Sister Species

Cover

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Title Page, Copyright, Dedication

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Contents

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pp. vii-viii

Foreword

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pp. ix-xii

How do women, especially feminists, discover the call to be involved in stopping animal suffering and why does it become so profoundly important in the shaping of their activism? How have women influenced the animal advocacy movement even though this influence is not as acknowledged as it might be? ...

Acknowledgments

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pp. xiii-xiv

I am grateful to the women in this anthology for their honesty, for sharing their experiences and expertise, and for their energetic work on behalf of nonhuman animals and on behalf of justice more generally. ...

Introduction

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pp. 1-44

This anthology began when I sent out a call for papers, asking women to write about their work in animal advocacy. I had long been aware that women were the heart and soul of the animal advocacy movement, and I was determined to create an anthology that honored at least a few of these courageous women. ...

1 Fighting Cocks: Ecofeminism versus Sexualized Violence

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pp. 45-56

I’m sitting in a low lawn chair, wearing boxer shorts and a T-shirt that says “Feminists for Animal Rights.” My legs are streaked with mud and there’s a bright yellow patch on one ankle that can only be dried egg yolk. My forearms are dotted with abrasions encircled by bruises. It’s sunny and hot. ...

2 From Rural Roots to Angel's Wings

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pp. 57-64

I was born and grew up in a small, religious farming community in Manitoba, Canada. While I lived on the edge of town, many of my friends lived on farms. Here, among these nonhuman animals, my awakening began. ...

3 Are You Waving at Me?

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pp. 65-71

I guess it’s not very politically correct to start off an essay that has to do with women and their influence by declaring that I detest being defined by the word “woman.” Perhaps that sounds a bit strange to anyone who knows that I’ve been a feminist since forever or, more accurately, since I saw a drawing of a suffragist chained to a railing; ...

4 Connections: Speciesism, Racism, and Whiteness as the Norm

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pp. 72-78

In junior high school, he was the boy who used racial slurs against my twin brother, Talmadge, making him cry. He was the same boy who, in my math class, spoke of his distaste for a new sitcom that featured an interracial family. And he was the same boy who made fun of me when I tried to “save” a hornet who was crawling on the classroom floor. ...

5 Fighting "Other"

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pp. 79-86

I was not yet five years old on that first day of kindergarten, yet I remember those words vividly. It was the first time I was forced to be aware that I was different—that because of the slant of my eyes and the color of my skin, I was “other” and could be dismissed as “nothing.” ...

6 Small Small Redemption

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pp. 87-96

“Small smalls” is what I called them. Small small pikins to be exact. It’s the Pidgin English phrase in Cameroon for “little children.” Those days I had three of them: Emma and Niete in each arm and Gwendolyn on my back, all shy of one year. ...

7 Compassion without Borders

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pp. 97-101

During the summer of 2009, I met a solemn, beautiful, middle-aged mother with deep brown eyes in Washington State. When she was only an infant, she was taken from her own mother in Africa and forced into a life of confinement and repeated harm. ...

8 Theology and Animals

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pp. 102-109

Imagine what would happen if the world’s religions began to condemn the morality of our beyond-words-horrendous cruelty to nonhuman animals. Imagine what it might be like if theologians wrote about or discussed our unspeakable cruelty to other animals. Both the human and nonhuman animal would benefit greatly. ...

9 Freeing Feathered Spirits

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pp. 110-116

Ever since I was a young child, I have had an affinity for painting, drawing, and nonhuman animals. Now, as a professional artist and animal activist, nonhuman animals are still the primary subjects of my paintings. But there is more to my work than love for all animals: ...

10 The Art of Truth-telling: Theater as Compassionate Action and Social Change

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pp. 117-126

I am humbled by the extensive work of women who labor and serve in the trenches—those who run sanctuaries and shelters, provide foster homes, and risk injury, imprisonment, and even death on a daily basis. By comparison, as a writer, I feel my usefulness in the fight to awaken compassion is elusive. ...

11 From Hunting Grounds to Chicken Rights: My Story in an Eggshell

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pp. 127-140

Before I was an “academic,” several things happened that bear on my life as an animal rights activist and founder of an organization fighting for the rights of chickens and turkeys. I grew up in Altoona, Pennsylvania, a railroad town, and I attended two Pennsylvania colleges: ...

12 Isn't Justice Supposed to be Blind?: Practicing Animal Law

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pp. 141-151

I am an animal law attorney because there is great need for me to do this work. I often tell people that I am an animal rights attorney not necessarily because I love nonhuman animals, but because I believe that all living beings should be free of pain and torture. Yet nonhuman animals in our country are often not protected from pain or torture. ...

13 An Appetite for Justice

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pp. 152-160

It was a hot day in North Carolina and the sheds were all locked, except for one, which contained a dead, bloated pig and a smaller pig. As I walked in, I saw what I had been smelling. On each side of me, there were rows upon rows of pigs in pens. Hundreds of them. ...

14 A Magical Talisman

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pp. 161-172

Twenty years ago, my life changed when I happened onto a Last Chance for Animals TV commercial on vivisection. I looked up the word “vivisection” in the dictionary, phoned the number on the screen, and the next day I was off to my first protest, called “World Week,” in front of Cedar Sinai in Los Angeles. ...

Appendix: Factory Farming and Females

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pp. 173-186

Index

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pp. 187-190

About the Author, Publication Information

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