The Sexual Objectification Of Women In The Vegan Movement

The objectification of women in the service of animal activism has been a hotly debated topic for some time now, and it is a subject we have covered many times at Faunalytics. We’ve looked at everything including how female volunteers are used to drum up donations, how using sexualized images of women may reduce support for campaigns, and even how being veg may intersect with body image issues.

Of the different kinds of sexualized protests out there, “naked protests” are particularly prevalent in animal advocacy. In one sense, advocates use them to show how humans are similar to other animals (i.e., by being naked and physically exposed in the same way as animals). But some calculations report participation in such events as predominantly female (about 80%). And protests tend to be male-led. Some argue that this suggests a movement with “feminised ranks, male leadership, and a masculinised operational style.”

In “The Sexual Objectification of Women in the Vegan Movement,” the author considers naked protest as a form of “social movement prostitution.” She compares it (in some ways) to conventional prostitution to critique the ways in which neoliberalism has crept into cultural and political spaces. She argues that, like economic austerity more broadly, we are in a time of “social movement austerity.” And she states that when movements are in this position, organizations may “treat protest as an opportunity for profit.”

To support her thesis, the author goes through the common rationalizations for naked protests. She also details the common rationalizations for why women may participate in them. And she then goes on to compare the activity to prostitution, stripping, pornography, and sex work in general. In proceeding in this way, the author asserts that sex work has become glamorized in the media. And she states that there are no real ways that women can participate freely in sex work under the umbrella of neoliberalism, where the degradation of women is socially acceptable.

The article is a provocative and thorough critique of naked protest. And it is sure to prompt much discussion among advocates. We can only provide a short summary here, but the whole article is available for download online.