Sexism and Derrida

The comparison presented in the readings of speciesism and sexism doesn’t cease to amaze me. I’ve always found that the ‘isms’ were all similar in the sense that they were against an ‘other’ but through this reading and the course, I’ve come to think of each ‘ism’ promoting the others. In looking at just women and animals, I see that “many women adopt the very attitudes which are oppressing them” (789). Women definitely treat animals different than they would other humans; I think of the annoyance at insects and sometimes at pets displayed by women in my childhood and see the same treatment inflicted by men who believe themselves to be superior. I think of our culture which promotes the use of derogatory terms to people of different color and to women, how many times a day do we hear in music that a woman is a ‘bitch.’



“Applying images of denigrated nonhuman species to women labels women inferior and available for abuse” (785). The acceptance of negative metaphors between animals and women allows for a dehumanization to takes place and permits men to do as they please with women, in the past the same has occurred when white men considered African Americans different and treated them like they would other animals. Most metaphors that reference women as animals are negative and ironic in the ways the animals are perceived. Animals don’t often share the features associated to the derogatory term used against women for example, ‘bitch’ is used to refer to women who are thought of as “malice and selfish” but dogs are usually thought of as “loving and eager to please” (787). Why the association is made in a negative perspective and not a positive one not only harms the reputation of the creatures bit further allows for a separation of good and evil to be made between the oppressed and the oppressors. I’ve also begun to truly understand the importance of words and how “language fosters exploitation and abuse” (788). The terminology used against women and animal allows for the differences to appear larger than they are and therefore permitting the mistreatment since they are different.



“When used to denote other species only, animal falsely removes humans from animal kind” ( 789).After years of reoccurring events in which a group of people have gathered and stood up to fight for those who were once unable to do it for themselves it seems as if we’ve gotten nowhere since it continues to happen the only difference is the group that’s being targeted. “To think the war we find ourselves waging is not only a duty, a responsibility, an obligation, it is also a necessity a constraint that, like it or not directly or indirectly, everyone is held to” (723).