Playing with Purpose: Adventures in Performative Social Science (original) (raw)

Contemporary Sociology, 2014

Abstract

area. While this type of outright biologism read into human gender relations is less common now, a number of the activists interviewed by Gaarder do emphasize the notion that women are more disposed to caring activities and empathy for the downtrodden, often due to socialization or experiences of abuse. Several respondents specifically pointed to instances of sexual abuse or strong gender discrimination as motivations for their involvement in the animal rights movement. Some activists, especially latina, asian, or black women, also strongly factored in ethnicity as another intersectional pole that motivated their participation. Some articulated an explicitly intersectional credo indicating that all forms of human and animal oppression are linked and must be contested together. At the same time, though, some activists (and some of the same ones who expressed an intersectional account) described the animal rights movement as being too much of a ‘‘single-issue’’ movement that has difficulty engaging other types of oppression. In particular, several informants described the animal rights movement as a largely white one in which it was difficult to raise and sustain discussions about race and ethnicity and their relations to animal treatment. Ironically, given the high number of women constituting the movement, several interviewees also reported that in their experience it was very difficult to bring gender oppression onto the table in animal activism. While some activists clearly act along the lines illustrated by Carol Adams (and Francis Power Cobbe), linking women’s and animal oppression, some other respondents, also women, thought that the focus on ameliorating the extreme suffering of animals was so important that it alone should be pursued without being diluted by other intersectional concerns. This book is important and informative because it focuses on a prominent historical question and gives a detailed insider’s account of the contemporary animal rights movement in the United States. The final chapter on conclusions and future directions will be of use to this and other movements as they define ongoing trajectories and areas of action. This book will be of interest in animal sociology, social movements, sociology of gender, and in terms of wider considerations about intersectionality.

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