PETA Global 2018 Issue 1

Wake Up: Cheese – Yes, Cheese! – Is a Result of Rape The Other Handmaid’s Tale

Images: © Jo-Anne McArthur/Animal Equality | VR glasses: © iStock.com/Kritchanut

“Please don’t take her!” T hat anguished cry rends the air as soldiers kidnap the child of Offred, a “handmaid” in the hit TV series The Handmaid’s Tale. In this dystopian drama, fertile women have been reduced to breeding stock, raped by their “masters,” their bodies used for the benefit of others with no regard for their own needs or desires. In short, women of the future are treated like cows on today’s dairy farms, right down to the ID tags that are clamped onto their ears. The show has received eight Emmy Awards for depicting women as farmed animals, and when PETA created a video suggesting that people imagine themselves in the place of such animals – who constantly face sexual assault and other abuse – many viewers “got it.” After watching the video at PETA.org/CowRape , one person wrote, “As a rape survivor myself, this is one of the main points I make for why veganism is so great.” Domesticated Violence In a haunting, real-life parallel to The Handmaid’s Tale, cows on dairy farms are artificially inseminated on what the industry itself has called a “rape rack.” Farmers shove an arm into each cow’s rectum to locate the uterus and then insert a tube into the vagina and inject bull semen. The cows are tightly restrained during this physical assault, their heads locked in a stanchion or chained facing forward. They are powerless to resist, although they often bellow in distress.

The calves who are born as a result of these annual rapes are torn away from their mother shortly after birth so that humans can steal the milk that she produced for them. Like Offred, cows call out and resist when they’re separated from their beloved babies. On a dairy farm in Massachusetts, cows uttered such prolonged, agonizing cries when their calves were taken away that concerned neighbors called the police, worried that the animals were being tortured – and indeed they were. In her book Do Unto Animals, Tracey Stewart describes hearing grieving cows “wail for four days straight.”

What becomes of the calves? The females grow up to endure the same cycle of abuse as their mothers, and when they’re worn out and can no longer produce the maximum volume of milk – at about age 4 – they’re sent off to slaughter. Male calves are either put in a tiny crate or pen and raised for veal or sent to a feedlot to be fattened up and then slaughtered for beef. Watch a Calf’s Tale PETA has created a poignant new “I, Calf” virtual reality experience based on the true story of a mother cowwho desperately tried to hide one of her twin calves from the farmer. She was hoping to fool him into thinking that she had only had one calf, but that meant sacrificing one of her babies in an effort to save the other – an agonizing decision. PETA is taking “I, Calf” around the US, using 3-D goggles and headphones to enable viewers to immerse themselves in the calf’s world and experience his emotions as the slave offspring of a cow “handmaid” – a real-life scenario currently being played out on a factory farm near you – all for the sake of a pizza topping. Join Vegans Against Rape Make the switch to nondairy cheese, such as Mozzarisella from PETA Business Friend Plant Based Foods (learn more at PETAMall.com ). Try the vegan cheese pizza at Blaze Pizza, MellowMushroom, and Pieology in the US or Pizza Express, Pizza Hut, and Zizzi in the UK. Australians, vegan cheese is coming soon to Domino’s Pizza! For vegan recipes and shopping tips, visit PETA.org/Living .

PETA’s virtual reality experience “I, Calf” immerses viewers in the calf’s experience.

22 VEGAN CHEESE, PLEASE