PETA: Making women feel bad about themselves
August 20, 2009
by Monica Jean Alaniz
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The following appeared on PETA’s blog “The PETA Files.” It refers to a new ad campaign put out by the non-profit organization:
Lose the Blubber: Go Vegetarian.
For most of us, summer is fading fast, but for residents of Jacksonville, Florida, bikini season lasts all year. What does the Sunshine State’s endless summer mean for PETA? Our phone lines ring off the hook with reports of “beached whale sightings.” Good one, guys.
Luckily, we know the secret to getting—and maintaining—a killer beach bod. Did you know that vegetarians are 20 to 30 percent leaner than meat-eaters? So, to help residents and tourists “lose the blubber”—and hopefully to deter prank callers—we’re launching a brand-new billboard urging people to go vegetarian:
I believe that PETA is taking the completely wrong angle here on several fronts.
I have a friend who happens to be vegetarian and, while she is not obese, she is still overweight. When she first explains to people that she is a vegetarian she automatically assumes that she has to justify this by saying, “Yes, and I know I’m not skinny.”
Perhaps it’s only okay to be a vegetarian if you are skinny. After all, PETA’s other ad campaigns, such as their “I’d rather wear nothing than wear fur,” never depict normal sized individuals, only airbrushed models of the pop culture variety.
Women and young girls are already bombarded by images in this culture that tell them they are not good enough whether because of their weight, height, clothes, hair, eyelashes, you name it. Do we really need one more message like this from a non-profit organization that is against cruelty? What about cruelty towards your fellow human beings?
You’ll notice that the ad does not target men and that it is the cartoon image of an overweight woman that is being used. Men are rarely targeted by ads that promote weight loss.
The results of a study published in May 2008 conducted by the Department of Psychiatry at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine showed that…
…65% of women between the ages of 25 and 45 years have disordered eating behaviors. In addition, another 10% of the women report symptoms that are associated with eating disorders such as bulimia nervosa, anorexia, and binge eating disorder. Thus, in all, 75 % of women – that’s three out of every four women in the United States between the ages of 25 and 45 years – have an eating disorder or have symptoms related to an eating disorder.
I am sure that the numbers would go much higher if we were to include women outside of the aforementioned age group.
What this new ad campaign by PETA seems to be saying is: You’re fat. Stop eating meat and you won’t be. There is no mention about healthy vegetarian eating habits. Women could actually do themselves great harm by completely cutting meat out of their diets without first consulting a physician or nutritionist, but of course there is no mention of that. They are just playing into the fears that are being perpetuated by the media. They are playing into women’s fears of not being good enough and, in doing so, causing more harm than good.
I stopped paying attention to PETA last year when they:
(1) took out after Sarah Palin in particularly crude and dishonest terms (as have many environmental groups, BTW); and
(2) started running a whole series of ads using blatantly misogynistic and obscenely sexual themes. Whatever it was they were advertising (I honestly don’t remember what it was) was completely buried by the overt sexism.
I’m a lifelong animal lover and supporter of animal rights, but for a while now PETA has seemed to be run by a bunch of dangerously maladjusted adolescent males, along with few self-hating women. There’s something terribly wrong with a group which thinks that assaulting the entire female gender is appropriate behavior in the pursuit of protecting animals.
The Onion did a great call-out on this whole PETA campaign -
http://www.theonion.com/conten.....t_pop_dugg
Is it me, or does it seem like since last year’s primary & presidential campaign in which sexism and misogyny were condoned as weapons against two strong female candidates that sexism in the media has gained alot more traction? Or are we just noticing it more?? It seems a little ramped up to me (Burger King ads and PETA come to mind).
I think 2008 has certainly validated sexism for many people and made it more culturally-acceptable. I have never noticed anything sexist about Burger King before then. I never noticed misogyny on suposedly family-friendly genres in a supposedly family-friendly time slot until after the misogyny fest of 2008 either. This widespread shift in our culture worries me the most out of all women’s issues.
I am a recovering 3rd Wave feminist. So I was a PETA member for many years because I liked how they took on factory farming. But now that I’ve been deprogrammed I take the sex class-ing of women seriously. PETA will never get another penny from me.
PETA has been profoundly sexist for years. The celebrity types who participate in it are strongly invested in the business as usually sexist ways of Hollywood. We usually have about 3 vegetarian dinners a week buy every time I see one of PETAs ridiculous ads I go out and buy a large slab of meat for dinner. My kids and husband have figured this out and now point out all PETA shenanigans to me knowing it will result in a roast beef dinner. I think I will do a shredded beef barbecue in the crock pot tonight. Here is a really easy and good recipe if you care to join me…..http://www.tasteofhome.com/rec.....becue-Beef I have done this with the cheapest $1.50 per pound cuts of meat and it turns out great!
Here is something you all might enjoy. I tend to be more liberal left, I truly dislike Sarah Palin and I support ASPCA, HSUS and WWE. But you know what, I have never, ever supported PETA. These people are nuts with a capital N. Do you know that they have made coloring books for children that explained that there parents were murders because they ate meat? I am all for people being vegans and vegetarians if it is something they truly believe in. But I also respect peoples choices to eat what we were made to eat, and that means veggies and meat. As for me, I will continue to enjoy my bacon and burger. This is because I know where my local animals are, how they are treated and what they are fed. I am responsible for what I eat and I eat in moderation which is the real trick to weight management. I am quite sure you can still get fat on eating too much soy or rice ice cream. One last note, while I do not consider myself obese by any stretch of imagination, I know those who are. I would hate for them to see this hate mongering billboard. Somebody in the marketing department should save peoples self esteem and self respect by losing their job!
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I agree that’s an insulting ad. But, PETA aside, going meatless does have real benefits. I stopped eating meat “cold turkey” in 1986. I was 28 then, and starting to see the dimpled fat they call cellulite on my thighs. That wasn’t the reason, though. I was horrified by the treatment of animals in factory farm conditions. Believe me, I enjoyed the taste of meat, but could not in good conscience continue to subsidize that cruelty. Well, I lost 10 pounds the first week, and the cellulite simply disappeared, never to return. My daughter, born a few years later, has been meatless all her life, and is a good deal leaner than many of her carnivore friends.
Of course, this was a personal choice, and not one that should be forced on anyone. I just think it’s a shame if people allow PETA’s unfortunate tactics to blind them to the benefits of a meat-free diet — for human health, for compassion, and for the planet.
*****A
PETA is a collective a**
I have had PCOS for 43 years now. I have had 3 surgeries just because of that. I was never heavy until I had my children and my PCOS got much worse. I went vegetarian and was strict about it for 4 years… AND I GAINED WEIGHT.
Vegetarian diets don’t always help with weight loss.
They have lost almost all their credibility in my mind.
It’s so much worse than that, though that is bad enough. From Twisty McFaster, here’s a link that shows the respectful treatment of women is such a ridiculous concept to modern Americans that only the Onion, a parody news site, calls PETA on the “inhumane treatment of women.”
http://blog.iblamethepatriarch.....ster-aunt/
Write to Ingrid and tell her you will purchase five pounds of meat for every single sexist ad she advocates and runs. I am sick of her choices. Women are dying out there from anorexia and from domestic violence and she only cares about being an extremist for animals. Well, I used to be a PETA member and left because her tactics actually harm animal rights more than they help. Ask other organizations of similar ilk what they think of PETA’s “help”
PETA turns me off entirely to the concept of being a vegetarian, All of their adds are sexist and they actually kill most animals that people bring to them, hoping they can be placed elsewhere. http://www.petakillsanimals.com/ has more about that.
So, basically, PETA spends most of their annual budget producing over-the-top sexist material, and doesn’t have much money left for you know, actually helping animals.
Anyway, after seeing their flagrant abuse of interns, I thought it might be necessary to start a “Interns are People too” campaign, then after their “whales” billboard, perhaps a “People are Animals too” campaign, then I realized it doesn’t really matter, because PETA doesn’t stand for anything any more.
Well PETA does stand for something, it stands for predictable sexism. And I could easily go either way vegetarian or meat eater. Every time I see a sexist PETA ad (and that means every time I see a PETA ad) I go out of my way to buy and eat meat. I also feed it to my family creating a future generation of meat eaters to take my place when I am gone and I encourage others to do the same. How many cows has PETA cause to be tortured because of my typical reaction to their sexism? At this point if PETA actually grew up and changed their ways it would not be enough to stop my behavior. I would actually need to see an apology to all women and girls and some remedial action on their part. I’m not holding my breath on that happening, but I am eating some tasty meat!
Alice Paul,
That is an excellent idea. Begin a campaign to encourage people to buy meat every time they do something sexist! I love it. And hey, it can be grass-fed if you like:)
I did write Ingrid today and told her why I stopped being a member two years ago.
Really could anyone design a more effective campaign for beef growers to increase meat consumption than PETAs consistently sexist media stunts? PETA must be insane to pick a fight with women since we typically have control over our own diets as well as those of our entire family plus we are 52% of the population, not an insignificant group to degrade. If they were going to risk dissing someone you would think it would be a group with less power like say straight men or gay men. But I guess dissing women is OK if you are liberal and dissing any man would not be politically correct.
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