PETA loves animals, isn't so fond of women
PETA may love animals, but they don't have much respect for women. It's always been surprising to me how PETA seems to get a pass on caging women, forcing them to fellate vegetables and veggie dogs, and attaching them to billboards in their underwear—stuff that would be decried by feminists if it were organized by a brand like Axe. Well, they might have finally crossed the line. A new billboard in Florida that shows an obese woman with the phrase, "Save the whales. Lose the blubber: Go vegetarian," has been drawing a lot of fire. (While most people are cool with the objectification of hot naked chicks, they apparently draw the line at making fun of fat people.) PETA defends the ad, saying in a press release, "Trying to hide your thunder thighs and balloon belly is no day at the beach," and pointing out that vegetarians are, on average, lighter than meat eaters. I find it interesting that in light of the new billboard, a lot of people seem to be waking up to how sizeist and sexist PETA has been toward women in the past. Check out The Onion's amusing take and the public shaming happening on Twitter. Will this end their divisive, shockvertising ways? I doubt it. I hear that vegetarians are also, on average, more shameless than meat eaters. |
Comments
You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.
We feminists have long been hating on PETA for things like this. It's nothing new (maybe it's just the blogs I read?). I have no respect for the organization whatsoever.
Posted by: Shannon | Aug 18, 2009 11:24:27 AM
Exactly. Besides, I went vegetarian and I'm still fat. Maybe I should sue 'em for false advertising?
Posted by: doozie | Aug 18, 2009 12:35:43 PM
It's funny, most vegetarian women I know are considered obese. The men I know, however, are as leans as rails. Again.. this is just in my circle of friends so I know it may not apply across the board but if I saw that ad and applied it to what I know, I would say they were wrong.
Posted by: Julie | Aug 18, 2009 12:57:17 PM
It's been noticed, no worries. The treatment of women and the frightening messages delivered to children cause me to be utterly disinterested in their delivery of the anti-cruelty message.
Posted by: Winni-Pig | Aug 18, 2009 4:13:38 PM
Honestly, it's irresponsible advertising because if they're playing off peoples' insecurities it becomes a slippery slope in advocation for eating disorders when simply cutting meat out of your diet doesn't make you as skinny as PETA promises it will
Posted by: liz | Aug 19, 2009 9:21:12 AM
Exactly what is it people claim PETA is promising in this billboard ad? PETA uses puns and word play in most of their ads. What’s wrong with that? Eating vegetables is a very healthy choice for dieters. The cartoon woman shown in the billboard ad is obviously overweight and if she were an actual human there would be health issues associated with her obesity. As such; a change in dietary habits would be wise advice. As for the rest of PETA’s commercials; there is no real exploitation going on. As a society, some of the women are going to choose to allow them selves to be presented in ways that may make other women uncomfortable or cause offense. That is a choice they a free to make and because it is a choice in a free society it is not exploitation. The ads are only ageist and sexist if you are the type of person who mentally places an image of yourself in the place of the woman you believe is being exploited. Women from most every society regularly chose to “exploit” themselves. The ads are dry wit. The bottom line is; we should all get over ourselves and start looking at things objectively. Whining every time we see something we are tempted to relate to in a negative way isn’t doing society any good. If the shoe fits and it’s your shoe wear it, if it isn’t your shoe leave it alone and stop trying to make everyone around you go barefoot. A pun, or paronomasia: is a form of word play that deliberately exploits ambiguity between similar-sounding words for humorous or rhetorical effect.[1] Such ambiguity may arise from the intentional misuse of homophonical, homographical, homonymic, polysemic, metonymic, or metaphorical language. I am a 36-year-old woman and a meat eater, earning in the middle-income bracket; clearly in the demographic these ads are targeting and I am not at all offended.
Posted by: Brandi | Aug 19, 2009 2:15:33 PM
The website feministing.com has reported on numerous misogynistic campaigns by PETA. PETA's treatment of women isn't new to feminists, and many campaigns have been decried.
Do a search for PETA on the feministing.com. You'll find it all there.
Posted by: minako | Aug 19, 2009 3:41:08 PM
I'm fat and greedy.
It's not my fault.
who can I sue?
Posted by: Daniel | Aug 28, 2009 6:56:36 AM
