ABSTRACT
Amnesty International proposed using photos of naked girls wrapped in cellophane, sold as pieces of meat to publicize their anti-woman trafficking campaign, actual animals sold as pieces of meat were the absent referents. As a term for a woman, cow is, in anthropologist John Haverson's words, "thoroughly derogatory", characterizing the woman as fat and dull. According to the Bible the fall of mankind and the introduction of death are blamed on a woman and a nonhuman. Species is gendered and gender, that is woman, who carries gender identification, is animalized. Man transcends species; woman bears it. Respectful language that refers to powerful men moves upwards in the hierarchy, and becomes the language that refers to God. The hierarchical differentiation of God from creation and humans from the other animals actually generates a hyper separation that is guarded with vigilance. The hyperseparation instituted in Genesis 1 regarding humans and nonhumans will be recapitulated within human society, through associating women with animals' bodies.
