive my rambling, but remember before saying “But ***I’D*** rather see a naked man” that I was going by generalities, not absolutes. Ok? Pax?
P.E.T.A
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
People Eager To Advocate hatred of women.
Both are correct. There has been alot of subversive humour, in various places. About how PETA loves animals so much, but hate people to death. Basically PETA seems more like a cult based on self-hatred, than doing much for animals.
If you want a company that actually manages to care for animals, without abusing and exploiting people, check out The World Society for the Protection of Animals. AKA, WSPA. I think, I got the acronym right.
They even have an ad where they say outright they don’t feel they need to show animals suffering to get their point across, unlike PETA who loves getting those underground lab test footage of animals being tortured. Cause you know, nothing says we love animals, like countless snuff exploitation films featuring animals on your website.
Sorry for the rant. It’s just this, PETA claiming meat makes everyone fat and you must be a vegan, or you’ll be a horrible fat fat fatty. Now this. Plus the deranged rantings of their leader, claiming household pets would be better off in the wild fending for themselves. Rather than being taken care of and loved in someone’s home. This isn’t even the tip of the iceberg, in their extreme attempts to convert people to their cultesque fallowings.
I mean, I didn’t even mention the infamous “Your Mommy/Daddy is Hooked on Killing Animals” phamplet they give to CHILDREN, effectively saying since mommy/daddy cook meat, they might decide to have kitty or doggy for dinner. They’re giving this message to CHILDREN. It’s trumatic and disturbing enough for adults to hear it. But you know, Cults 101 states the best way to get new members, is to create a riff between children and their parents.
Jackie, did you catch the stunt they pulled on McDonald’s HAPPY MEAL boxes? Putting greusome slaughterhouse pictures on them along with some comment about not eating your friends? Unsuspecting customers had their *children* frightened by those pictures, until the mistake was discovered and corrected. PETA doesn’t apologize for this – they’re proud of it. Newkirk is a madwoman. Barbecuing herself after her death so we’ll realize it’s no different than barbecuing a steak (tell you what, you can have the basted Newkirk and I’ll have the seared buffalo steak, thanks.)
But the fear they impat to children is the worst, indeed.
Ewww barbecued Newkirk! Yeah, well it’s like I said about how PETA uses countless cult tatics to get people to join them.
I personally took offense to their co-opting of Super Mario Bros, to make a game about saving chickens. You don’t mess with the good name of Nintendo!
I think PETA should hand out coupons for the local psychatrist with their phamplets, cause lord knows their kids will be visiting one after reading their garbage.
Oh and I just found this in a web search, check it out:
http://www.pimpworks.org/politics/petaphile.pdf
It’s titled PETA’s McCruel Child Abuse.
Hey, this might be rather long, but I found it pretty amusing. It’s a off-the-cuff rant I posted at PETA, in response to an article about how a cat died due to a person leaving them in the woods, and the cat ended up getting rabies and needed to be put down. I love cats, so I’m not trivializing this or anything, but you’ll see it’s important background info to understanding the following rant:
Wescott40, it seems PETA made a mistake. They posted an article that didn’t present humans as garbage, and animals as better than humans.
Don’t get me wrong, I love cats. However, let’s say theoretically that cat did have rabies. Would you have been happy if it killed more people? I mean sure you’re like, “Yeah less people to eat animals killed cruelly and such and such.”
What if it killed a child. Would you like to be responsible for explaining to that child’s parents, their child died because you felt a sick cat’s life was worth more than their child?
I’m sorry, most of us who haven’t been born with Newkirk-Brain Syndrome, do belive in the survival of our species. We care for animals, yet just as much as one would is horrified at films that depict Zombies who go around and kill people, people are horrified at the idea of an animal who might do the same thing. I mean, it’s pretty obvious zombie films are based off of fears of people being infect with rabies, and becoming “rabid” themselves.
I don’t know if I’ll be banned from PETA, surely cause of the Newkirk crack I made. I really dislike crazed zelots like you, who think you sound sain when you say the world would be better off if humans were dead and animals took over the world.
I just finished reading articles about how over-zelous PETA followers like you, hand out images of dead animals to small children. No doubt smiling as they cry, thinking there’s another one who will not eat meat. There’s another one I’ve saved, by scarring them with images of cow’s heads, and Ronald McDonald holding a bloody knife. Sounds a bit like a religious hysteric who tries to save children by showing them suffering, doesn’t it?
I’m all for compassion for animals. What I’m not for is that being used as an excuse to harm others, and claim that hysterical statements, such as people shouldn’t have pets cause they’d be better off in the wild killed by predators. Oh wait, but isn’t that flying right in the face for caring for animals. PETA telling people now caring for animals in their home is wrong, talk about hypocrisy.
I’m sorry if this has gotten off topic. I do feel this has been one of your more reasonable articles. I just don’t feel abusing small children, trumatizing them, is going to prove anything. You are dealing with a double edged sword. Will that truma make that child care more about animals, or will it make that child take an odd interest in killing animals and then humans.
Of course then we’re back to the whole, if there are less humans, there are less people to eat animals who have been cruelly disposed of.
And look, I even managed to finish it off with a circular reference, towards the sheer redundancy of it all.
I hope the owner of this blog is ok with this being long, it was one of my 1 am sarcastic rantings, which I find to be rather amusing most of the time.
I’d suckle at her teet! “Come on boys, we’re going a hogg’in!! Yeeee haw…”
“Teat”, you moron.
Okay this is sort off topic, but the mention of PETA supporters just reminds me of when I recently went to a concert of one my favorite bands who will remain nameless, but anyhoo, the members of said band are vegans and vegetarians and they have lots of fans that are PETA members and so I’m at this concert, minding my own business and this girl comes up to me and says that the band doesn’t appreciate fat fans like me because it shows I’m not a vegan or veggie and that they hate me. Yup. Was it wrong of me to want to bitch slap her? Just wondering.
Ambular, only as wrong as it is for me to wish you had done so as well lol.
Jackie – I wish I could say any of that surprised me, but none of it does. Sigh.