Intersecting Spaces and Species: Women´s Bodies and the Domestic Sphere in Animal Rights Activism

Abstract

The object of this article is to explore how current animal rights activism draws on images of women-animal corporeal hybrids to articulate a plight for animals, and how the domestic setting used in such campaigns is strategically conveyed to either instill sympathy or abhorrence at the ‘miscegenation’ of species within a single bodily space. I begin with a few observations on the matter of animal ontology in accordance with the muchdebated notion of commonness with humans (and in particular women). I then make a comparative analysis between video campaigns by two major animal rights organizations, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) to evaluate how their rhetoric of species hybridism conveys different assumptions regarding womanhood, and how domestic settings serve as instrumental tools through which to strengthen their rhetoric of animal liberation.