Piper Hoffman

Humans have long invented and clung to rationales for our superiority to animals, and, by extension, for our right to use and abuse them. One favorite distinguishing characteristic was language, but then great apes like a chimpanzee named Washoe learned sign language. People claimed that only we use tools, but multiple species were found to do the same; some crows even improve the design of tools for specific purposes and teach the new designs to each other.

But we still had friendship — only humans had genuine friendships, the argument went, while animals had at most mutually beneficial transactions, not lasting relationships built on something beyond self-interest. ”For evolutionary biologists and anthropologists, friendship has been considered one of the core traits of only one species of ape: us,” Carl Zimmer writes in the February 20th issue of Time Magazine.

And another one bites the dust: Zimmer’s article reports the observation of friendships among dolphins, chimpanzees, and members of other species. These friendships include helping each other, sharing, just hanging out, and mourning a friend’s death.

It’s getting harder and harder for humans to justify our exploitation of other animals. Soon we will be left with only one alleged distinction between us and them: we have souls and they don’t. Conveniently for those who like the status quo, science is powerless against this one.

Let’s hear it for McDonald’s, which has taken a step towards making the lives of the pigs it feeds to people a bit less brutal. It is requiring its pork suppliers to create plans for phasing out gestation crates, which I described in an earlier blog post:

Gestation crates are small metal cages only two feet wide that prevent pregnant pigs from turning around or even lying down comfortably. Sows spend most of their adult lives in these crates as they are inseminated soon after they give birth and thus kept pregnant over four out of every five months. Gestation crates cripple pregnant pigs and cause obesity. The fumes and toxins produced from the concentration of so many animals in one space sicken them (and the humans who “take care of” them). Pigs are smart, affectionate animals, and the constant confinement, lack of activity or stimulation, and pain lead to neurotic behaviors like biting the bars of their cages over and over, or chewing on nothing.

As the largest restaurant chain in the world, McDonald’s has the potential to eliminate gestation crates from the industry by refusing to patronize suppliers that use them. Unfortunately the company has not announced guidelines that factory farms will have to follow in place of gestation crates. Will sows have more space, or will they be crowded together though not in individual pens? Will they be able to socialize with each other? Will their environments allow them to satisfy their instinct to burrow and root around? And what about farrowing crates, where sows are caged and prevented from touching their piglets while they nurse?

The best announcement of all would be that McDonald’s and its competitors are going to stop feeding animals to people. But here in reality, let’s support the Humane Society of the United States, which worked with McDonald’s to create this policy to make farmed pigs’ short lives less miserable.

Lactation is not a medical condition related to pregnancy or childbirth, and firing someone who wants to pump breast milk is not sex discrimination, according to a federal judge in Texas.

This decision is a stumper. Lactation occurs because of and immediately following pregnancy and childbirth, which makes it “related” to them. Only women lactate, so firing an employee because she needs to pump does discriminate against her on the basis of her sex.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission brought this suit against debt-collection agency Houston Funding on behalf of an employee whom the company fired, allegedly because she wanted to pump at work. The EEOC is considering appealing the decision by Judge Lynn Hughes (who is male).

Since the firing the federal government passed a law requiring employers to provide break time for new mothers to pump breast milk at work, but it does not prohibit employers from firing workers for pumping. One might have presumed that the anti-discrimination laws already had that covered, but now that is up in the air, and it will probably take years and opinions from higher courts to clear it up.

Today The New York Times published my essay critiquing chivalry. You can read it at http://bit.ly/w4na48.

Remember how Dove invented a new physical flaw for women to worry about and spend money on? They ran commercials for a product that is supposed to make women’s underarms more attractive, whatever that means.

Another company has jumped on the “invent a neurosis for women” bandwagon. It’s an outfit called “Masque” that advertised in Marie Claire with this copy:

“Masque is the first product proven to conceal any unpleasant flavors associated with pleasuring your man and his subsequent climax. These orally-dissolvable, flavored gel strips will take the intimacy between you and your partner to the next level.”

Translated from commercialese, the idea is that if a woman’s male partner tastes bad to her, she should endure and swallow, but then she better clean out her mouth so she tastes good to him. If he doesn’t taste good it is her responsibility to make sure he doesn’t have to experience the flavor himself.

And there it is, a new reason for women to worry that they are unattractive — unkissable — and it comes up only during sex, just when they want to feel uninhibited.

If male groin flavor is a problem, why not market deodorizing wipes for men to use before their partners visit the area in question? They could even be flavored like the gel strips for women (I’m thinking chocolate, but then I’m often thinking about chocolate). Maybe it is because men aren’t as vulnerable to body-shaming as women are, which is a different and much longer article.

Women want more life and less work, and they are willing to sacrifice to get it.

Working women tend to value their personal lives more than professional advancement, according to a new survey from More Magazine. It found that “65% of women say it’s more important to have TIME in their life than to make more MONEY at their job” and “73% say if their boss left her job, they would NOT apply to replace her.” These priorities are trending: “43% say they are LESS AMBITIOUS now than they were 10 years ago,” and “58% say that flexibility is more important to them now than it was 10 years ago.”

I wonder how men would answer the same questions. Is this the mood all over? Is it a result of women finding that jobs aren’t all they were cracked up to be?

Beyond women’s feelings about work, this survey should help bust the stereotype of women as materialistic opportunists who seek mates who can buy them lots of shoes, since 65% of women polled prefer time over money. That should put the canard to rest…but it won’t.

As a Jew I don’t actually want anything for Christmas, but I do have a year-round wish to turn down the world’s volume knob, as regular readers know from “WOULD YOU TURN THAT DOWN?!!”

In that spirit, here is a collection of quotes from fellow opponents of noise pollution. Two of my favorites:

“The sanitary and mechanical age we are now entering makes up for the mercy it grants to our sense of smell by the ferocity with which it assails our sense of hearing.”
~ Havelock Ellis, 1912, in Impressions and Comments (1930)

“I have terrible hearing trouble. I have unwittingly helped to invent and refine a type of music that makes its principal proponents deaf.”
~ Pete Townshend of The Who (2006 interview)

Music lovers, listen up: you now have Pete Townshend’s approval to wear earplugs at rock concerts.

An update on my previous post, Factory Farms are Breeding More Than Cows: Agribusiness Antibiotic Abuse Creates Superbugs: the FDA has refused consumer advocates’ petitions to “limit the routine feeding of antibiotics to farm animals.” For an administration that claims it wants to improve health care, rendering some of our most important medications powerless is a funny way of showing it.

From a new study by the University of Queensland’s School of Psychology:

” ‘Many people like eating meat, but most are reluctant to harm things that have minds. Our studies show that this motivates people to deny minds to animals,’ ” researcher Dr. Brock Bastian said.

The university’s website continues, the “research demonstrates when people are confronted with the harm that their meat-eating brings to food animals they view those animals as possessing fewer mental capacities compared to when they are not reminded.

“The findings also reveal that this denial of mind to food animals is especially evident when people expect to eat meat in the near future.” In other words, people lie to themselves just to eat a burger.

Bastian calls this the “meat paradox.” It is a paradox for meat-eaters to tell themselves that animals don’t have minds because, of course, they do, and the very same people will acknowledge that in different contexts.

Meat isn’t just bad for the animals and for people’s health — it’s bad for people’s souls.

Apparently voters don’t mind sexual harassment. A candidate who illegally degrades and even assaults women in the workplace is electable. What voters will not tolerate is a consensual affair.

Herman Cain is losing support because a woman accused him of having an extramarital affair with her, according to today’s New York Times. The paper quoted Mike Huckabee saying that the allegation of an affair “is one that could upend his presidential campaign.” Apparently all the prior allegations of sexual harassment were not “ones that could upend” a campaign.

The paper also quoted “a conservative” from West Des Moines who, it reported, had supported Cain “through the accusations of sexual harassment,” but considered the allegation of an affair “different.” Because of the alleged affair, she said, “I would guess Herman Cain is not electable now.”

These two aren’t alone. The Times found that the “support from many conservatives, which poured in after reports of sexual harassment were first made against Mr. Cain nearly a month ago, was significantly muted.”

How to explain the combination of equanimity in the face of multiple sexual harassment accusations on the one hand, and communal backing away from the suggestion of one affair on the other? Perhaps conservatives just don’t believe sexual harassment happens but know that affairs do. But the sad truth is that some men cheat on their wives, some men harass women they have power over, and some men do both.

Both types of accusation reflect on Cain’s fitness for office. Having an affair means he broke a promise, which, while not a desirable trait in a politician, is an inevitable one. Sexually harassing subordinates means he abused his power in order to hurt people. Call me wild-hearted or a bleeding eye or whatever, but I think that is worth voting against.