Activist Teaches Feminist Animal Rights Course At George Mason University

A self-described activist is teaching an eye-opening “Animal Rights as Ecofeminism” course at George Mason, the largest public university in Virginia. Professor Paul C. Gorski, who believes meat producers perpetuate racism and that a powerful dairy lobby is responsible for the idea that milk promotes health, will be teaching a course about “mass food production, mass clothing production, pharmaceutical and medical testing.” According to the course syllabus, students are required to write about how animal rights relates to “sexism, racism, heterosexism, imperialism, and poverty.” He asks students to consider questions such as:

(1) How is pig farming abusive to low-wage workers and the environment? Who feels the greatest impact of the environmental and worker exploitation (across race, class, etc.?)
(2) Who are the beneficiaries of this exploitation and abuse? How do they justify it? How do they create the conditions that allow it to happen?
(3) Beyond abuses during production, what are other ways in which the products of industrialized pig farming are harmful? What impact does it have on community health? Whose health is at highest risk and why?

In the course, students are commanded not try to justify the ways they “exploit” animals.
“Animal Rights as Ecofeminism” students must also create their own animal rights campaign which includes an “action” portion — for example, Gorski suggests staging a protest.

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