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In 2018, SFWAR hosted an event titled Last Night a Pigeon Saved My Life: The Inescapable Connections between Violence Against Women, Ableism, & Speciesism. This panel discussion included pattrice jones (Co-Founder VINE Sanctuary and Author of Aftershock: Confronting Trauma in a Violent World: A Guide for Activists & Their Allies and Oxen at the Intersection: A Collision). It was SFWAR’s hope that this conversation would spark increased understanding of how human superiority or speciesism serves as a bedrock for both violence against non-human and human animals.

Pattrice jones explains human superiority or speciesism best when she writes, “People who bother to justify their presumed right to exploit, cage, kill, and control the reproduction of nonhuman animals tend to reach for a limited number of arguments. Among the most common of these is the idea that only humans have some particular capability and that this superiority of ability entitles people to do whatever they like to nonhuman animals. As I heard disability rights activist Mary Fantaske say, ‘That is not just like ableism; that is ableism.” (Speciesism & Ableism, VINE Sanctuary News Letter, May 20, 2018). It is this illogic of superiority — be it based on race, class, gender-identity, immigration status, ability, religion, age, or being human — that gives rise to oppression, including sexual violence.

The anti-rape movement has rooted itself in the supreme importance of bodily consent. So, how can we not ask ourselves, “Do non-human animals consent when we exploit, cage, kill, and control their reproduction?” This is a rhetorical question. They do not consent. 

We must consider this in more concerted ways; it is our responsibility.

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