I would like to comment Lisa Anne & and Lee Hall mails, >The session "Learning from the Animals" is a session offered under the >Environment and Technology section of the Society for the Study of Social >Problems. Environmental sociology historically and presently leaves nonhumans >out of an analysis of the environment. I always had doubts about environmental sociology, but if it leaves "leaves nonhumans out of an analysis of the environment", has nothing to do with an environmental framework. Humans could not have ever existed without animals and plants.
Regarding Lee points I would say: >What about a session on why we should ~not~ bring animals into human >society? We coevolved with animals, and we should not keep them apart of us. The closer we are with them the better for humans and animals.Close doesn't mean intrusive. >Even companionship is, at essence, for human benefit; And also animals benefit from humans, we give them food, love and shelter. For some religions it is an ethical principle to share food with animals. >dependency upon human beings is not, in my view, a benefit conferred on other >>animals. Domesticated animals often cannot survive without humans. >One might say that feminism at its essence teaches us that women do not need >protection but rather respect. Every living being should be respected, and every living being needs protection at certain circumstances, including human females. In my view, the essence of my feminism lies in changing the prevailing androcentric paradigm. > Unlike women, domestic animals can never, even theoretically, achieve >liberation in >human society. Why not? >For a nonhuman animal, to be domestic means to be dependent. Every living being depends upon other living beings. >I live with five "rescued" animals and consider them my family. If they are respected why they should achieve liberation? > Yet it is ashame, and a matter of the injustice imposed on animals when we >breed >them to depend upon human culture, that they had to be rescued at all. Therefore should domestic animals be sterilized? Best regards, Teresa Flores
