Intimate Familiarities? Feminism and Human-Animal Studies

Lynda Birke 1

The study of human-nonhuman animal relationships, like women’s studies, is a relative newcomer to the academy. Both grew partly out of political movements of the 1970s, challenging different forms of oppression. Here, I ask whether there are insights each could draw from the other, despite their differences. I do so from personal academic experience of both: But I write also from my own engagement in those social movements of the 1970s and my belief that politics that ignore other oppressions cannot be liberatory politics for anyone.

Undoubtedly, there is some overlap between the concerns of both movements: Both, for example, have a concern with rights (however problematic that concept (Donovan, 1990; Slicer, 1991). Another common ground is in their respective critiques of Western culture’s profound commitment to distinguishing “us” from “others,” which extinguishes differences among those others (Plumwood, 1993) and in turn can help to reinforce oppressions or abuse (Adams, 1993; Pagani, 2000).

Despite overlaps, feminism and animal/human studies inevitably pursue different concerns and different directions. However, in so doing, some ideas may be overlooked that could usefully inform one another’s research. My purpose here is to draw-in very general termsC from some of these ideas to suggest potential developments and dialogue.

A significant point is that both fields generally ignore the central focus of the other; thus, academic feminism tends to ignore animals while studies of human/animal relationships tend to play down gender.[2] If nonhuman animals are outside modern feminist theory, it is partly because of the way that women and animals are linked as “others.” As a result, women have long been denigrated by animal epithets (Dunayer, 1995) mostly loaded with loathing.[3] Societal assumptions are so often read onto nature in terms redolent of gender stereotypes. Macho males and coy females frequent scientific narratives (Schiebinger, 1993), while ornithological field guides commonly dismiss females as “somewhat duller,” subordinating females to descriptions of males (van de Pitte, 1998; Gruen, 1990).

Sexism in animal observation remains common and is one reason why feminism has shied away from considering animals. In doing so, however, feminism unwittingly relies on evolutionary discontinuity. Feminist scholarship emphasizes how gender and sexuality are socially constructed and rejects ideas rooted in biological determinism (e.g. that gender depends on biology). FineC but the flexibility implied by social constructionism extends only to human behavior: Bodily functions remain biological, beyond flexibility, and often untheorized (Birke, 1999). Moreover, the behavior of nonhuman animals remains largely in the realm of biology, outside the remit of most feminist inquiry (Noske, 1993; Birke, 1994). So, discontinuity is reinforced implicitly, and the chasm yawns between human culture and the rest of nature.

Nevertheless, several feminist theorists have analyzed the ways that gender, race, and animality are deeply entwined concepts in our cultureC they are concepts that discursively construct one another (Haraway, 1989). Similarly, Bryld and Lykke (2000) discuss the multiple and shifting meanings attached to dolphins. That is, images of whales and dolphins have become particularly potent symbols in cultural debate about what it means to be human. However, “‘human’ is definitely not a neutral or innocent category, but a highly gendered and racialized one,” as Byrd and Lykke (p. 33) point out. So, while animals are absent from much modern feminism, these authors remind us that how we think about both animality and gender is complex and interdependent.

Empirical research on human-animal relationships has tended to equate gender with male versus female butCin my viewCrarely engages with gender as a complex construct. In this field, the focus of social constructionism is on the meanings we give to animals rather than on details of human behavior (such as gender). Yet, we now understand gender in feminist scholarship to be a highly nuanced construct with multiple meanings changing over time (Nicholson, 1998; Butler, 1990). Butler’s work has been influential here: For her, gender is something people performCwe act out societal prescriptions of gender to create identities (p. 25). The meanings of gender thus are not fixed but fluid and multiple. What could human-animal studies take from this?

Ways Forward?

Clearly, cultural meanings of animals and gender are complex and powerful. But both fields of inquiry could benefit from greater dialogue. Human-animal studies could make more use of ideas of gender as a construct, as something performed (Butler, 1990) rather than something we intrinsically are.[4] Although Butler was not addressing animals, we might ask how “gender” becomes performed whenever we observe nonhuman animals. Is the performance in the animals’ behavior or in our understandings of it (if we can make that separation)? Or is it in our own performance in relation to that of the animals?

We also might ask about performance within human-animal relationships. Other species often are assumed hard-wiredCeven domesticated animals differing only slightly from “wild” counterpartsCinstinctively adapted to their environment. But animals living with us also perform, while we too act out roles in relation to them. Indeed, there are (human-imposed) cultural prescriptions for the performance of the role of “companion animal”Cnot just any old behavior will do. Let me give an example: In the “horsey” world that I know well, stallions now are more popular. Their behavior often accords with human beliefsCif people believe stallions are hormone-crazy males, difficult and dangerous, they will probably be so; or, they can be docile and easy to handle, if associated people believe they can be and act accordingly. So, in a sense, these animals learn to perform a role emerging from their relationships with people. It could be, I suggest, a useful rubric for research to ask how participants of any species come to perform relationships. Domestication, indeed, could be a historical process of performances of the roles of companion animal and human caretaker, deeply intertwined.[5]

Feminist studies, by contrast, need to think more about what animals are and the gender-laden meanings of both generalized and specific kinds of “animals.” Relatedly, feminist theory needs to consider its reliance on evolutionary discontinuity (Hawkins, 1998). It does not help feminism to assume, however implicitly, that “animals” are “other.” Feminist theory focuses particularly on the creation and meaning of difference; but, important though that move is, it still rests on a generalized, nonhuman “other,” just a different one (Kappeler, 1995). It is ironic that, while feminist theorists emphasize the fluidity of gender, the same theory assumes an underlying fixity of nature and animals. Moreover, in rejecting biological determinism, feminists should not fear a “dumbing down” to what has emerged culturally as “animality”; rather, we should recognize the myriad ways in which various nonhumans engage with their worlds. We need other ways to include animals in feminist theories rather than rejecting them as “outside culture.” Doing so might move us beyond simple dichotomies of biology/determinism versus social constructionism (Birke, 1994).

Relatedly, while feminists often emphasize the “situatedness” of each person’s knowledge (Haraway, 1991), this tends to assume a human social context. Rarely is the living environment part of this emerging understanding.[6] Yet, we create knowledge in relation to a plethora of other life forms, not only humans. Seeing other kinds of lives as situated like our own might promote empathy with them, a shift paralleling growing demands for more empathy[7] in scientific studies of nonhuman animals (Galdikas, 1996; Bekoff, 1994). Calls for more empathy in studying animals are part of a groundswell of changing attitudes toward reductionist science and the impoverished view of the lives of animals that it encourages.

Empathy, moreover, must involve relating to others who are differentCof whatever species–and whose individual life histories are seen as part of that relation. It is not enough solely to focus only on those who are similar, leaving “others” as an undifferentiated mass. That has been a key insight of modern feminist theory, at least in relation to women. It needs extending beyond boundaries of species. There is growing evidence, too, that some kinds of nonhuman animals clearly have a social self who can recognize and take the role of “the other.” Sanders’ (1999) study of dogs in relation to humansCand the complexities of bothCis one example: He argues, “Intimate familiarity with othersC be they human or nonhumanC offers the richest of information,” (p. 148).

I have sketched here some areas of potentially fruitful dialogue. Human-animal studies have made some marvelous insights into how we humans relate to nonhumans. However, they could usefully apply feminist insights about how gender also structures our social world and our performance within it. But feminist theory, too, must abandon its separation from the rest of the living world. This limits feminist theory and politics, and feminists could learn much about the significance of nonhumans in our culture. Our lives are situated not only within human social engagements but alsoCwhether we know or acknowledge itCprofoundly with other species. This, I think, is an insight that comes from dialogue between these two disparate fields. We all share in making and remaking the world. We all share in co-creating our situatedness. Perhaps, indeed, we all need theories based on intimate familiarities.

* Lynda Birke, University of Lancaster

Notes

[1] Correspondence should be addressed to Lynda Birke, Institute of Women’s Studies, University of Lancaster, Lancaster, UK LA1 4YW. Email: ghv37@dial.pipex.com. I am very grateful to Consuelo Rivera, Lori Gruen, Nina Lykke, and Mette Bryld for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper and to my various canine and equine friends who ensure that I sometimes leave the computer.

[2] There are exceptions: Several ecofeminist writers focus on animals (Adams, 1994; Gaard, 1993; Gruen, 1994). Gender is sometimes included as a variable in empirical studies of human/animals (Kruse, 1999) but is rarely problematized as a concept.

[3] There are numerous examples of denigrating animal words applied to womenC chick, cow, beaver, pussy, for example. When animal words refer to men, it is usually to imply something more highly valued, even if ambivalently: Calling men studs or stags are examples.

[4] Butler emphasizes the fluidity rather than fixity of gender. But we perform gender according to societal precepts: In that sense, we learn to “play by the rules”, thus channeling gender. These processes may not be conscious (except in parodic performances such as drag: Butler, 1990, p. 137).

[5] I want to stress here that I see such performance as constraining (gender constrains how we behave, just as companion animals are constrained by our cultural assumptions about what is appropriate for them). I do not wish to imply positive or negative evaluation, just that this might be a useful way of thinking about how our relationships with animals develop.

[6] The “situatedness” of knowledge refers to the specificities and context of the knower; thus, how people know the world (in terms, say, of gender) depends upon their social context. There is thus no one way of knowing. This idea is explored by Haraway (1991). Haraway is, however, rather more inclusive of other species than many other feminist writers who have used her idea of situated knowledge.

[7] By empathy, I mean an ability to recognize another’s pain or experience. To stress empathy/compassion in this way may help to move away from notions of raw emotion (often seen as sentimentality), which can bedevil discussions of animals: I am grateful to L. Gruen for pointing this out (personal communication).

References

Adams, C. J. (1994). Neither man nor beast: Feminism and the defence of animals. New York: Continuum.

Bekoff, M. (1994). Should scientists bond with the animals whom they use? Why not? International Journal of Comparative Psychology 7, 78-86.

Birke, L. (1994). Feminism, animals and science: The naming of the shrew. Buckingham: Open University Press.

Birke, L., 1999. Feminism and the biological body. Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh.

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Pagani, C. (2000). Perception of a common fate in human-animal relations and its relevance to our concern for animals. Anthrozoös, 13, 66-73.

Plumwood, V. (1993). Feminism and the mastery of nature. London: Routledge.

Sanders, C. (1999). Understanding dogs: Living and working with canine companions. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Schiebinger, L. (1993). Nature’s body: Sexual politics and the making of modern science. Boston: Beacon Press.

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Van de Pitte, M. M. (1998). The female is somewhat duller: The construction of the sexes in ornithological literature. Environmental Ethics, 20, 23-39.
 

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