The reaction that I usually get when I mention my distaste for PETA is pretty predictable: “You hate PETA? But they’re People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals! Are you like, pro-animal torture? You sick bastard!”
Well, no. Obviously, animal mistreatment is bad. Actually, before I continue, let me repeat that. Animal mistreatment is a very bad thing. There are few people out there in this world who would openly claim to be in favor of torturing animals. But the thing is, PETA isn’t synonymous with animal rights. I would make the argument that PETA is more synonymous with “band of crazed lunatics” or “Psychos Eviscerating Truth Again” than anything else.
My thoughts about PETA had lain dormant for a while. Over the weekend, however, as I trekked up to the Lewis Center for the Arts to see my roommate’s musical, I walked past a haggard-looking lady in a sandwich board on the corner of Nassau and Washington. On the sign was an ambiguous picture of bloody flesh and the words STOP ANIMAL EXPERIMENTATION. She was doing that thing where, if she managed eye contact for even a second, she took it as license to rush up to you, hand you a stack of brochures about PETA and animal rights and then ask you to sign a petition vouching that Princeton’s laboratories were the epicenter of all evil.
This is where the meat of my beef with PETA stems from. I really don’t understand organizations like PETA that oppose animal experimentation of all types. If we didn’t experiment on animals, scientific development would grind to a creaky halt. There would be no way to confirm the safety of new medical procedures and pharmaceuticals before proceeding with human trials. Using embryonic cells and skin tissues as replacements, as per PETA’s wise suggestions, would be useless in figuring out how a subject is holistically affected by a procedure. And the thing is, PETA doesn’t care. Ingrid Newkirk, the founder of the organization, was quoted in Vogue as saying that she would still be against animal testing even if it resulted in the cure for AIDS.
This sort of thinking really highlights what’s so wrong with PETA. At the end of the day, saving human lives is more important than preserving animal ones. Humans are capable of conscious thought and decision-making, while animals aren’t. PETA needs to realize that it’s a totally valid opinion to have. As long as animal testing is within the bounds of legality, virtually 100 percent of it benefits humans and science in some significant way.
The main problem with anti-animal abuse campaigns is that they play up the shock value of everything to the point where all ads rely heavily on distortion and misrepresentation. A typical PETA ad that aims to produce that stomach-churning, visceral response in viewers contains some graphic image of a bloody animal — most likely looking helpless and forlorn — and is emblazoned with a guilt-inducing appeal for sympathy. PETA would have you believe every lab that uses animal subjects mistreats them. The thing is, this just isn’t true. PETA projects the misdeeds of a small percentage on the entire field of medical research.
Because PETA is so sensational, the information they spread is often really distorted or just incorrect. Lisping and insistent, that 14-year-old told me over her vegan hummus platter that at the current rate of fishing, all of the fish in the world would disappear by 2048. Which is … untrue. PETA retracted that statement a few weeks later.
But PETA’s problematic methods extend even further. What’s worse than their gut-punch ad campaign is their sexy one. What these lack in gore and blood, they heartily make up for in misogyny and objectification. A woman shackled to a bed, held back in some black and leathery contraption. Caption: “Whips and chains belong in the bedroom, not the circus.” Another ad, featuring a close-up of a woman’s crotch with some sort of pelt visible from the sides of her underwear. Caption: “Fur trim. Unattractive.” Why PETA thinks sexism is a good vessel by which to carry any message, let alone its message, is beyond me.
PETA is that grating, irritating friend you have who always thinks she’s right but in reality is severely misguided. That woman in the sandwich board dredged up all my latent problems with the organization, as well as a tiny craving for that salad I never got to enjoy three years ago.
Shruthi Deivasigamani is a freshman from Creskill, N.J. She can be reached at shruthid@princeton.edu.
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