bell hooks argues persuasively that feminist theory needs to address both margin and center. Theory that comes only from the center—from a position of privilege—“lacks wholeness, lacks the broad analysis that could encompass a variety of human experiences.”9 Theory from those who have lived on the margins—where the oppressed live—is oppositional in nature: looking both from the outside in and from the inside out, focusing “attention on the center as well as the margin.” hooks’s metaphor from margin to center has resonated with feminists since her book first appeared in 1984.
Figure 20 Amanda Houdeschell at the Women’s March, Cleveland, January 2017.
Activist Statement
I went vegan because I found out about the rape racks in the dairy industry, and as a rape survivor myself, I knew I couldn’t continue to support the sexual exploitation of other females. Inspired by Carol J. Adams’s work and motivated by the vast intersections between sexism and speciesism, I now threaten the pillars of patriarchy through animal rights activism, and stand in solidarity with the nonhuman victims of this system.
I am the co-founder of Species Revolution, which teaches the public how we can dismantle the unjust system of speciesism.
Amanda Houdeschell
Animals can be found at both margin and center of the dominant culture, but this presence is not a reflection of their status as independent beings, but more often a statement of the status of the humans with whom the animals lived. I remember cringing when reading a biography of Fannie Lou Hamer as it recounted that the dog, belonging to the white farmer for whom Hamer worked, had his or her own inside bathroom, whereas Hamer lived in a small house with no working indoor toilet.10 But just as a fur coat often announces the wealth of a woman’s husband, so the dog’s bathroom made a statement about the white family who benefited from the status their elite white privilege bestowed.
Although animals can be found at both margin and center, the task of feminist theory in response to the oppression of animals is different from the task of working toward the eradication of the oppression of humans. Whereas oppressed humans live on the margins, moving to the center in service capacities but not through positions of power or to live there, animals are everywhere, yet nowhere truly free. They are everywhere but in an unseen way—as commodities. For instance, besides clothing many people, dead animals’ bodies are in camera film, videotapes, marshmallows, Jell-O, rubber tires, house paints, tennis racket strings, emery boards, car antifreeze, and countless other products.11
Pushing the margin metaphor, we could argue that while oppressed people are on the margins of the pages of culture, dead animals have been the pages on which an anthropocentric culture has written its self-justifications. Metaphorically, we define ourselves over and against what we decide animals are. Literally, animals’ bodies were the raw material for the transformation from papyrus to book, from a more transitory material to a longer lasting one. The Dead Sea Scrolls, for instance, are collections of leather rolls. Parchment, from the skins of various animals (most frequently cattle, sheep, and goats) refined the use of leather rolls. The development of this new material (and vellum, which is a finer quality parchment made from calf skins), revolutionized the form of the book. The papyrus roll was replaced by the parchment codex (the modern form of the book) with folded leaves bound together.12
Our theoretical and theological task is to get animals off the pages on which we inscribe our own anthropocentric ideas about them. Frankly, it would be nice not to be a little old lady working for the animals. It would be nice if the work of getting animals off the pages of our anthropocentric culture was done by then. That is the challenge those little old ladies present to our culture.
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