Lisa Kemmerer Quotes

The same patriarchy that oppresses women oppresses nonhuman animals. Farmed animals and "housewives," "lab" animals and prostitutes, dancing bears and girls in the sex trade - all have too long been exploited by the same patriarchal hierarchy wherein the comparatively weak are exploited for the benefit of the powerful.

When pressed, hunters who claim that they just want "to be out in the wilderness," will admit that the kill is essential - or at least the hope of a kill. As it turns out, there is no correlation between hunting and hiking, climbing, backpacking, kayaking, or any other outdoor activity. Hunters do not purposefully linger in the woods after a kill, but quickly begin the process of preparing to head home with the corpse. For hunters, the kill is the climax - the most important moment. They are not driving into the woods (or sometimes actually walking) for the sake of beauty, but in the hope of a kill.

On what reasonable grounds would sincere, informed environmentalists refuse to join animal advocates in a campaign to protect increasingly threatened fish populations from the snapping teeth of humanity?

Animals who are exploited for "organic" foods are raised, maintained, transported, and slaughtered just like their nonorganic" counterparts: They are debeaked, dehorned, detoed, castrated, and/or branded, and they are kept, transported, and slaughtered in the same deplorable conditions.

Feminists have often highlighted the "otherness" of nonhuman animals while highlighting similarities between women and the men who hold power. Biologically speaking, any two humans will be
more similar than a human and any other species. But the position of most women in patriarchal societies is closer to that of chickens and cows than it is to that of the men who hold power.

Humans who are in positions of power make the rules, and therefore their interests almost always come first - no matter what the cost to anymals and less powerful human beings.

Animals (human and nonhuman) feel pain, can suffer, and ought to be treated accordingly – pain and suffering are always of moral concern.

Advocacy is better served when fellow activists are able to respond in ways that do not build walls or burn bridges. Change takes time and tends to come hard to human beings. Those who understand this human tendency are more effective activists.

The reproductive abilities of women and other female animals are controlled and exploited by those in power (usually men) and both are devalued as they age and wear out - when they no longer reproduce. Cows, hens, and women are routinely treated as if they were objects to be manipulated in order to satisfy the desires of powerful men, without regard to female's wishes or feelings.