By Ellie Smith

When I say I became a vegan at 15 to impress a vegan boy, people laugh. Then they laugh again when I say I became a feminist five years later for the same reason (for clarification, this boy was deep into human rights). So at the age of 20, I became a vegan feminist, and has since introduced myself as a vegan feminist. Then people started asking me: what is vegan feminism? Who are vegan feminists? 

So I feel obliged to explain who we are before stating about my opinions on PETA's media tactics. Here it goes:

We are a branch of the Intersectional Social Group, groups of often-exploited marginalized people who believe that different types of oppression (race, ethnicity, class, gender, sex, sexual orientation, disability) intersect to form distinctive social experiences of marginalized groups. Long words short, we think that one form of oppression is always related to some other forms of oppression.

What about the origins of our group? Our group broke away from the US feminist group in 1950~1970s. Led by E. Shrigley, some of the women in the feminist group started voicing how white women were excluding black and other non-white women from the social movements of this era. With the help of Donald Watson, the founder of the Vegan Society (1944), Voilà! Vegan feminism was born. 

Today there are over 50 international vegan feminist organizations, including the Vegan Feminist Network and TAVS (The Advocacy of Veganism Society). The groups, however, or even the individual members of the groups, differ on their views of PETA's media use. It's a complicated issue, a matter of placing higher value on marketing techniques or PETA's intentions of promoting vegetarianism. 

When I first saw this video on PETA's official YouTube Channel, I laughed. Now, I can literally hear some viewers buzzing and whispering: "Is she crazy? How can that be funny?" I have to correct myself— I didn't laugh because the video was funny. I laughed because it was insane. Can you try to imagine young, conventionally attractive, able bodied, thin women baring their udders?  Can you imagine how those udders begin lactating and the milk is sloshed into the mouths of cheering men? 

If that’s not insanely disturbing, I don’t know what else to say. 

At this point, it's obvious that MGW is a subversive use of women’s bodies, which is why it is subjected to brutal attacks by some of us vegan feminists. This really isn’t a surprise. Previous PETA campaigns such as “Gentlemen Prefer Fur-Free Blondes” (2004) was also controversial with their random yet deliberate use of the female body to attract attention.

But I don't think MGW is one of those PETA's shallow, women-exploiting ads. Once you finally shake off the shock from the ad's utter bizarreness, you might be able to see that the ad is more than udder-baring women. I know this may sound as insane as the ad itself, but I actually like the ad. MGW surely has a new twist— it works with regards to both animals' AND women’s liberation. 

For those of you protesting the ad says nothing about animal rights: look at how the dancing men are drinking milk out of bottles in 0:01. Then look at their reactions at 0:23 after drinking milk out of the women's udder. See the difference? The men start off with mild, butt-shaking dance (that reminds me of Yogi bear), then goes screaming, jumping, and lying on the floor— showing an obvious contrast. The contrast highlights the naturalness of drinking milk of our own species vs. unnaturalness of drinking the milk of another species, in this case, the cows. So what? PETA is conveying a powerful message that female animals, including the cows, should not be deprived of their own milk. 

And that's not the only way PETA shows its message. The udder that the men drink milk from (shown in 0:21) also has some notable features. It is inflated, and is forcefully shaken up and down until milk squirts out of it. The image of a zoomed-in, pink, fully-blown udder is explicit to the point of being grotesque (note the fact that young women have those udders emphasizes the grossness). PETA is obviously trying to appeal to the viewers' pathos with this image, in er... not so pleasant way. The vivid image of an udder comes as a shock for the viewers who expected “natural” women’s breasts, and the sheer reality of the image is expected to make them feel uncomfortable around the udders & the milk produced by the udders. Men drinking milk straight out this udder is another shock factor, which again, relates to pathos. The viewers are shown an extremely sexual act that would be more suitable for porns than ads, which likely doubles their surprise and revulsion. Below is a picture of how some viewers have responded to the video:

Once again, I have to admit that I chuckled as I was read the comments. I could literally hear people screaming at the video's overt sexual imagery . The phrase "what the..." shows the disbelief the viewers find the video. Obviously, they are so shocked to the point that they are asking themselves what they have watched (of course, they are not expecting any answers. They already know what they have seen, and simply can't believe what they have watched). Also note that all 4 viewers responded with at least one taboo word, with 3/4 of the viewers using the word "f**k". They are shocked, disgusted, and angry to the point where they can't help slashing PETA with cusses. And how will these reactions be seen in PETA's point of view? A spectacular triumph, of course. The viewers are responding exactly as it wanted them to: feeling uncomfortable at the way "cow's" milk is portrayed in the video (note how "Igor the Mii/Lyrica Prismriver" understood that PETA was not trying to portray women's milk). 

And in the view of vegan feminists like me? Another spectacular triumph. The contrast between men's reaction of drinking cow milk and human milk (excluding the fact it is from, um, udders), as well as a disturbing image of "bouncing" udder, are all capable of drawing strong emotional responses. And I believe these responses would make more viewers to turn vegan. 

I should also mention how PETA uses parallelism to emphasize its message. The women in the video are trapped in a situation that is quite similar to those of cows in dairy farms. Note how a woman in 0:19~0:21 are videotaped baring her udders within the toilet stall. Quite bizarre, isn't it? The image indicates the women are not free from exploitation even in places like toilet stalls, where their activities, um, should be kept private. Men's influence, indeed, is shown to creep into one of the world's most gender-segregated areas, indicating that women are brainwashed to stay sexually passive regardless of their location. And this image parallels with the image of cow pens tacked on the end of the video. The cows are held indoors within dark, crowded pens lined with wooden sticks while attached to mechanical milkers (note how the picture is in black and white to emphasize the graveness of cows' situations).

PETA, again, is taking a clever advantage on pathos. The similarity between women's and cows' situations draws the viewers to connect the two and feel sympathetic towards the cows. A little awkward to say, but the viewers form emotional bonds with the cows in the process, which elevates the cows' values in the their minds. The image of cows in dairy industries plays with ethos as well— acknowledging the image is an actual photograph, the viewers are more likely to be convinced by how a) PETA visited the dairy industry and took photos of an acual phenomenon, and b) with a)'s first hand experience, PETA is going to be knowledgeable about cows in industries. All in all, they are likely to view PETA as a credible organization and support their cause on banning animal milk. 

What's more, PETA supports the sexual autonomy of women. This is the part where I'm absolutely thrilled as a vegan feminist— PETA finally allows women to lead the men in sexual actions. Take, for example, the image of milk sloshed all over the floor in 0: 24. The lactating women, well, in a sense that they are producing their own milk, are "mothers". Only that they are not breastfeeding (or should I say "udderfeeding"?) their children to feed them with nutrients. They are intentionally dripping their milk onto the ground, where the men lay down on with their mouths open to catch the droplets.

And yes, here's where the milk turns very sexy. The image can be read as a reference to the pornography in which men typically ejaculate onto the faces, bodies or into the mouths of women. PETA obviously aims to connect with the viewers familiar with these pornographic cliché. The image of splattered milk reminds the readers of semen, showing the interchangeable nature of the two and further suggesting how milk can be as a powerful sexual tool as semen. Then PETA takes one more step forward. Not only is milk as powerful as semen, it is more powerful than semen. Notice how the man in the image is lying below where the lactating women are, passively allowing the milk to glug down his throat. To the viewers subjected to stereotypical pornography, this is a huge shock. They are likely to become surprised and even offended at how women, especially mothers, are portrayed to be sexually assertive. 

And their reactions would be quite understandable. Mothers are portrayed as Madonna-state virtue in our culture. Even the word "mother" has a warm cuddly connotation of "tenderness" and "affection". 

But the viewers' anger is what we want here. This is also precisely what PETA has wanted for decades through its controversial use of media promotion, although mostly for animal rights rather than women's rights. While facing strong opposition, the image would likely spread the awareness of how mothers in our society are denied the rights to be sexy. In this sense, MGW fights for the mothers to access their own bodies as sites of both physical and sexual pleasures. 

As an animal rights group, challenging the common notion of motherhood may not be PETA's main message. It is, all likelihood, merely some useful byproducts of its typical exploitation of women. But using the explicit images of udder-geared women do show PETA's appreciation of the issue of women's sexual passivity, and that's a great progress. 

And that, along with more direct messages of animal rights, is what wins my support. Good job, PETA.