Animals and Women Feminist The

by Carol J Adams

  Once safe, victims of sexual violence may move through a stage of remembrance and mourning in order to achieve healing. Through reconstruction of the story of the trauma, they transform “ the traumatic memory, so that it can be integrated into the survivor ’ s life story. . . . Because the truth is so difficult to face, survivors often vacillate in reconstructing their stories. Denial of reality makes them feel crazy, but acceptance of the full reality seems beyond what any human being can bear ” (Herman 1992, 175, 181). Forced sex between an animal and a woman is so filled with shame and degradation that silence seems preferable to speaking. Because of the intensity of shame and silence in the wake of sexual attacks involving animals, healing from this victimization is rendered all the more difficult.

  Forced sex with animals is an act that needs to be told but is so horrifying it almost guarantees the silence. During the Renaissance, bestiality was referred to in law books euphemistically as “ offensa cujus nominatio crimen est [the offense the very naming of which is a crime] ” (Serpell 1986, 126). The unspeakability of these instances of coerced sex indicate how destructive is the psychological control of the victim by the abuser. Forced sex with animals merges sexual experiences with torture, and as one activist commented “ breaks all the circuits. ” While the human victim is denied her own voice because of shame and disgust, the other victim is seen as voiceless because animals do not communicate in human language. Both victims experience the unspeakable and are made unspeakable as well.

  Animals and Batterers ’ Strategies for Control

  Harming animals is in itself an act of violence against another living being. If the batterer executes the animal, he and everyone in his family perceive that matters of life and death are in his hands. Thus, he feels more powerful. Harming animals or using them sexually are also acts of instrumentalizing the animal to get to the woman.

  The Chart of Coercion

  After psychologist Alfred D. Biderman studied brainwashed American soldiers, his work was codified into a chart of coercion, which was published by Amnesty International. In her pathbreaking book, Rape in Marriage, Diana Russell demonstrated how Biderman ’ s chart could also be used to understand the effects of torture on wives, as well as those who are seen ordinarily as “ hostages. ” This chart of coercion is now used in battered women ’ s shelters to help them identify the controlling tactics of their partner. Women can perceive numerous experiences that correspond with each general method of coercion.

  In Table 1 , I demonstrate how Biderman ’ s chart can be used to reveal the variety of ways that animals are used coercively by batterers. Biderman ’ s chart identifies the parallels between the experience of domestic captives, such as battered women, and political captives, and it depicts the way in which isolated cruel acts are actually interrelated. Table 1 establishes that anything that is coercive may and probably does include animals.

  On the left side, Table 1 reproduces a modified chart of coercion (see Jones 1994, 90 – 91). On the right side are examples specific to woman-battering and harm to animals. Note that only one of these methods of harming an animal involves direct physical violence to the woman. Yet, all these methods generally occur in a situation in which a man has also used threats and bodily assaults against his partner. What these examples demonstrate is that harm to animals enacts a wide variety of coercive methods. Table 1 demonstrates the context of terror in which battered women live and through which animals are harmed. 11

  Table 1

  Biderman ’ s Chart of Coercion and Examples of Harm to Animals as a Form of Woman-Battering

  See Table

  Control Strategies and Harm to Animals

  6. He harms a pet as a preemptive strike against her leaving him, as a form of separation violence . If harm to animals occurs during a time that the woman is considering leaving the man who batters, it works as a strong incentive to stay . Often, just as a woman is getting ready to leave, a batterer may perform a careless act that endangers the animal(s). For instance, one man spilled bleach on the kitchen table and it “ accidentally ” poured into the cat ’ s water dish. The message was quite clear: if she is not there, the animals are not safe. She is held hostage by threats to the pet. 13

  7. He punishes and terrorizes her for leaving by stalking her and executing an animal . She comes back to her current residence and finds the family pet dead — for instance, a dog shot and left on the doorstep, a cat hanging in the kitchen — she knows that he ’ s been there, that she has been invaded, that there is nowhere where she can be safe.

  8. He may force her to be involved in the animals ’ abuse, making her feel that she is a traitor to animals. She is in the position where she thinks animals should not trust her, because she is not going to protect them.

  9. He harms animals to confirm his power . The act of harming or killing an animal may contain its own gratification.

  Each of these reasons for harming a pet reveals motives of aggrandizing or regaining one ’ s power. Yet, often harm to animals, rather than being perceived as deliberate acts of control, are seen, as in the case of Michael Lowe, as madness. The control inherent to the act is seen instead as loss of control. Thus harm to animals perpetuates his plan to make himself appear crazy, ruthless, cold, uncontrollable, invulnerable, and not responsible. That is what batterers want to do — they want people, especially their partners, to think of them as crazy, because it makes them more dangerous in their partner ’ s eyes. When she sees him harm or execute an animal, she may think, “ there must be something wrong with him, he must be mentally ill, emotionally ill, or he must have some serious unresolved conflict with his childhood, and how sad or shameful. ” She may also think, “ this guy is really crazy and he scares the hell of me, he could do anything. ” 14 That is the purpose of psychological abuse: to baffle and confound her. This is his goal, as it successfully obfuscates his purposes.

  Harm to Animals, Woman-Battering, and Feminist Theory

  Harming an animal is a form of sexual mastery, the instantiation of dominance. It announces and reinforces the man ’ s powerfulness, though it is cloaked in the deceptiveness of “ madness. ” Several important reasons exist for recognizing harm to animals as a distinctive form of woman-battering.

  1. Harm to animals exposes the deliberateness of battering.

  The first reason to acknowledge harm to animals as a separate category of woman-battering is because it exposes the deliberateness of battering, its control rather than loss of control .

  In talking with individuals who work with batterers, and especially those who run batterers ’ groups, I learned two seemingly incongruous facts: though each of them knew of instances in which a batterer had injured or killed an animal, disclosure of harm to animals rarely occurred in batterers ’ groups. Why was this phenomenon omitted when batterers acknowledged other forms of violence? Was it shame? Was it that there simply was not sufficient time in these groups to cover all atrocities, and a de facto triage effect excluded discussion of harm to animals?

  I asked this question of Mike Jackson of the Domestic Violence Institute of Michigan. Jackson argued that it was a purposeful concealment for the men ’ s own advantages. He found that men were more willing to talk about physical abuse than sexual abuse, and more willing to talk about sexual abuse than animal abuse. Jackson based his answer both on his subjective experience and on how many times these three items were discussed. Shame, he argued, was too simplistic a reason, an acceptance of the batterers ’ tactics. In fact, Jackson argued, batterers do not want people to know how purposeful, willful, and deliberate their actions are. Batterers can obfuscate why they batter when it is physical violence (claiming “ I lost control and punched her ” ), and they can confuse the issue of sexual assault (asserting “ she was teasing me and said she wanted it ” ), but loss of control in a relationship with an animal is harder to defend because the deliberateness of the violence is exposed in the description ( “ I ‘ lost ’ control and then cut the dog ’ s head off
and then nailed it to the porch ” ). Jackson contends that there is not much leeway for a man to say he tortured animals and it was out of his control. Talking about these specific acts of violence reveal their willfulness and purposefulness. Harm to animals is a conscious, deliberate, planned strategy. A facilitator in a batterers ’ group upon hearing of the torture and/or killing of an animal, would be able to pick that up and show precisely how purposeful the battering behavior is. It would become a point that refocuses on the agency of the batterer — that is, that he makes choices to be violent, and if he so chose, he could stop being violent.

  Recall Michael Lowe ’ s deliberateness: He calls to the animal, announces to the dog her infraction, walks into the house and returns with a revolver, ignores the pleas of his wife, the crying of his son, and shoots the dog. Lowe reenters the house, returns with a powerful firearm, calls to the animal, and then shoots her five more times.

  Were Lowe to have reported that to a batterer ’ s group, how could he possibly have claimed he lost control? Each step of the way, his deliberateness is evident.

  Confirmation of Jackson ’ s insight can be found in an all-male environment in which hostile expressions toward women are not merely condoned but encouraged. In such an environment where one ’ s goal of humiliation and control can be openly acknowledged, harm to animals can be proudly described rather than silenced. And such bragging about these acts exposes how deliberate they actually are.

  Consider the brutal male culture of the Citadel, the male military academy that endeavored to prevent the enrollment of Shannon Faulkner. Susan Faludi, in a New Yorker profile, evoking the violent, deliberately cruel environment of the Citadel, described how a common practice for Citadel students is bragging about humiliating ex-girlfriends. One cadet told how he had tacked a live hamster to a young woman ’ s door. Another cadet “ boasted widely that, as vengeance against an uncooperative young woman, he smashed the head of her cat against a window as she watched in horror. ” The cat story was his “ calling card ” (Faludi 1994, 72). Batterers, on the other hand, do not want to disclose their calling card — their deliberate decision to be violent.

  2. Harm to animals and harm to children are closely related. 15

  Pet-keeping, according to Yi-Fu Tuan, is dominance combined with affection. So, too, is child-rearing. Proposing a fifth form of battering, harm to animals, of necessity indicates yet one more: harm to children. It is beyond the scope of this essay to argue this, but it may be helpful to highlight the connections between harming animals and harming children.

  Harming animals is a way of controlling/threatening children or consolidating control of the children. Sometimes the children are warned that their pet will be harmed if they leave with their mother; one father threatened to disembowel the cat. His child was present when his father Michael Lowe killed the dog. When a batterer kills an animal, the children, mother, and the batterer all see that there are few if any repercussions for killing a (nonhuman) member of the family .

  Forcing her to neglect or abuse the animal, or forcing her to force the children to abuse or neglect the animals, or forcing her to neglect her children exist within the same continuum of coercive control. “ Shut that animal up ” may be the command or “ make that dog learn by making it stand outside in the cold. ” Whatever they then have to do to shut the animal up will be done. This dynamic is sadly similar to “ shut that kid up ” or “ make that child learn by. . . . ”

  The batterer may influence the children to be abusive with the pets. Not only must the mother witness the children being coerced or willful in hurting animals, but she cannot intervene with them to stop the abuse, because if she stops them, she is going to “ get it ” or they are going to “ get it. ” Again we see how closely intertwined are physical violence and psychological abuse.

  Harm to animals, like harm to children, may be the act that convinces a woman of the necessity of separating from her partner. Just as injury to a child may convince women to leave, because their tolerance about what is acceptable toward the children has been violated, so the killing of pets often was the final sign that convinced a battered woman that her partner was capable of murder ( “ these incidents often seemed to the women a representation of their own death ” [Browne 1987, 157]).

  An estimated 90 percent of the children in families where there is battering are aware of the battering that occurs there. Yet a terrible denial pervades the household, as though the children do not know and thus are not harmed, and this occurs when an animal is killed as well. In the wake of an animal ’ s death, the mother must model how to handle grief for her children, but recall the constricted environment in which she can express herself. Children need to vent their worries and be greeted with honesty in response to their feelings of despair. Instead they may find an atmosphere of silence, because it is not safe to express feelings in the presence of a controlling man. In addition, children may be concerned about themselves. According to Gustafson:

  The death of the dog will give rise to many questions in children, among them questions about their own death and how the parents would react to it. If the parents appear — in the eyes of the child — not to mourn a much loved animal, how would they then mourn the child if the child were to die? (1992, 96, sexist language changed)

  Harming animals forces denial upon women and children in many ways. She has to protect everybody — animal, children, herself. So, if a child approaches her and says “ Mom, Sparky has a cut on his head, ” she may sit there and say, “ No he doesn ’ t. ” She does this because the batterer is also sitting there. She has to cut her feeling off for the animal. Strategically she learns denial as a survival mechanism. Purposefully denying that it matters to protect the cat, she must betray the cat. She has to demonstrate to the batterer that it does not matter, because she has learned that he hurts only the things she cares about, so she will pretend not to care about the animal. But to the children, not understanding this dynamic, they see their father hurt a dog or cat and think that their mother does not care. How do they interpret this?

  Those 90 percent of children who are aware of battering behavior by their mother ’ s partner may witness beatings, rapes, or injury to animals, thereby experiencing their mother ’ s powerlessness. Even though they want to protect their mother or a pet, they usually are unable to do so and feel guilty about their inability to intervene. If they do attempt to protect their mother or the animal, they themselves may be injured. They may feel the mother ’ s powerlessness as her fault and feel enraged with her, not the batterer.

  The degree to which she or the children have an intense, respectful relationship with an animal is the extent to which he can harm her by harming the animal. And the degree to which she cares about her children is, similarly, the degree to which he can harm her by harming the children. He harms the animals or the children knowing he will harm her. As is the case with battering, it is his choice to be violent.

  3. There are multiple forms of violence against women; harm to animals is consistently present.

  Battering is one of several forms of male dominant behavior over women, along with rape, sexual harassment, and sexual abuse of children. Liz Kelly, for instance, in Surviving Sexual Violence, documents how “ specific forms of sexual violence are connected to more common, everyday aspects of male behaviour. . . . The basic common character underlying the many different forms of violence is the abuse, intimidation, coercion, intrusion, threat and force men use to control women ” (Kelly 1988, 75 – 76). So, too, injury to animals and the use of animals to sexually abuse a woman are methods of control. The threat or actual use of a pet to intimidate, coerce, control, or violate a woman is a form of sexual control or mastery over women by men and occurs in many instances of physically controlling behavior.

  In 1993, in what became known as the “ condom rape ” trial (because the victim had requested that her assailant use a condom), the raped woman broke down only once when testifying: when recounting how the ra
pist had threatened to kill her dog, who was whimpering in the bedroom closet. The testimony of survivors of child sexual abuse reveal that threats and abuse of their pets were often used to establish control over them, while also ensuring their silence, by forcing them to decide between their own victimization or the pet ’ s death. Sexual harassment often includes pornographic material involving explicit depictions of human-animal sexual activity or reference to this material. (See Adams 1994c for a more in-depth discussion.)

  Harm to animals is a strategic expression of masculine power and can be found throughout male controls over women. 17

  4. There are multiple forms of violence against animals; harm to animals in woman-battering must be placed here as well.

  Just as battering is one form of male dominance, so harm to animals through woman-battering is one form of animal abuse in which animals are objectified, ontologized as useable, and viewed instrumentally. Just as the status of women and children within the household is related to the cultural, economic, and ideological status of women in a patriarchal culture, so the status of animals in households is related to the cultural, economic, and ideological status of animals in a patriarchal, humanocentric culture: the violability of what are generally regarded as high-status animals in the home, such as pets, is related to animals ’ low status in culture in general.

  Battering exposes how contingent is the status of women and animals in patriarchal culture: one moment “ pet ” or “ beloved, ” the next injured or dead. Battering eliminates the status that the culture had granted to specific animals, it levels “ companion animals ” to the violable status of most animals in our culture.