Tied Oppressions: An Analysis of How Sexist Imagery Reinforces Speciesist Sentiment

It is absolutely right that - if taken at face value - some campaigns meant to reduce suffering of one kind may appear to support suffering of a different kind. Campaigns by PETA are often used as an example of this, some appearing to promote sexism while they attempt to promote non-violence, compassion, or a vegan diet. Vegans are approximately 1% of the American population, which means that PETA's campaigns are designed to catch the attention of the other 99% of Americans. For just a moment pretend you are a marketer, designing an ad campaign that will reach as many Americans as possible, especially teens and twenty-somethings just beginning to make their first grocery purchase decisions. What sells music? What sells movies? What sells cars? What sells food? What sells almost everything? Then, as an effective marketer, what would you use to sell your brilliant idea (veganism) to as many people as possible? Most of the PETA campaigns seem to be aimed at starting dialog rather than proving something. They grab attention, get people talking, but don't bore with facts. If you want facts, you can go to their web site. This makes vegan causes part of the national conversation, but leaves existing vegans questioning what the whole point of the campaign was. When mainstream omnivores are exposed to PETA campaigns their initial impressions are usually related to the vegan message - don't eat meat, don't support cruelty, etc. When vegans see those campaigns the vegan aspect of the message is old news so doesn't grab their attention. What does grab our attention is the tactic that the marketers used to divert our eyes and ears. Problems such as sexism will continue as long as American society continues to remain Puritanical, making appearances that we deny ourselves the simple physical pleasures necessary for our species' continued existence. We will continue to obsess about something that should be perfectly normal to us, and we will continue to be manipulated by marketers while we obsess. Imagery we consider sexist will continue to grab our attention, and therefore be a very effective way to bring animal rights, chocolate, alcohol, hip hop, romance novels, and Lifetime Originals to the masses. First rule of effective communications: speak in terms your audience understands. If you want to change the minds of the meat-eating, abusing, polluting, unhealthy masses you have to think like them and craft a message that will appeal to them. Sexist campaigns aren't for us, they're for that obese guy in the Hummer, going from the McDonalds drive through to the Walgreens drive through. What will grab his attention? A naked body with a subtle go vegan message might do nicely - he'd never even think about the word "vegan" otherwise. One more barrier broken.