Thread by @_CarolJAdams

1/ This thread reflects on a recurring problem in discussing the history of #animalstudies, critical animal studies, & human-animal studies. It’s #misogyny. Here’s the jist: feminists & feminist ideas are devalued or ignored only to see our ideas appropriated while we disappear.

2/ This reflects on a recurring problem in animal studies. I will try later to add another thread w/ many citations of impt writings. So this is the first of more to come
#Citationanxiety
#Misogyny
#Talesofthefathers
#GenderStudies
#AnimalStudies
#citationmisogyny
#womenstudies

3/ In Ecofeminism: Feminist Intersections with Other Animals and the Earth, @last1000chimps & I described how reflections on the development of the animal protection movement usually tell the story of its beginning w/ the publication of @PeterSinger’s Animal Liberation in 1975

4/ We described how the early #feminist concern for other #animals is generally overlooked by situating the beginning with Singer. In raising the issue of the neglect of #feminist contributions, we did not deny the impact of Singer, #TomRegan or other writers.

5/ We did indicate that this framing of the issue of animals relegated “to the background feminist relational commitments to empathy and care.” We also described how #ecofeminism was often seen as a side concern. bloomsbury.com/us/ecofeminism…

6/ Ecofeminists address the problem of value hierarchies & value dualisms such as human/animal; culture/nature. Problematically, we were mistakenly thought to maintain the masculine reason/feminine emotion dualism that mainstream animal theorists were promoting.

7/ @last1000chimps and I said that “In arguing relationally and developing a care tradition in animal ethics, #ecofeminists were challenging, not accepting, the essentializing structure of the division between men as rational and women as emotional.”

8/ In the 21st century, we have seen this mischaracterization of ecofeminism continue. It provides a way to exclude #ecofeminist work from emerging animal theory as it was being developed. Along with this, we noted the failure to credit ecofeminism’s influence.

9/ We said, “The emerging field of #AnimalStudies grows out of, at least in part, #feminist and #ecofeminist theory.” By ignoring the background and the history, the result is the disappearance of ecofeminism, while its ideas become appropriated.

10/ @EcoFeministMom discussed this #ecofeminist #backlash in “Ecofeminism Revisited: Rejecting Essentialism and Re-Placing Species in a Material Feminist Environmentalism,” genderandsecurity.org/projects-resou…

11/ Greta Gaard writes: “Current developments in allegedly new fields such as animal studies and naturalized epistemology are ‘discovering’ theoretical perspectives on interspecies relations and standpoint theory that were developed by feminists and ecofeminists decades ago.”

12/ Susan Fraiman also addressed this issue in “Pussy Panic versus Liking Animals: Tracking Gender in Animal Studies” describing the way #AnimalStudies had developed a revisionary history with an origin story locating itself in the writings of #Derrida journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/66…

13/ This origin story, Fraiman pointed out “serves to eclipse the body of animal scholarship [that she described in her essay], dozens of books going back some forty years, long before Derrida’s essay was brought to the attention of English speakers."

14/ Susan Fraiman continued, "Much of this pioneering work was by women and #feminists—a significant portion rose under the rubric of #ecofeminism—and all of it arose in dialogue with late-century liberation movements, including the second wave women’s movement.“

15/ Both Fraiman and Gaard point out the irony: how feminist and #ecofeminist insights and theory have been both discredited AND appropriated. Fraiman called this #pussypanic

16/ In 2016, I addressed the problem of emphasizing “fathers” of the movement in a guest essay for the @unboundproject, and how #ageism influences the way women in the movement are considered. unboundproject.org/visibility-his…

17/ Then in 2019 another paper appeared, “‘Pussy Panic’ and Glass Elevators: How Gender is Shaping the Field of Animal Studies” by @FProbyn, @so_s, & Yvette Watt tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.108…

18/ @FProbyn, @so_s, and Yvette Watt indicate that “Our data lend support to the idea that ‘pussy panic’ has indeed shaped the direction of the field so far.” #pussypanic #animalstudies

19/ So are the gatekeepers listening? Not if we consider Kenneth Shapiro’s “Human-Animal Studies: Remembering the Past, Celebrating the Present, Troubling the Future” appearing in Society & Animals & published by @BrillPublishing #misogyny #animalstudies
brill.com/view/journals/…

20/ He creates a four wave history, that neglects feminist writings, but introduces feminist ideas unlabelled as such as part of the fourth wave, so we get to have ideas about empathy, attention, affect, entanglement, dualisms, without ever having to bother with, much less cite,

21/ most of the feminist & ecofeminist writers who helped bring these ideas forward. All these previous waves he says prepare us to “call into question basic categorical distinctions, such as animal/human, nature/culture, & individual/group.” #ecofeminism

22/ Hmm, there is a #feminist theory that precisely delineated that DECADES AGO: #Ecofeminism. But #animalstudies has been made safe to refer to #dualisms because at least “3 waves,” if not the 4th have processed these ideas like a wash, removing the stain of women's writing.

23/ If you see yourself as a gatekeeper protecting the overinflated male legacy of #animalstudies, here are the strategies to follow:
1) Start the story with men’s writings, not women’s
2) Cite men, continually cite men. This might be obvious and you might already be doing it,

24/
because citing men feels so right and everywhere you look this is what is done.
3) Suppress women’s writings.
4) Even when you use language indebted to the writings of feminists, don’t cite them.

25/ Follow these suggestions & you'll magnify men’s contributions, while misrepresenting the history & theory of animal studies & human-animal studies. Apparently that’s the cost writers like Ken Shapiro & the publication Society & Animals & @BrillPublishing are willing to take