No Peaceful Murder by Laura Belmar (2019)
TW: R*pe culture, sadism, animal murder
In her 2016 paper A Feminist Analysis of Human and Animal Oppression: Intersectionality Among Species, Kelsey Brown points out the similarities between the abuse of women and of animals. Both is based on male privilege, the belief that “might is right”.
It was always clear to me that killing animals for fun, of course, must be based on sadism. However, recently I’ve been coming across more and more evidence for this being closely related to rape culture, because the pleasure derived from the violence is of a sexual nature.
I was part of the vegan artist group “Vegan Artists” on Facebook in which a man posted a video, titled as an appeal to end fishing. Reading the description, I recoiled as I encountered the following:
“Most people who fish are men. On the one hand I understand this – the temptation to seduce a fish with food, and then…”
This is were I stopped reading, because I was triggered. So supposedly this man had a change of heart, but he still empathises with the sociopathic desires of male fishers. Note the use of the sexually connotative words “temptation” and “seduce”. It is clear that what he is describing here is a rape fantasy.
Another clear example of this can be found on the website of a German animal rights activist group against hunting. On it they de-mask the pathology of hunters, sharing, among other things, this quote by a famous hunting defender:
“There is something orgiastic about the red blood spilling over the splendid fur of the animal.” (translation by me)
Again, you can see the sexual context of certain words, which I’ve bolded. “Splendid” could be added as well – the German word “herrlich” has a wide semantic field, from being a synonym of “beautiful” to “wonderful”. Even the word “fur” will most likely belong to this group of sexually connotative words, as it is described as splendid and the whole statement is obviously worded like a sexual fantasy. The blood of the animal takes the place of male semen, spilling over fur, instead of skin or hair or clothing.
Any sane person will feel sick to their guts reading this. So why is this sociopathic behaviour both legal and socially perfectly acceptable? When it comes to hunting mammals and birds, hunters profit from the fact that most of the population won’t even notice their activities. And hunters clubs actively spread false information about why they hunt, pretending that it is a form of environmental protection from the overpopulation of deer and other prey animals. Not mentioning of course that they feed these animals during the winter months, so that they can shoot more of them in the next autumn.
Moreover, various national parks and other hunt-free zones in different countries have proven that there is absolutely no need to control the populations of species, even when large predators like wolves or bears are not present. The restriction of food resources is enough to keep the ecosystem in balance.
But what about private fishing, which very often does not take place in hiding or in remote places (as is the case for hunting forest or field animals), but in the middle of a town in rivers and lakes? I’ve seen people (adults and children) watch a fisherman from a bridge with interest. It seems like they were hoping to see him catch and kill a fish.
Would they do the same with a hunter lying in wait to shoot a deer or pheasant, I wonder. This is a clear example of the layering of speciesism, of the differing level of objectification of different species.
The amount to which fishing has been styled up as peaceful and idyllic, being committed not by violent sadists, but by nature-loving hermits, is breathtaking. You find fishermen (not women) on photos of tourist trip advisors, on illustrations in children’s books, and on jigsaw puzzles of beautiful landscape paintings. Once I found one of the latter, which described the magical beauty of water, which drew in friends of nature, among them walkers and fishers…”
Fishing men are seen as philosophical, as though they thought about existential questions while standing in or sitting by the water, waiting for hours to brutally kill a completely helpless animal. A good example for this is the character Snufkin from the popular Moomins cartoons and books by Finnish author Tove Jansson (which also feature a lot of misogyny).
Snufkin and Moomin by Tove Jansson
He is a socially critical, introverted nomad; secluded and deeply philosophical (as is obvious by the pipe he’s smoking). This archetype of a socially avoidant and independent man is deeply rooted in toxic masculinity, so it’s not surprising to find him paired with fishing. The contradiction of this with him criticising the other characters’ blind adherence to social norms and expectations and of his free-spirited, flower-crown wearing image is something that runs like a red threat through all of the Moomins books and comics.
On the one hand Tove Jansson is criticising and mocking bigotry through the caricatured characters, on the other hand the cast is overwhelmingly male, the male heroes insult and shame females continually, and the few female characters are usually portrayed as either the patient, selfless mother or as ridiculous and obsessed with their appearance and trying to “catch” a man - unless it is Little My, who is a popular hero, because she is a sadist macho.
It is a very good example for the common phenomenon of a victim identifying with their abusers, as I have described in my other post about breaking the cycle of abuse. Tove’s ignorance about her reinforcement of oppression is perfectly summarised in the core family of the Moomin mother, father, and their son Moomin – a cliché example of the male narcissist with his submissive and personality-less enabler wife, and their emotionally insecure son (who acts very much like an emotionally neglected child).
This whole pattern of victims worshipping abusers and perpetrating abusive ideas is further continued by the modern cult of female teenage fans of the franchise idealising Snufkin and Moomin as a gay couple, in which Snufkin is the insecure-avoidant, mature, masculine partner, and Moomin the insecure-dependent, child-like, and hyper-feminised partner.
This is the standard constellation for any popular, fan-based fictional gay couple, with the characters usually being taken from male-orientated, macho-positive media. One could write a whole book studying this phenomenon, but it is clear that the young women are unable to break free from misogynous macho ideology, even within the realm of wish fulfilment, containing male-only characters, and being based on the presumably anti-macho trait of homosexuality.
Even though gay porn is just as rape-based as heterosexual porn and uses the same method of feminising the objectified partner, as mentioned above. The assumption of demand being that men, regardless of sexual orientation, want to feel like a predator during sex, not like an equal partner.
So, despite this small digression from the main topic of this post, we have arrived back at it – the connection between hunting and rape in toxic masculinity. Given the fact that seeing women as prey and as trophies is a fundamental core belief of misogyny, the turning around of this picture – to see prey animals as women – is perhaps not so very surprising after all.
Yes, this is a fish - according to Disney's
Fantasia (1942).
It’s not a coincidence that the fox
is male and the bunny female (Disney's
Zootopia, 2016).
Note body size and facial expression
as well (the latter is a direct clone of
Eugene and Rapunzel from Tangled).
It is noteworthy that there is also a strong male preoccupation with the roles getting reversed, especially in art and music history. I speak of the archetypical femme fatale, the evil and powerful woman (two traits that are inevitably linked within the collective mind of misogyny), who takes on the male-defined role of a sexual predator.
Famous examples include La Belle Dame Sans Merci by John Keats (and subsequent paintings and songs based on this), or Morgan Le Fey from Arthurian Romance. More recent examples are the countless pop and hip hop songs that warn men of a dangerous, sexy woman (Johnny B. by The Hooters or Man Eater by Nelly Furtado, for example).
How many songs are out there that actually accuse men for being sexual predators? The trope of the “heartbreaker “or “womanizer” are still titles that men get crowned with.
In the past, I couldn’t understand why stories and songs were so full of these evil, sexy women, when clearly they depicted the opposite of reality (= men preying on women).
No doubt this trope serves several purposes. Firstly, it is an excellent way to distract from reality and to blame and shame women. They are being scapegoated, accused of the misdeeds and unethical behaviours of their abusers. What better way to undermine someone’s credibility and make them truly voiceless.
Secondly, this trope certainly expresses the true fear of many men. Just like a dictator fears nothing more than the oppressed population rising up against him, macho men fear women rebelling, seizing power, and misusing it just like him. The men’s rights activists will tell you all about it.
I distinctively remember seeing an Edwardian caricature against suffragettes once, which showed an evil smiling woman, smoking, and reclining on a couch, her boots on the table, while an angry and ashamed-looking man was ironing clothes with a screaming baby on his back, wearing an apron and a kerchief. Of course – in the minds of these men, giving women the right to vote was equal to a revolution of social order, no doubt an evil conspiracy to steal their precious male privilege and turn it into a female privilege.
Finally, the countless examples of boys being equated with dangerous predator animals and girls with cute prey animals need to be mentioned here. Just walk into a supermarket, discount store, or toys/children’s clothing shop. You will overwhelmingly find bunnies, ducks, lambs, horses/unicorns, fawns, and squirrels in the girls’ section, and crocodiles/dragons, lions, tigers, wolves, and dinosaurs (mostly Tyrannosaurus Rex) in the boys’ section. They look particularly disturbing when being placed next to each other – once I found pink and white bunny mittens next to teeth-baring crocodile mittens as bathing accessories for small children in a B&M store.
The message couldn’t be more obvious – boys are predators, girls are prey.
The intersectionality of oppression and abuse is more than obvious. It’s about time that all anti-oppressive groups became intersectional too.
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