4th Anarchist Studies Network conference on Anarcha-Feminism: A Report

by Aga (she/her).

Lex and I went to this year’s Anarchist Studies conference in Loughborough, themed ‘Anarcha-Feminism’, and it was so weird! We spent a lot of time being guarded and/or angry at the conference itself but afterwards we felt both that it was a constructive and rewarding experience. PLUS: The conference was catered by the lovely vegan activists from veggies!

Anarchist Studies Network Conference 4 Programme with badass artwork in it.

Upon arrival we were greeted by a bunch of men standing around everywhere, outside the door to the venue, inside the corridor and even more men in the room where the opening plenary took place. We were outnumbered by far. We were happy to see the main organiser, the awesome Elizabet, taking the space and giving a friendly, welcoming introduction. A bit of relief and a lot of solidarity for Elizabet speaking to a room filled with white academic men came over us.

First attempt at reclaiming the bathroom as gender neutral.

The first thing we did was to put up gender neutral signs (easy peasy, take a piece of paper, write down ‘gender neutral toilet with or without urinals and with or without waste bins’ and stick it on the appropriate door). The first thing that the university that hosted us did, was to take them off. So we just kept reapplying the signs throughout the three-day event.

Soon we began to notice all the awesome people who stood their ground against mansplainers, wannabe-heroes and patronising know-it-alls. We heard amazing presentations on the binary restrictions of international law when it comes to gender, about transformative justice as well as the damaging hyper masculinity in charity campaigns helping male survivors of sexual violence (our menninist-guard was up for this one but it turned out to be a great talk!). We heard people speak on free love (as opposed to relationship anarchy) and sexuality. A group of settlers and first-nation allies from the unceded (stolen) Coast Salish territories in (what from a Eurocentric perspective is called ) Canada, came all the way to tell us about the work they are doing there to decolonise their region and undo themselves as the oppressor of the first nation communities. I also attended a workshop on consensus making, safer spaces and constitutions in anarchist spaces where I learned a lot and hopefully some of the men, strictly opposing any and all rules, understood why some sort of agreement, constitution or other document with established principles is important for people to feel that they can be themselves, express concerns and find allies in a group.

Thank you to Richard for chairing and co-convening this panel with Livia and Will!

There were even three (!) panels on animal liberation, on one of which Lex and me gave talks. We both spoke about animalistion and dehumanisation from different perspectives ad presented ways in which human liberation and animal liberation is interconnected. We spoke about how important it is to be sensitive to human needs within the movement and beyond, if we want to achieve anything for the animals, and what possible tactics there are to practice anti-oppression across the board. We spoke about how we need to undo our privilege and how, we, as humans, have a responsibility to undo our relationships with animals whenever we possibly can, as every relationship we have with an animal in a human, Eurocentric and capitalist world, will by default be one in which we dominate the animals, and thus it will always be a speciesist relationship. Unfortunately some people in the audience couldn’t accept the fact that we can’t possibly ask animals for their consent to enter into relationships with us as enough of a reason to leave animals alone.

Of course we offered our zines as well and even met some awesome people who are now involved with us! 🙂 We were also happy to see the Black Pigeon Collective from Basel, who do the most amazing prisoner support work! We joined them in making a solidarity banner for a group picture taken with the attendees of the conference, to be sent to political prisoners across the globe and wrote letters and cards to them.

 

The conference finished with a discussion of safer space policies that will hopefully be applied by next year! In the roundup it became obvious what some of the main concerns were: binaristic (mis)gendering of people, assuming people’s academic status or that they have one at all (as one womxn put it: ‘I keep being asked who my thesis supervisor is. I AM the supervisor, I teach students!’), and of course, mansplaining and erasing womxn from history. So not too bad, just the classic, all too familiar stuff we deal with everyday!

Overall it was an exhausting but valuable conference and we couldn’t be more grateful to Elizabet for organising it and all the amazing non-binary people and womxn we met.

4 Reasons the ‘No More Chick Shredding’ Rhetoric is Problematic

written by: aga | she/her

CW: discussion of violence towards animals; (cis)sexism

The problematic message shown on this meme of 4 fluffy chicks has been making the rounds on social networking sites amongst animal advocates for the past year or so. It reads: ‘World First! Germany to end the mass slaughter of male chicks in the egg industry!’ (see picture below. Not sure who to credit for it but I think I saw it on Animals Australia first a long time ago).

Picture of 4 chicks on light blue background. Top left corner in the colours of the German flag. Text: World First! Germany to end the mass slaughter of male chicks in the egg industry.

Chick Shredding is a thing?

Not only the meat, dairy and egg industries but any for-profit institution that depends on animals will always rely on the exploitability of those assigned female, so as to be able to reproduce the ‘goods’ they provide endlessly, be it flesh, eggs or milk. If you would like to learn more about how exploitative the egg industry is check out animal aid and viva! (the viva link will take you to a video still of a very ill factory farmed chicken) .

Whereas female assigned animals are exploited until they are killed when their reproductive organs give up, male assigned chicks, just as calves, are not profitable, and thus disposed of. Chicks conventionally go through a process called ‘sexing’, where humans decide which animal is male and which female. The male ones are picked out, thrown onto  a conveyor belt that transports them to their brutal death, being shredded or ground up, whilst conscious.

Another option, often used by smaller farms is to either gas the animals, suffocate them by means of a deadly foam, or simply to throw them into rubbish containers.

Political Background

In Germany the Green Party has been heavily involved in making chick shredding a political topic however their successes don’t have much impact upon individual animals nor onto chicks as a whole. Regulations such as forbidding 1-day old chicks to be killed in one part of Germany (North-Rhine Westphalia) have no impact whatsoever, and if anything just prolong the suffering these animals have to endure, keeping them alive in horrendous conditions for longer.

Now the German government is aiming to implement a technology that allows for the sex­determination of an embryonic chicken. The, amongst the scientific and animal activist community, highly celebrated technology is aimed at reducing the numbers of killed male chickens, by terminating their development during their embryonic stage (Leipzig University 2015). The idea is being developed by Leipzig University veterinarian scientist Prof. Dr. Maria ­Elisabeth Regina Krautwald­ Junghanns.

Let just quickly point out the betrayal by this woman who is, as I will show now, not only advancing capitalism but also misogyny. The whole sexing procedure has not only got misogynist effects but also major cissexist implications. What I find the most perverse about Krautwald Junghanns leading this development however, is that she is a veterinarian, a professional who is trained in the medical care for birds.

Why We Should Not Celebrate The End of Chick Shredding in Germany

1 Animal welfare perpetuates exploitation

The ‘No more chick shredding’ campaign is an attempt to improve the lives of chicks, whilst minimally compromising human gain. That is exactly what animal welfare is about. Welfare legislation changes are often just bureaucratic and the real life impact is so minimal because they are only put into place to keep consumers willing and interested in continuing their relationship with animal products. So animal welfare legislation actually benefits the industry in the long run.

Animal welfare improvements make it very easy for us to forget that it is indeed not normal, natural and necessary (Melanie Joy) to ingest animals. Supporting animal welfare decisions without interrogating their purpose, just as the meme above asks us to do, merely perpetuates speciesism and justifies our participation in animal exploitation.

2 Nationalism and heroism are part of the narrative

The colours of the German flag in the top left corner of the meme are not merely informative, telling us what country passed the law against chick shredding. It also creates so called ‘soft power’ (Joseph Nye) for Germany as a state. The ‘No More Chick Shredding’ campaign by the German government and the international narrative of celebration and victory for the animals surrounding it, positions Germany as a pioneer in science and animal welfare. This invites additional positive international attention and so gives soft power (as opposed to hard economic or military power) to Germany. The meme portrays the country as a hero for the animals: You look at the cute fluffy chicks, see the German flag, read the words ‘Germany to end mass slaughter’ and make a mental note of how good Germans must be if they care about these cuties. This might not be the biggest reason why this meme is problematic, but I feel that even the smallest instances of nationalism are worth to be rejected.

3 Bad for animals good for capitalism

As mentioned above, this campaign is not so much a win for the animals as it is for capitalism and the poultry industry specifically. It actually allows for more efficient mass slaughter, without all the extra costs the useless (that is inedible and thus unprofitable) male assigned chicks bring to the equation with the space and labour demand they create only to be killed. This also means it will be financially viable to increase the exploitation of female assigned chicks.

Veganism is a booming market and animal industries are aware of that. Companies profiting off animals need to keep themselves viable and so invest more into deceptive advertising and lobbying that allows them to spin their products as animal friendly. This ‘end of chick shredding’ campaign is one such example. It is nothing more than a response to increased consumer awareness and a growing dissatisfaction with animal exploitation.

4 A super sexist Idea

As mentioned above, the idea of embryonic sex determination is harmful and has far reaching consequences for our understanding of gender also amongst humans. I feel that this decision is also partly informed by the mainstream understanding of sex and gender and reproductive organs.

So by ‘sexing’ the chicken eggs we determine which egg is worthy of life (the female assigned one) and which one isn’t (the male assigned one). The worth of the egg then is equal to the exploitation potential the individual that the egg might turn into bears. If that individual turns out to have the right reproductive organs it is deemed valuable and will thus be subjected to a life of torture.

You know how doctors tell pregnant people whether their foetus will be a boy or a girl based on the genitals they can see? The parallel here is that, just like female assigned chickens are exploited for their reproductive organs, people who are commonly assigned female are also reduced to their reproductive organs and whether or not they are existent, functioning and available for men to use. This obviously also perpetuates the cissexist myth that your genitals determine your gender and that there are only two genders. So the sex determination process in animals is not isolated from the myths we learn about assigning genders to humans and vice versa. They both inform and justify each other. This is part of what Carol Adams calls the ‘Sexual Politics of Meat’.

References:

Melanie Joy – Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs and Wear Cows

Joseph Nye – Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics

Carol Adams – ‘The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory‘

Shaming, sexism and a call for zoo abolition in the aftermath of Harambe’s death

cw: animal cruelty, sexism

On May 28th, 17 year old gorilla Harambe was shot and killed at Cincinnati Zoo after a child fell into Harambe’s enclosure. At ASC, we were devastated when we heard the news. Video footage shows Harambe protecting the child. There has also been evidence of gorillas protecting young children in the past – in 1986, Jambo protected five year old Levan Merritt and in 1996 Binti Jua cradled an unconscious child until staff arrived. These incidents show cross-species empathy and care for others – yet Cincinnati Zoo stand by their decision to shoot Harambe.

Over the next few days, the parents of the child were continually shamed and derided online. The blame focused on Michelle Gregg, the child’s mother. Hateful sexist memes were created like this one – (text reads: I was killed because a bitch wasnt watching her child).

It is important to note that this misogyny is also speciesist – calling a womxn a bitch promotes and maintains a system of othering: other than womxn, other than man, other than human. Memes like this support the life of *some* animals, but suggest that womxn are objects that deserve aggressive slurs.

Reports followed that Gregg was at the zoo with three other children. As a person who has grown up with four younger siblings, I can understand how a child can easily slip away from supervision (we once lost my then-six year old brother on holiday in Spain at a market… he had gone back to a park he liked without telling us. I have never felt so panicked). A court ruled this week that there will be no charges brought against the parents. Continuing to place blame on the parents (and specifically Michelle Gregg) will only continue to cause the family further stress.

Other critics focused on the poor structure and security of the enclosure. Both of these complaints deflect focus away from the core of the problem: zoos are prisons. Zoos take away freedom from animals, putting them in small, artificial environments and parading them in front of thousands of humans for human entertainment and profit. ASC know the arguments – the importance of conservation and protection from danger are examples. But where does that danger come from? Hunting, and the destruction of natural habitat. By humans.

Animals in zoos present abnormal repetitive stress behaviours such as pacing, rocking and biting from being confined in enclosures. Animals in zoos become bored and depressed, and some are medicated or tranquilized because they are so unhappy. From the shock of Harambe’s death, we ask that readers question the necessity of zoos. We ask that you consider life behind enclosure windows for living beings like lowland gorillas – animals that care enough to protect human children and are exploited and killed in return.

~ elecia