Feminist Jurisprudence for Farmed Animals

AuthorJessica Eisen
PositionAssistant Professor, University of Alberta Faculty of Law
Pages111-153
Feminist Jurisprudence for Farmed
Animals
Jessica Eisen*
Feminism and animal advocacy share a long history of interconnections. e application
of feminist insights and analyses to the study of human-animal legal relations, however,
represents a more recent development. is article proposes to examine the ways that
feminist jurisprudence, as a distinct branch of feminist theory, might contribute depth
and nuance to our collective understanding of the ways that human beings relate to
animals through law. As this article will demonstrate, there is already a vibrant, if
nascent, scholarly community developing feminist analyses of animal law. is article
aims to identify this scholarly community, take stock of its emerging lines of inquiry,
and sketch a set of common themes. In so doing, this article will oer an account of how
the lessons and insights of feminist legal theory might apply to the eld of animal law,
and will furnish examples of how this work is already being done. In particular, this
article will focus on four themes within feminist jurisprudence that stand to enrich the
study of animal law, namely: a) revealing the importance of legal method; b) rethinking
‘sameness’ and ‘dierence’; and c) troubling categories of analysis; and d) recognizing
rights as relational.
* Assistant Professor, University of Alberta Faculty of Law. e author
wishes to thank Martha Minow, Maneesha Deckha, the participants in the
Harvard Law School SJD Association 2018 Workshop, the participants
in the University of Alberta Faculty of Law Faculty Workshop, and the
participants in the University of Victoria’s Animals and Society Research
Initiative, for helpful comments on early drafts. e author is also
grateful to the burgeoning community of critical and feminist animal
law scholars for the creative, passionate and compelling work that has
inspired and shaped this contribution. Finally, thanks are owed to Carol
J Adams, for her foundational work applying feminist theory to the
lives, circumstances, and cultural representations of animals, and for her
unf‌lagging support for new voices and new directions building on her
insights.
112
Eisen, Feminist Jurisprudence for Farmed Animals
I. INTRODUCTION
II. FEMINISM AND ANIMAL ADVOCACY
III. FEMINIST LEGAL THEORY FOR ANIMALS
A. Fact and Method
B. Rethinking Sameness and Dif‌ference
C. Troubling Categories
D. Rights and Relationships
IV. CONCLUSION
I. Introduction
Feminism and animal advocacy share a long history of interconnections.
e majority of animal advocates have been women,1 and feminist
scholars have long drawn thematic and material connections between
the exploitation of women and the exploitation of animals.2 Most of
the scholarship in this vein has taken the form of ethical and cultural
studies, drawing on feminist themes developed in those same disciplines,
with several edited collections and survey works gathering and taking
1. Emily Gaarder, Women and the Animal Rights Movement (Piscataway:
Rutgers University Press, 2011) at 1, 7–13 (observing that “[f]rom its
early stirring in Victorian England to contemporary times, one of the
most striking characteristics of the animal rights movement is that the
majority of its activists are women”, and quoting a 1985 survey f‌inding
that “at all levels of participation…women constitute the single most
important driving force behind the animal rights phenomenon” at 41).
2. Carol J Adams, e Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian
Critical eory (New York: Continuum, 1990) is generally regarded as a
foundational text in these explorations. For another early study of these
interconnections, see Mary Midgley, Animals and Why ey Matter: A
Journey Around the Species Barrier (Athens: University of Georgia Press,
1983) at 74–88. ese ef‌forts have occasionally provoked controversy
within the broader f‌ield of feminist theory. See Angela Lee, “e
Milkmaid’s Tale: Veganism, Feminism, and Dystopian Food Futures”
(2019) 40 Windsor Review of Legal Social Issues 27 at 33–37 [Lee, “e
Milkmaid’s Tale”].
113
(2019) 5 CJCCL
stock of their contributions.3 e application of feminist insights and
analyses to the study of human-animal legal relations, however, represents
a more recent development.4 is article proposes to examine the ways
that feminist jurisprudence, as a distinct branch of feminist theory, might
contribute depth and nuance to our collective understanding of the ways
that human beings relate to animals through law. As the following survey
will show, there is already a vibrant, if nascent, scholarly community
developing feminist analyses of animal law. is article aims to identify
this scholarly community, take stock of its emerging lines of inquiry, and
sketch a set of common themes. In so doing, this article will of‌fer an
account of how the lessons and insights of feminist legal theory might
enrich the f‌ield of animal law, and will furnish examples of how this work
is already being done.
It bears emphasis at the outset that both animal legal theory and
feminist jurisprudence are unruly f‌ields — each beset by internal
dissensions, terminological disputes, and competing orthodoxies and
heterodoxies. It is decidedly not my intention here to suggest that either
animal legal theory or feminist legal theory can be coherently bound by
authoritative def‌initions. In particular, I want to avoid the implication
that the argument presented here relies upon any one form or substance
to feminist jurisprudence, or that there is any one set of lessons that
feminist jurisprudence has to of‌fer animal law. is is decidedly not a
project about applying some canonical def‌inition of feminism to a new
3. See Carol J Adams & Josephine Donovan, eds, Animals and Women:
Feminist eoretical Explorations (Durham: Duke University Press,
1995) [Adams & Donavan, eds, Animals and Women]; Greta Gaard, ed,
Ecofeminism: Women, Animals, Nature (Philadelphia: Temple University
Press, 1993); Carol J Adams & Josephine Donovan, eds, e Feminist
Care Tradition in Animal Ethics (New York: Columbia University Press,
2007).
4. See Maneesha Deckha, “Critical Animal Studies and Animal Law”
(2012) 18:2 Animal Law 207 (describing the broader f‌ield of animal
law as having a “strong liberal orientation” despite sustained critiques of
liberalism as perpetuating various “exclusions,” including on the basis of
“gender and race” at 209–210).

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