his year a serious division has developed within the ranks of animal
rights supporters. Those who are also feminists raised a ruckus at the
annual animal rights convention and were consequently informed that they
will not be welcome at that event in the future.
The problem is that feminists object to the practice (commonly seen in
PETA demonstrations and advertisements) of using the female body as an
attention getting device in order to get media and public attention for
their vegan and anti-fur campaigns.
Radical feminists object to the "I'd rather go naked than wear
fur" concept, stating that it trades animal exploitation for that of
women, in an age-old strategy of male domination.
PETA supporters just laugh at this and use animal causes to continue to
encourage female celebrities and otherwise shapely females to bare their
breasts and behinds in the usual attention-getting poses.
IWMC finds all this interesting from the perspective of strategy
conflicts in the animal protest movement, and has to agree with feminists
that it is demeaning for women to continue to submit to PETA plans to
continue using the female body in the stereotyped ways that have served it
since the organization was first conceived. Those young women who exhibit
their bodies "for the animals" appear to have no clues about the
intellectual pros and cons of animal rights vs. traditional animal welfare
concerns. Perhaps they feel that their exhibitionist behavior somehow
enhances their image as "good" people who bare their bodies for
some nebulous noble cause. Or, maybe they just like the attention they
receive. We think that PETA has done neither animals nor young women any
favors in their off the wall campaigns that represent very poor role models
for young adults of either gender. 
