On fuckability mandates, and knowing your own limitless value

Commodification is the process in which something is turned into a mere commodity - something that can be bought and sold on a market. By definition, a commodity has to be replaceable, disposable. It cannot have inherent value, but is instead limited to whatever external (market) value is assigned to it by its owners.

Individuals can also be commodified – as is the case, for instance, with animal exploitation. When we use non-humans as our resources, however “humanely” we may (claim to) do so, we necessarily treat them as if they were mere objects. Their lives and their well-being become inconsequential. No recognition is given to the fact that they are sentient beings who value their own lives – every and any interest of theirs, no matter how important it is to them, can be sold for a price tag. They become nothing more than means to our ends.

Today I’d like to talk about another kind of commodification – the commodification of women in our patriarchal society, which is pervasive and very harmful to us (women). I am going to address some topics that are of a much more personal nature than usual, and in doing so, I hope that I do not offend anyone who may have a different view on the topic. My intention is not to denigrate or alienate anyone, but to (hopefully) to get you thinking.

In our patriarchal/phallocentric culture, we (women) derive a huge sense of our self-worth from how men value us. From television ads bombarding us with an endless stream of cosmetics that we (allegedly) need to buy, to pop magazines telling us that we’re too fat, to bikini contests and beauty pageants telling us that we’re not worth looking at if we don’t look like pornified barbie dolls, the importance of being hot and fuckable (to men) is constantly drilled into our heads. The actual standards for looking “right” are constantly changing and, unless you have a lot of money and a very high tolerance for pain, generally unattainable.

Most of us know this, and we know that this is done on purpose, in order to keep us coming back to buy more “stuff” in a never-ending quest for the mythological beauty standard. We know that this harms us. We know that heels hurt our feet (and restrict our movement), that waxing hurts, and that the (often toxic) chemicals in make-up would take an encyclopedia to fully cover. We know that teenage girls often have issues with eating and with their weight (regardless of whether or not they’re actually at a healthy weight). Those of us who are politically progressive are often critical of this endless stream of commodification, and we often shun at least some (if not most) of these fake “beauty” standards. But we rarely ask the more radical question: why is it that we (women) derive our sense of self-worth from men to begin with?

Under patriarchy (which has been the order of the day for thousands of years), women have been (and continue to be) second-class citizens. As a sexual class, we lack the economic resources that men have; we are under-represented in politics, in academia, in literature, and in the media. Gender roles and stereotypes (what we consider to be “masculine” vs. “feminine”) are all social constructs, but under patriarchy, the social construct of “woman” is often reduced to her utility to men. “Woman” is made synonymous with sexual services and child-bearing (or some mixture thereof).

This might sound like abstract theory, but it’s really not – it affects us in very real ways. We might not like to admit it, but the reality is that a woman – no matter how smart or successful or accomplished she might be in her own right - is often thought to be worthless if she is not valued in some way by men. When we go out into the workplace, how we look is often just as important (if not more so) than how well we do our jobs. Elderly women (who are neither fuckable nor looking after children) face an enormous amount of discrimination, and are marginalized. And even if you, as a woman, have a university degree and work a full-time job, you probably still make less money than the hot “babe” with her breasts hanging out and her ass rubbing against a pole at the local strip club.

I don’t want to vilify men, or to suggest that women should leave men (not that there’s anything wrong with spinsterhood if that’s the choice that some women wish to make). But the question needs to be asked: why? Why do we insist on letting other people define our value for us? Why don’t we have enough self-respect to realize how demeaning all of this is; to see that we really have immeasurable, inherent value that cannot be traded away? Why does our sexual class spend its (already diminished) economic resources on fuckability mandates that are intended to objectify us and keep us in our place – i.e., that of second-class citizens? Why do we allow our whole, sentient selves to be reduced to a series of disconnected body images for others to “consume” (just as the butcher’s knife reduces a whole, sentient non-human individual into a series of body parts meant to be consumed)? Why do we allow ourselves to be treated like pieces of meat? Why do we confuse the short-term benefits of being “liked” by our civil superiors with real empowerment – the kind of freedom that comes from the honest and unapologetic ownership of one’s own body?

Having extrinsic value (i.e. having your value defined and measured by someone else) is necessarily inimical to having inherent value. It necessarily means being inherently worthless. Being treated like a generic object for someone else’s unilateral gratification is necessarily inimical to being a fully autonomous, unique, and self-realized individual. Needing to be a passive recipient of someone else’s approval is necessarily in conflict with being an active agent that goes out into the world, does things for herself and pro-actively constructs the meaning of her own life.

Having been reading some feminist literature recently (which I hope to blog about more in the future), I’ve decided to ignore fuckability mandates altogether. I no longer own make-up or heels. I’ve thrown out the short skirts I used to own. I’m no longer shaving my legs (our phallocentric society’s obsession with hairlessness on women is meant to infantilize us). No more pedicures or manicures. I’m still doing my hair and otherwise looking after my physical health and hygiene, but I’m just not playing into the standard, misogynistic “beauty” standards that have nothing to do with real beauty and everything to do with devaluing women.

In the short-term, this will cost me. People will whisper and make judgements about me. I’ll lose out economically/at work. Men (who own a disproportionate portion of the power in this society) will pay less attention to me. This is particularly true of many of the immature men boys of my age (I’m 21).

But frankly, I’m OK with that – because what I will get in return, over the course of my life, is infinitely greater: my full/complete sense of personhood that is not quantifiable or replaceable; a sense of self-worth that is not rooted in being treated like an object; full control/autonomy over my own body; and the ability to pro-actively create and define my life on my own terms, rather than on ephemeral, consumerist trends. The short-lived fuckability standards that we (women) are taught to chase after seem empty in comparison, don’t'chya think? ;)

Dear Hermione…

Dear Hermione,

As long-time fans of yours, we would like to thank you for your participation in the struggle against Lord Voldemort, and, by extension, your struggle against the ‘might makes right’ paradigm for which he stood. Your firm and unrelenting stance in favour of social justice has invited us (muggles) to examine the goings-on of our own world. As fans of you personally and even bigger fans of social justice in general, however, we would like to draw your attention to what we feel has been a recurring blind spot throughout your life thus far: your inconsistency in opposing unjust exploitation.

Beginning with the appearance of Dobby in your second year at Hogwarts, we are introduced to ‘house-elves’: domesticated elves that wizards (humans) exploit as forced servants. To the extent that house-elves are forced to do labour for which they are not compensated, they are, in effect, slaves. Robbed of all and any power (they cannot be ‘wand-carriers’, for instance), the domestication and subsequent exploitation of elves is so deeply ingrained into the social landscape of the wizarding world that both wizards and house-elves alike take it for granted as the ‘natural’ order of things. Centuries (if not millennia) of servitude and slavery have bred the independence out of house-elves. Indeed, the proper house-elf is so docile and subservient that he will do anything his master asks of him – no matter how harmful it is to the elf.

Yet even as you and Dumbledore (among others) acknowledge the injustice of elf slavery, you fail to see your own complicity in non-human slavery elsewhere: along with Dumbledore, you and other well-intentioned wizards and witches wear wool that comes from exploited sheep. That is, the domestic sheep is an animal that, through selective breeding, has become entirely reliant upon human control for survival. Like all domesticated non-humans, the sheep has evolved, over several millennia of human subjugation, to be so utterly at our mercy that they are no longer capable of independently living natural lives in the wild. And like wizards, who take advantage of the docility of house-elves in order to exploit the latter group, we all (warlock and muggle alike) take advantage of domestic animals (including sheep) in order to exploit them for our purposes – even when it is harmful for them that we do so.

Humans have bred sheep to have unnaturally wrinkly skin and thereby have excess amounts of fleece on their body, creating an artificial ‘need’ for shearing – an activity that itself is often stressful and traumatic for the animals. But by virtue of being so vulnerable and dependent upon us, domesticated animals, like house-elves, have no choice but to endure any and all use that we make of them. There is something eerie about Dumbledore telling Harry (at the end of your fifth year at Hogwarts) that house-elves deserve more respect (i.e., that we ought not to prey upon the vulnerable simply because we can) when he himself wears wool sweaters in the winter.

One of the defining characteristics of slavery throughout the ages has been the treatment of slaves exclusively as means to somebody else’s ends, with the life and welfare of the slave having no inherent value – a point that was rather artfully illustrated to you just before your fifth year, with the wall display of the severed heads of retired house-elves at the House of Black. Cruel though it may undoubtedly be to rob a sentient being of their life, what use would it be to anyone to keep alive a slave that is no longer useful? Property, after all, is that which has only external or extrinsic value. Yet this reality seems not to perturb you too terribly much, for, as you preach about elf rights at the Hogwarts breakfast table, give nary a thought to the dairy cows upon whose exploitation was obtained the butter you spread on your toast!

Of course, like all mammals, dairy cows must give birth in order to lactate – a fact that dairy farmers take advantage of by artificially inseminating their cows annually. When the calves are born, they are quickly taken away from their mothers (an act that results in tremendous stress and trauma for mother and calf alike), and the milk that was intended for them is instead stolen by humans. Her daughters will replace her as milk machines, and her sons (because they can neither lactate nor produce offspring) will be sent prematurely to the slaughterhouse, where they will be ‘processed’ into veal. After repeated cycles of traumatic pregnancy, forced lactation and bereavement, the ‘spent’ mother will likewise be sent off to slaughter. The life and welfare of the dairy cow, then, like that of the house elf, has no inherent value and is not taken into consideration beyond her utility as a milk machine, even though such treatment invariably deprives her of the liberty, comfort, and autonomy which she, like all sentient beings, so very desires. Once again, the injustice of treating a sentient ‘other’ as our property is made clear. How ironic, then, that in decrying the enslavement of elves, you seem to miss this crucial connection and do not also renounce the exploitation of all sentient non-humans!

In addition to the economic and legal similarities shared by all unjust institutions, elf slavery and animal exploitation share yet another characteristic: the social psychology under which they are both perpetuated. House elves, after centuries (millennia?) of servitude and brainwashing, have lost all semblance of independence and desire for autonomy, taking for granted their property status as ‘normal’ and even desirable. Wizards and witches, who benefit  from such discrimination, often point to the contentment of elves as ‘evidence’ that such practices are not unjust. How could it be ‘slavery’ when the elves themselves like it?

It is interesting to note that when Ron makes this very observation in your forth year, you immediately snap back, “That’s because they’re uneducated and brainwashed!”  In other words, you can see that the oppression of elves is far more complicated than simply determining whether or not they are ‘happy’ or complicit in their exploitation.

The past decade or so has witnessed the growth of the ‘humane’ animal exploitation movement: free-range eggs, organic milk, and other ‘feel-good’ labels. Putting aside the fact that these words are marketing schemes which do not translate into better welfare standards for animals, the reality is that even if it were possible to exploit animals ‘humanely’, it would not resolve the basic question of what justification we have for using them as means to our ends in the first place. Like the complicity of house elves in their own slavery, ‘humane’ animal exploitation fails to take into consideration the subjugation and violence upon which our entire relationship with domestic non-humans is based upon in the first place. Whether it’s the complicity of house elves in their own slavery, the ‘humane’ exploitation of domestic non-humans, the ‘choice’ of workers in a capitalist society to toil in demoralizing factory conditions, or any other unjust institution about which we lie to ourselves, such schemes ignore the structural inequalities that render ‘choice’ and ‘happy exploitation’ meaningless. True justice, then, comes not from putting a happy-faced sticker on exploitation, but from dismantling the underlying hierarchal structures that create and perpetuate injustice in the first place.

Though your early efforts to raise awareness about the plight of house elves are met with ridicule, at least some witches and wizards recognize that something is fundamentally wrong with the whole ‘house elves as property’ paradigm. Those who took Dumbledore’s (and Harry’s) side in the struggle against Lord Voldemort recognized that the whole hierarchal paradigm of wizard over muggle, man over creature was fundamentally unjust.

Likewise, we all (wizard, witch or muggle) agree that it is wrong to inflict ‘unnecessary’ harm on animals. Yet our most numerically significant uses of animals (e.g. for food) cannot be deemed as ‘necessary’ under any coherent definition of that word. The American Dietetic Association (one of the largest nutritional science organizations in the world) states:

“It is the position of the American Dietetic Association that appropriately planned vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets, are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases. Well-planned vegetarian diets are appropriate for individuals during all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, and adolescence, and for athletes.”

The best justification that we have for inflicting suffering and death on billions of sentient non-humans is that they taste good, and that is convenient and habitual for us to do so. There is no necessity involved. Like well-intentioned wizards who maintain that house elves ‘enjoy’ being enslaved, we fail to take our own moral convictions to their logical conclusion: we continue to eat, wear, and use non-humans when it is not necessary for us to do so, and we tell ourselves all sorts of stories about why it is supposedly alright.

As devoted fans of yours, and earnest seekers of social justice and non-violence, we would like to make an offer: we ask that you consider going vegan. Veganism means that one no longer eats, wears, or otherwise exploits non-human animals for human benefit. More than a matter of diet or lifestyle, veganism is a principled rejection of the property status of non-human animals – a lived form of protest against massive violence committed against the most vulnerable among us. Being vegan is incredibly easy to do, and it is the minimum standard of decency that we owe to non-humans in light of our assessment that it is wrong to inflict unnecessary suffering and death on them.

Living one’s life as a vegan and committing oneself to the abolition of animal exploitation is neither misanthropic nor myopic. Speciesism (discrimination on the basis of species) is inextricably intertwined with various other forms of violence, and like house-elf exploitation, non-human exploitation is itself symptom to a hierarchal world in which injustice takes on myriad forms. As long as we are slaughtering billions of defenseless beings simply because we can, we are not going to treat our fellow humans any better, and any talk of ‘justice’ or ‘world peace’ will remain just that – empty words in the wind.

Intelligent and well-intentioned though you undoubtedly may be, you too seem to fall victim to the confused and clouded thinking that often comes as a result of living in a violent world. Perhaps, had you stepped back and looked at the picture more clearly, you would have made the connection: if it is wrong for wizards to exploit magical non-humans, then it is wrong for all of us (muggle and warlock alike) to domesticate and exploit sentient non-humans as a general matter.

We hope that this letter finds you in good health, and that we have stimulated you into thinking critically about a serious social justice issue. We invite you to visit us online to learn more:

www.abolitionistapproach.com

          Sincerely,

The Abolitionist Animal Rights Movement