If you hate cruelty to animals but love objectifying women, then you are soon gonna be in luck. PETA, the group with good intentions and really, really awful execution, will be serving up some sexism on Thursday in the name of animal rights:
Two PETA members in red bikinis
will be crammed together in a tank of "bloody" water with the
message "McDonald's Scalds Chicks; to Death" on Thursday to protest the abuse
that chickens suffer in slaughterhouses that supply the fast-food chain. The
protest coincides with the San
Francisco debut of PETA's brand-new McCruelty billboard
at Sixth and Brannan streets. The billboard shows a chicken with a cut, bleeding
throat hanging upside down from the Golden Arches next to the tagline
"McCruelty: i'm hatin' it."
Date: Thursday, July 2
Time: 12 noon to 1 p.m.
Place: McDonald's, 600 Van Ness Ave., San
Francisco
I'm a softie when it comes to animal rights, and am pretty sympathetic to PETA's main mission. But exploiting the bodies of women in order to promote animal welfare doesn't sit well with me, and I know it doesn't a good many others. Now, being confined to a cage for life, being debeaked or dropping dead from exhaustion is a far worse fate than misogynistic exploitation, but it's not an either/or proposition.
San Francisco is a progressive place. We don't need the boobs of some nameless chick in our face to get your point.
PETA need not dehumanize women in order to inform or create change. Respect for all living things should be part of their mantra.
