Everything Under The Sun: All Beings Are Equal

From Breeze Harper.

Back in February 2014, a webinar conference, NEITHER MAN NOR BEAST: PATRIARCHY, SPECIESISM AND DECONSTRUCTING OPPRESSION, was held online. The purpose of the conference was to advocate liberation across species and social identities. It provided a space for participants and presenters to discuss feminist theories and experiences under patriarchy and speciesism.

Mike Nicholson, who had previously presented the online conference, HUMAN RIGHTS ARE ANIMAL RIGHTS, is an activist for both animal and human rights. This previous conference also provided a space for conversations, and a forum for presenters to lead discussions on specific issues. Although both events have already been completed, interested individuals may go their pages and view the videos and discussions.

Let's check out some of the discussions at the February 2014 conference. Carol J. Adams was looking at the sexual politics of meat in Politics And The Absent Referent In 2014, in which she discussed how many people view animals - as sources of commodity production. Even when people don't eat the meat of these animals, they are still engaged in viewing animals as commodities, when they keep them around to produce eggs and milk. You don't see animals as individuals when they're just there for what they can produce. The opportunity to discuss reproductive injustice and debates about abortion and birth control resulted.

Lori Gruen presented Entangled Empathy As Ecofeminist Praxis, in which feminist care and animal ethics were acknowledged to be nearly absent from history. Care and empathy can become entangled in feminist concepts. She also discusses how to disentangle these concepts.

Breeze Harper discussed [In]Visible Scars of Suffering, about the interconnection of race feminism and ethical consumption. Daniel Kirjner, in Masculinity And Violence, sees male concepts of masculinity linked to power and dominance of women/animals. Violence is linked to oppression, and is frequently sold as products through advertising.

Other presenters included Hannah Moore, on Animals, Children's Books, & The Social Construction Of Gender; Anastasia Yarborough, on Contemplating Radical Self-Care; Mya Wollf, on Interconnections Of Feminism, Animal Liberation And Radical Sobriety; Ashley Maier. on Violence Against Women And Animal Rights; Sunaura Taylor, on Vegans, Freaks, And Animals; Ruby Hamad, on HALAL: Perspectives On Intersecting Oppressions From A Muslim Vegan Feminist; and Sakihitowin Awasis, on From Animal Rights To Anti-Colonial Organizing.

The main site that archived these two conferences/webinars is the home of EARTHLING LIBERATION KOLLECTIVE (ELK), which was originally Animal Liberation Ontario. The name change was to detach the group from a specific place, since the organization itself had moved from Ontario into western Canada. There was also an acknowledgment that borders, because they imply ownership, can reinforce the notion that land and its resident animals can become possessions through purchase. It also oppresses people when they become connected to the land and are seen as not welcome because they don't come from within these arbitrary borders.