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45 1 fighting cocks ecofeminism versus sexualized violence pattrice jones 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. From under the brim of a floppy hat, I’ve got one eye on a Penguin paperback and the other on a multicolored rooster who might or might not start a fight. My hat sports the colors of the Brazilian flag, but ought to be UN blue, because I’m a peacekeeper today. At any moment, I might be forced to place myself between combatants. In the interim, I wait. And wait. Welcome to the exciting yet enervating world of rooster rehabilitation. At the Eastern Shore Sanctuary, we help roosters who have formerly been used in cockfighting to live peacefully with other birds. Although illegal in many countries, and in most of the United States, cockfighting persists in parts of Asia, on some Pacific Islands, in parts of South and Central America, and in the southern United States. In this cruel “sport,” roosters are socialized to view other roosters as predators, provoked by injections of testosterone and methamphetamines, armed with steel blades attached to the stumps of their sawed-off spurs, and then matched in bloody battles from which the only escape is death. Between events, they are typically isolated in small cages or tethered to stakes adjacent to A-frame shelters. Because cockfights are inevitably the site of illegal gambling, authorities are quicker to intervene in cockfighting than in other forms of animal cruelty. Unfortunately, their interventions usually do not aid the true victims of the crime—roosters. Most often, birds confiscated from cockfighting operations i-xvi_1-192_Kemm.indd 45 4/13/11 11:34 AM 46 pattrice jones are euthanized. We are able to rescue and rehabilitate only a handful of the hundreds of former fighting cocks who are confiscated every year. For each rooster we are able to save, our sanctuary means everything. Because chickens are very close genetically to the wild jungle fowl (the living ancestors of modern chickens), many former fighters choose a feral lifestyle, sleeping in trees and wandering the woods all day. Others move into the coops, joining former egg factory inmates and big “broiler” chickens, in a more sedate lifestyle. It’s their choice, as it should be. How did a lesbian-feminist from Baltimore end up rehabbing roosters in a rural chicken yard? Just like the old joke, it all started with a chicken crossing a road. Shortly after unknowingly moving to an epicenter of industrial poultry production, my former partner Miriam Jones and I rescued a chicken from the roadside. I’d always admired birds from afar, but I was surprised to find myself growing emotionally close to this ungainly creature, who sometimes looked so much like a reptile that I knew scientists were right about birds being dinosaurs. I also noticed that she had my grandmother’s eyes (as well as her stubborn charm) and that her feet were amazingly similar to human hands. I’d always felt so earthbound, but here was the evidence: People are related to birds! I was excited by this discovery, and very touched by this particular bird’s growing attachment to me. One day, Mosselle (as we called her, after my grandmother) made a new sound that seemed some kind of announcement. “Maybe she laid an egg!” I thought. I ran around looking for where she might have hidden her prize. A few days later, early in the morning, she gargled like she was choking, and I worried that she might be sick. Luckily, somebody with some sense commented , “That bird’s a rooster.” I had misunderstood an adolescent rooster’s first attempts at crowing! I struggled with the realization that my beloved friend was a rooster, rather than a hen. Even though he hadn’t changed, it was hard not to see him differently. I struggled not to let all of the things I had heard about arrogant, posturing, aggressive roosters change the way I saw this dear young bird, who had come to count on me. This was my first inkling of the ways that gendered preconceptions alter our perceptions of chickens and other nonhuman animals. That insight was a long time coming...

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