But I don’t completely buy the third wave feminism argument, or I agree with your third para. Yes, Dita and Alicia could be choosing to “exploit themselves,” but it is still offensive and problematic for an organization to foster one type of exploitation, while calling for the end of another.

I think the female exploitation tack is more complicated. Leah, it brings up the whole 3rd wave feminist thing! When is it that they’re exploiting women, and when is it that the women, like Dita von Teese or Alicia Silverstone, are merely simultaneously expressing their views on animal rights while celebrating their own sexuality? Especially someone like Von Teese who has built her career on burlesque; she is clearly, if anything, exploiting herself.

But I agree that it’s problematic to even lend the appearance of privileging animal rights over women’s rights, and I wish they would at the very minimum use an equal amount of male nudity, to be fair .

p.s. Michael, they did actually have a video press release where a spokeswoman stripped naked while giving a year’s review of animal rights issues. Not sure of the need for that, but there it is.

Satire or otherwise, it hasn’t done any good for PETA, so who exactly has benefited?

To be honest, I think these sorts of things happen when someone focuses one’s entire morality on one particular area instead of realizing the big picture. Yet another reason Judaism rules. Helps us see the real stuff.

Great blog,
Elad

http://eladthegreat.wordpress.com

By shockingly suggesting that we eat ice cream made from women’s breast milk, PETA draws attention to the plight of dairy cows. That’s what they do, that’s their mission.

For the record, I don’t always bash PETA:

http://jcarrot.org/j-peta-a-ko.....ndercover/

…but enough is enough.

FYI, here is the full letter from PETA to B&J’s

September 23, 2008
Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, Cofounders
Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Inc.

Dear Mr. Cohen and Mr. Greenfield,

On behalf of PETA and our more than 2 million members and supporters, I’d like to bring your attention to an innovative new idea from Switzerland that would bring a unique twist to Ben and Jerry’s.

Storchen restaurant is set to unveil a menu that includes soups, stews, and sauces made with at least 75 percent breast milk procured from human donors who are paid in exchange for their milk. If Ben and Jerry’s replaced the cow’s milk in its ice cream with breast milk, your customers-and cows-would reap the benefits.

Using cow’s milk for your ice cream is a hazard to your customer’s health. Dairy products have been linked to juvenile diabetes, allergies, constipation, obesity, and prostate and ovarian cancer. The late Dr. Benjamin Spock, America’s leading authority on child care, spoke out against feeding cow’s milk to children, saying it may play a role in anemia, allergies, and juvenile diabetes and in the long term, will set kids up for obesity and heart disease-America’s number one cause of death.

Animals will also benefit from the switch to breast milk. Like all mammals, cows only produce milk during and after pregnancy, so to be able to constantly milk them, cows are forcefully impregnated every nine months. After several years of living in filthy conditions and being forced to produce 10 times more milk than they would naturally, their exhausted bodies are turned into hamburgers or ground up for soup.

And of course, the veal industry could not survive without the dairy industry. Because male calves can’t produce milk, dairy farmers take them from their mothers immediately after birth and sell them to veal farms, where they endure 14 to17 weeks of torment chained inside a crate so small that they can’t even turn around.

The breast is best! Won’t you give cows and their babies a break and our health a boost by switching from cow’s milk to breast milk in Ben and Jerry’s ice cream? Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,
Tracy Reiman
Executive Vice President