1. Since my freshman year of college—when I enrolled in a gender studies class and quickly realized that the subject fascinated me—I have devoured a number of books and articles on the topic. Just last weekend I read a piece about media juxtapositions of women and animals. This book by Carol J. Adams, titled The Pornography of Meat, is simultaneously a feminist and vegetarian manifesto that decries the fact that women are often compared to meat in advertisements. For example, in order to sell meat products, advertisers personify animals to look like sexy women or compare images of faceless voluptuous human females to the curves on fattened pigs’ and cows’ bodies. Because cows, pigs and females are all creatures that men objectify and “consume” in some way, these advertisements effectively bring in revenue, according to the author.
Another topic Adams delves into is rape. For instance, she compares man-against-woman rape with the artificial insemination of female animals that occurs on breeding farms. When farmers breed pigs, they trap the females into small cages that lock them into place before releasing a genetically altered “alpha male” to forcefully inseminate as many females as possible. The females protest this treatment with squeals and squirming—naturally, mating occurs gently and is preceded by several minutes of nuzzling. Adams compares this form of rape to human rape, arguing that men trivialize both women’s and animals’ bodies; according to the author, the female body in all its forms is often seen as being nothing more than a breeding machine.
Furthermore, Adams explains that humans have grown accustomed to classifying all animals of the same species as being a single entity. “Never name an animal you are preparing for slaughter,” a farmer advises, “or else you and the kids will be sitting around the kitchen table with tears in your eyes.” Instead of letting ourselves see that every animal is a unique, individual creature, we instead choose to, say, grind up hundreds of cows into one huge vat of hamburger meat. When a person purchases a burger at their local fast food restaurant, they are about to consume the remnants of at least three or four cows, Adams calculates. Homogenizing cows, pigs, chickens, etc. makes eating them easier on our consciences. This process can also be compared to human rape, according to the author. Women are not called by their names during or preceding sexual harassment; they are labeled “slut,” “whore,” or “cunt”—instead of being viewed as individuals, they are objectified, trivialized, and reduced to their reproductive parts.
2. Beginning in 1979 with the Iranian Revolution and coming to a climax after 9/11, a strong fear of Islam has grown in the United States. Americans picture the Middle East as a dark landscape teeming with terrorists-in-training and women draped in full body veils. Thanks to Iranian and Islamic feminism, however, the latter is becoming less common. In fact, according to the article “Islamic Feminism in Iran” by Fereshteh Ahmadi, Islamic feminists’ two-decade struggle against a patriarchal society is already having an enormous impact on the declining social acceptability of the following practices: veiling women to maintain a physical barrier between the sexes, preventing women from participating in social life, and the Islamic clergy’s barring women from religious ceremonies.
As Ahmadi explains, Islamic feminism is simply a movement of men and women who wish to reinterpret Islamic theology and law from a feminist perspective. These revolutionary thinkers uphold a feminist discourse and practice that are articulated within an Islamic paradigm. Many women in Iran are extremely concerned about their lack of rights, and are struggling to change their lives by aligning with Western feminist philosophy and protesting against patriarchal Islamic laws, their energy coming from the exhilaration of proving themselves against all odds. Some Iranian females are even brave enough to demand full recognition as citizens of the country, a restricted right due to Iranian “re-Islamization” policies. However, despite the hard work of women’s activist groups both inside and outside of the Iranian parliament, many patriarchal laws and restrictions remain in full practice.
Western feminists have not given Islamic feminists’ movement to reinterpret the Qur’an enough credit; unfortunately, this lack of recognition stems from Western society’s deeply rooted fear of Islam. Americans, in particular, are skeptical that Islam could ever be reinterpreted to fit the demands of a modern society based on gender equality. This need not be a concern, however—as the author explains, Islamic feminists believe that some aspects of Islam are “essential,” such as the conception of a single God, but that other components of the religion are “accidental” and stem from the particulars of the time period in which Islam’s prophet Muhammad was born. Because Muhammad lived in the thirteenth century, his vision of Islam’s gender dimensions was shaped by Arabian society, which happened to be patriarchal.
This, Islamic feminists claim, is an “accidental” aspect of history; Muhammad could have been born during any time period, and the confines of society at that point in time would have shaped Islam differently. Thus, according to the author, Islamic laws such as male custody rights in the event of divorce and the permission of men to marry up to four women are classified as accidentals that can be eradicated because of a changing society.
