Joan Dunayer. Animal Equality. Language and Liberation. Derwood, MD: Ryce Publishing, 2001

Barbara Smuts , University of Michigan

I recently saw a documentary about a man who rescued an orphaned male mallard. They went everywhere together on land, and the man longed to fly with his duck companion. So he acquired a glider and one day launched into the air after the duck. At first the man wondered whether the duck would recognize him, “but then,” he said, “the bird veered toward the glider and flew along beside me so close I could talk to it.” Describing this moment as “one of the most moving experiences of my life,” the man nevertheless refers to his friend as an inanimate “it,” a disturbing reminder that even people who care deeply for animals other than humans sometimes fail to speak of them as equals.

Dunayer, a writer specializing in animal rights issues, delves deeply into how the English language is used intentionally or inadvertently to demean other animals and to trivialize the harm we cause them. Although most of Dunayer’s examples derive from contexts harmful to nonhuman animals, by including critical analyses of language used by people like the duckling rescuer the author shows that all of us could use some linguistic consciousness-raising.

After two introductory chapters demonstrating how we use words to separate humans from other sentient beings, the author analyzes language in several domains including hunting, zoos, vivisection, and the use of other animals as food. She then discusses pronouns used to refer to other animals, the metaphorical use of nonhuman animals, and nonhuman legal rights. The book concludes with detailed stylistic guidelines aimed at providing non-speciesist linguistic alternatives.

Although the book is not a scholarly treatise, Dunayer supports her argument with abundant endnotes. In a lively and accessible style, she demonstrates through sheer force of example how speciesist language pervades all aspects of society, from everyday speech to scientific journals, from newspaper reports to the beef industry’s double speak. In addition to giving common and obvious examples of speciesist language such as referring to other animals as “subhuman” Dunayer uncovers multiple, not-so-obvious examples and shows how, in many instances, their use is institutionalized. She condemns conservation biology for employing terms such as “wildlife management,” “cull,” and “harvest” instead of the more honest “kill” (or even “murder”). She criticizes zoo apologists for using terms like “residents,” “exhibit,” and “wildlife habitat” to mask the fact that zoo animals are prisoners condemned to a lifetime of incarceration under woefully inadequate conditions. She quotes zoo directors who argue that captive animals are “lucky” because they are “safe.” But, asks Dunayer, what justifies the assumption that nonhumans, any more than humans, would voluntarily trade freedom for safety?

Throughout the book, Dunayer skillfully interweaves linguistic analysis and detailed information about animal abuse. The grim realities of hunting, fishing, animal agriculture, and vivisection are conveyed in ways that change minds. She convinced me, someone relatively ignorant about sport fishing, that its supposedly “humane” methods more appropriately are labeled “torture.” Because of the inclusion of so many well- documented examples of animal abuse, the book can function as a compelling introduction to animal rights issues.

Several important themes recur throughout the book. One I especially appreciated is how language is used to deny nonhuman individuality. From the use of impersonal pronouns such as “which” rather than “who,” to the tendency to refer to all members of a nonhuman species as a single animal (“the chimpanzee is endangered”), to special terms such as “livestock” that reduce other animals to economic commodities, we ignore the unique selves of other animals in myriad ways.
Another important theme is how those with a vested interest in the status quo intentionally downplay human-inflicted animal suffering. As in human politics, the politics of human-animal interaction is rife with carefully crafted spin. Dunayer documents how one biomedical journal devised an editorial policy explicitly designed to disguise the degree of pain inflicted on nonhuman animals used in experiments. Similarly, vivisectors have been known to urge their colleagues to refer to the animals they use as “it” rather than “he” or “she” so that readers will be less prone to consider them sentient beings.

A third theme is how other animals are demeaned through sentence structure as well as words. Dunayer’s analyses of syntax are original and provocative. She cleverly shows how we tend to make humans the subjects of sentences, even when nonhumans are the primary actors or victims of the narrative. Similarly, linguistic conventions such as word order placing humans before nonhumans reinforce the notion that humans are more important. To correct such biases, we can make an effort to structure our sentences differently (“The dog Safi and her human companion Barb went for a walk”).

One downside of this book is its often polemical tone. “More a religion than a science,” she writes, “vivisection consists of ritual torture, animal sacrifice, and self-worship” (p. 112). Another flaw is the author’s tendency to state as fact her opinions about controversial issues. For example, she states unequivocally that zoos provide no significant conservation benefits, and writes, “applied to living beings, conservation means killing” (p. 54). A more balanced analysis might have acknowledged that many people involved in wildlife conservation are allied with Dunayer in her efforts to honor and protect members of other species.
Dunayer’s demands are radical. She wants us to make fundamental changes in the way we use language, and some of her non-speciesist alternatives will be hard to swallow. For example, she wants to refer to those who train captive dolphins as “abusers” and to “domestication” as “nonhuman enslavement.” Although some domestic animals are treated like slaves, would Dunayer apply this term to the cats with whom she lives? She also wants to replace phrases like “animal in the laboratory” (favored by this journal’s editors) with “vivisected animal,” ignoring the fact that not all animals in laboratories are vivisected, even by the broadest definition of the word. In other instances, Dunayer’s alternatives seem very appropriate; I applaud, for example, her desire to refer to bacon, ham, and pork as “pigflesh” to remind people of what they are really eating.

Whether or not we support particular suggestions, it is hard to disagree when Dunayer writes that how we speak about other animals affects how we relate to them. Surely that is reason enough to carefully consider making many of changes she proposes in this book.




 

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