Comment on Grist Re: Alicia Silverstone’s “PSA”

thanks for the heads up. i went ahead and posted the following:
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yeah, well, i know when i try to prove to people that i'm healthy even though i'm vegan (!) i usually take my clothes off in slo-mo to make my point… and it works, too.

in all seriousness, the only "message" of that ad, politically speaking, is that in the pursuit of promoting vegetarianism/veganism/animal rights and encouraging people to stop objectifying animals, it's perfectly ok to objectify women as much as possible! (and, sure, that alicia silverstone is a sexy celebrity. go peta!) it's really very simple – and it's an ooold schtick of peta's: use women's bodies as they're always used by the media for their own ends, and you'll get people's attention. which is all that matters. but the problem is that peta should choose such a tactic, not that alicia s. got roped into it.

no, not all nudity is sexist… sometimes one is nude for good reason. but a whole lot of female nudity is used to reinforce the sexist status quo, where women's bodies are objectified and commodified, and women are systematically relegated to being the "sex class." just like animals are, for the majority, the "food class." it's all about exploitation, and enforcing and profiting from the status quo in some way.

and peta does this reinforcing of the status quo as far as women's objectification very consciously. they've been approached plenty of times, criticized for their campaigns like "i'd rather go naked than wear fur", "fur trim. unattractive", "show me your udders!", "state of the union undress", and so on, and so forth… but they've said repeatedly that they don't care, and they don't see the problem, and any publicity is good publicity/the ends justify the means.

all i can say is, read those couple of links at least, check out this page for a gallery of past such ads from peta and also peta: where only women are treated like meat… and look at all those images together and try to NOT see all of it as sexist and exploitative and the opposite of promoting respect for the dignity and freedom from oppression of all beings, and let's imagine what the "ends" really are in this case…

I don't know if you'll see the same ad as me on this page, I hope so i wanted to share my boggled-mindedness

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/09/24/scibugs124.xml

(a black woman dressed as a cow doing a seductive dance to 'Help save the british wildlife')?