A Precis on Carol Adams

Carol Adams invites her readers to engage in a wider understanding of feminism which is sensitive to politics of domination arising out of patriarchy that is not limited to oppression of women, but rather includes other forms of exploitation resulting from such politics of domination such as racism and nonhuman animal killing and slavery. She sees these others forms of exploitations originating from the very patriarchal system and what brings them all together is the exploitations of bodies, whether the bodies are those of human animals or nonhuman animals. This larger understanding of feminism acknowledges discrimination of race, sex and species through beastializing discourse. She notes that traditionally feminism responded being positioned less than man, somewhere between man and other animals in the hierarchy of beings, with the assertion “we are not animals, we are humans.” Adams's claims constitute a challenge to orthodox feminism that takes human/animal dualism for granted by questioning this dualism, stating “animals exist categorically as that which is not human” hence, something that can be exploited without an ethical obligation. This understanding is deeply naturalized, and constantly justified in false ways.
She presents four points that her arguments are based on: the reality of oppression, gender, race and species are constructs that have been naturalized, social domination of bodies, the business of feminism is not merely man-woman relation, but through feminism we understand “social construction of reality.” Through these, she suggests an “antiracist feminist theory that includes animals” that emphasizes on interlocking systems of domination, that is, instead of seeing identity as additive, as “either/or,” she focuses on the politics of domination, and its different effects; for instance, patriarchy is not simply a social structure through which women are oppressed, there are other kinds of oppressions, other kinds of exploitations that is practiced through it.
She responds to several oppositions: when it is said that she has a “hang-up” with food, she asks, “Whose bodies matter?” When she is told that her philosophy turns scientific “fact” into contradiction, she asks, “Whose science?” When they claim that religion teaches us that there is nothing wrong with eating animals, she asks, “Whose God?” By asking these, she gets the reader to see from different perspectives, rather than being limited to one's own, through identification with “the Other.”
Western ethical discourse traditionally excluded nonhuman animals, accepting no moral obligation to them, paving the way for endless exploitations. In this sense, nonhuman animals' exclusion from the “human” category constitutes a special case which is not that of racism or sexism; it is true that the “human” category is restricted to “white man” in many instances, excluding people of color, and women, as well as nonhuman animals, but nonhuman animals are already not human. Human's special status within ethics naturally excluded nonhuman animals; the category is to be expanded to embody humans other than the white man, but how can the human category be expanded to include that which is not human? The very label this category attached on itself makes it seem impossible to do so, rendering exclusion of nonhuman animals from moral obligation fundamental, natural. She presents Cartesian dualism of mind/body to demonstrate how human/animal dualism is naturalized through the notion of consciousness; and through this human consciousness, human asserts a special status: that which is hierarchically higher, a status whose holders can exploit those who do not hold that status.
Those who are seen as less than the white man are positioned somewhere close to animals in the hierarchy, through beastializing discourse. Adams present synonyms for “beast:” “brute, animal, brutish, brutal, beastly, bestial.” She suggests that animals are not beasts, but are beastialized; just as those left out of the category of “human” are beastialized. Therefore a feminist response to being positioned less than man should not be to declare “we are not animals, we are humans;” but rather, to assert “we are neither man nor beast.” One is not to declare their humanity through separation from animality; for humans are animals, and suffering of nonhuman animals does matter.
Fulden Ibrahimhakkioglu