Beauty and the beasts

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There are two types of ABDs – those who live the daily, 9-to-5 grind, and those who live … on the edge. The punk ones, the ones who scandalize the aunties. Well, I’m sure that aunties across America have been doing some tutting about the actions of Jabeen Akhtar, who joins Ravi Chand in the audacious desi animal rights activist hall of fame. [Thanks DJ Drrrty Poonjabi]

Jabeen is an animal rights activist with PETA who “painted tiger stripes on her nearly nude body and sat in a cage in downtown Charlotte, N.C.” to protest the way that circuses treat the wild animals in their acts:

In a letter … Akhtar explained she “appeared caged, nude, and painted like a tiger in downtown Charlotte, N.C., to draw attention to the way animals suffer in circuses like the Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Circus.

“Although it was uncomfortable to sit on the pavement exposed to the public, the hour I spent sitting on the sidewalk was nothing compared to what the animals go through every day of their short, miserable lives,” she said. [Link]

PETA alleges the circus commits numerous violations against the Animal Welfare Act, backing up the claim with case documentation and hidden video footage. Among the grievances: inhumane storage of animals, torture with electric rods and bull hooks, neglect leading to suffering and death, intentional killing of animals afflicted with illnesses. [Link]

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p>I admire Akhtar. Not only did she take a peaceful yet eye-catching stand for what she believed in, she’s also an employee of the EPA. Now that takes chutzpah.

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p>However, she also selected a demonstration where she was protesting a private organization, not a government policy. Furthermore, she was fully within her first-amendment rights to do so, and didn’t break any laws, even decency ordinances. Explained a PETA spokesman:

… despite Akhtar’s lack of clothing, “We were well within our First Amendment rights.” Akhtar was wearing “panties and pasties,” he said, and police officers were friendly. [Link]

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p>I’ll bet they were.`Purring with delight, probably. Of course, some people missed the content of the message for its form:

Between noon and 1pm, males on their lunch breaks stopped in front of the Bank of America building to snap photos of the half-nude woman. One of them, when asked how he felt about animal treatment in the circus, responded, “I want her to move that sign so I can see her boobs…” [Link]

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Still, PETA feels this is an effective way to get their point across, and apparently have a whole campaign of similar acts planned:

Marta Holmberg, an intern with PETA on the anti-circus nudism tour, defended the tactic: “The way society is today, you have to do things like this for people to pay attention…” [Link]

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p>I guess there are some people who wont take (alleged) mistreatment of animals lion down.

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p>[For those of you who are (ahem) fans of Ms. Akhtar’s, here’s a larger copy of that image above]

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p>Related posts: John Abraham strips for PETA, Ravi Chand, melon eater

88 thoughts on “Beauty and the beasts”

  1. Hot blogging! Kiran Desai just won the Booker Prize, just watched the anouncement on TV.

  2. uhh, this is one of those posts where I have to constrain myself from expressing my thoughts on the subject for fear of revealing too much about myself, but this picture of Jabeen in tiger make-up on all fours in a cage may cause me to have a sleepless night tonight.

    ahem

  5. Hi. I wish the movement was as abuzz in India where the treatment of animals is truly pitiful. The fact that tigers, despite the high profile Project Tiger have all but disappeared from the Jim Corbett National Tiger Reserve is just one of many such transgressions.

    Thanks for the post on Kiran Desai, I guess now I’ll run out and buy the book.

    Cheers!

  7. So which type of ABD is Jabeen? She is a great example of ‘aunties be damned’ for the sake of doing/saying what needs to be done/said, and we should commend her for that, instead of suggesting she’s a ‘punk’ (in the negative sense of the word, anyway). Who says you can’t work a nine-to-five and change from pinstripes to tiger stripes!? Not me.

  10. It’s the way she’s painted the whiskers coming out from her black tigress nose that makes it so perfect.

  13. Red Snapper, I must second that. After a crappy day at work, Jabeen’s picture REALLY made my day.

  15. God Bless Peta Ennis. I think I remember an Indian lady in London doing some nude protest for them. Let me do a google and check.

  17. One of them, when asked how he felt about animal treatment in the circus, responded, “I want her to move that >>sign so I can see her boobs…”

    my thoughts exactly, caged tigers don’t hold up signs, whats up with that?? Can somebody post a picture taken from the back…please!

  18. Can somebody post a picture taken from the back…please!

    That takes guts to voice out what the rest of “us” were wanting/thinking!

  19. Well Ms. Akhtar’s protest certainly charmed more than one group of animals!…

    Poor girl, she thought people were lookin’ at the sign and being made aware of animal rights…

    She look too much like my friend Shez for me to have a girl crush on her, but purr…all for a good cause I guess. I hope at least one person who saw her now wants to do something about those circus bears.

  23. Thanks for a great post, Ennis. I heart Jabeen Akhtar! Also John Abraham. Anyone who tries to give a voice to some of those most without a voice in our speceisist society :).

  24. Thank you Manish for bringing a bit of gender equality into perving on hotties being aware of tragic animal rights violations.

    Ennis, keep your paws off my Shez! She’s not even 20 yet. Also she lives much too far away, in too cold a climate for a tiger…

    😉

  32. Just to add to the mix… wanted to point out this article: PETA: Where Only Women Are Treated Like Meat, by Nikki Craft..Its a little old (school), but interesting regardless.

    …PETA objectifies women and undermines feminist principles of gender deconstruction. Focusing on individual campaigns like the “IÂ’d Rather Go Naked than Wear Fur” advertisements, I argue that, instead of furthering the animal rights cause and supporting similar movements, PETA actually validates and perpetuates violence and harassment against women and, because of interconnecting ideologies, animals too. These activisms make “strange bedfellows” because while both seek to disempower patriarchal dichotomies that place men over women and humans over animals, PETA, by displaying sexually oppressive advertisements campaigning for anti-fur and vegetarian platforms renders both movements ineffective.

    Not saying that Jabeen is a naive dupe (far from it) who is just consenting to her own patriarchal exploitation (that would deny her any kind of agency which she of course has)….but I think these kinds of critiques of PETA’s choices are really thought provoking.

  35. If the comments on this thread is anything to go by, then PETA’s tactics aren’t really working. 32 posts and still no discussion about the perils of being animals in circuses and what dull auntie-abiding feeble minded Joe Publics can do to help said animals.

  37. Oh look, SM is not just a bunch of bros. Thanks A P P L E and bengali. I don’t want to feel sorry for her because that would undermine her agency, and she deserves the benefit of the doubt about her convictions. Still, I have a lot of issues with PETA, one of which being what A P P L E mentioned. Also check out PETA’s “Animal Liberation” campaign. I can agree with them on a certain level, but there’s something really unsettling about comparing animal exploitation to human slavery, misogyny and genocide.

  38. I can agree with them on a certain level, but there’s something really unsettling about comparing animal exploitation to human slavery, misogyny and genocide.

    It isn’t…to me…

  39. It’s not unsettling to me, either. There exists a common link between the degradation and torture of women, children, slaves, animals – the torturers of these groups often happen to be the same kind of people (if not actually the same people). Studies have shown that there is a high risk of domestic abuse in homes where animals have been found to be abused. Nor do I think PETA is wrong to show how the dehumanization of slaves and the torture of animals are both rooted in the same sentiment – contempt for life.

    I recently became a vegetarian for these very reasons – I don’t see why the life of an animal is of less value than my own, why its pain should weigh less with me than a human’s.

  40. I recently became a vegetarian for these very reasons – I don’t see why the life of an animal is of less value than my own, why its pain should weigh less with me than a human’s.

    The life of an animal is of less value than your own is because you are a rational and intelligent creature. You can use your intelligence to do good and great things. (that doesn’t mean we should treat animals with contempt though.)

  42. Bengali,

    By the same logic, the lives of less intelligent/less rational humans are worth less than the lives of more intelligent/rational ones…we’ve been down that road before and the results are horror and chaos. Intelligence and reason are not criteria by which we should judge the value of any particular life.

  43. If the comments on this thread is anything to go by, then PETA’s tactics aren’t really working. 32 posts and still no discussion about the perils of being animals in circuses and what dull auntie-abiding feeble minded Joe Publics can do to help said animals.

    Wow, that observation speaks for itself. heh. Can’t refute it.

  44. bengali:

    If the comments on this thread is anything to go by, then PETA’s tactics aren’t really working. 32 posts and still no discussion about the perils of being animals in circuses and what dull auntie-abiding feeble minded Joe Publics can do to help said animals.

    Dude, she’s hot, she took off all her clothes and got down on all fours in a cage, painted like a tiger. Do you really for one moment think this was about animal rights? I mean, really.

    You know what would have raised awareness? If she’d gained 100lbs, stuck two broom handles in her mouth, and painted herself like a harbor seal, and then let everyone club her.

  45. Do you really for one moment think this was about animal rights? I mean, really

    I think bengali was pretty muchagreeing with you on this…that if the aim was to actually draw attention to animal rights issues, PETA missed the mark. All that registers is: ooh, naked lady. Not: exploited circus animals pay too high a price to keep us entertained.

  47. Thanks Dharma Queen for your views on the links on torturing discriminated humans and animals.

    I wish I had the willpower to be a vegetarian because I think there is an unncecessary division between supporters of human and environmental causes…the way that animals are treated, even under current legislation in western countries, does seem like unnecessary cruelty.

    Oops maybe I’m not being true to the spirit of this thread…maybe I should say something about cheetahs or purring…silly me for thinking the poor chicky’s point was to get us talking about animal welfare…

  48. “Poor chicky?”

    She’s a federal employee. Her email address is publicly available thanks to many many documents available on the federal register and the EPA docket. She is no doubt going to get reamed by the EPA for this. Trust me, I know this firsthand from being reamed by the EPA myself for being involved with NetSAP-DC in 2004. If she did this lightly, she’s stupid as hell. But I think she’s trying to leverage a career change. This was a publicity stunt.

    I agree that animal cruelty is horrible, and that in the West it’s not taken very seriously. It’s definitely not treated as a crime in most parts of Asia, including India. Animals in America and Europe are afforded some protections, thanks to legislation spearheaded by the likes of PETA.

    But generally, I don’t think there are unnecessary divisions between animal and environmental concerns. Industrial runoff intersects with animal rights on occasion, but the two issues are fairly distinct. How do you conflate a coal-fired plant that exceeds particulate emissions regulations with a guy who farms dogs out for experimentation in labs? Or are you talking about endangered species? That tends to be linked with habitat degradation. But those sorts of situations are treated both as an animal-welfare situation and as a habitat-preservation situation (a la the spotted owl).

    I’m not following?

  49. You know what would have raised awareness? If she’d gained 100lbs, stuck two broom handles in her mouth, and painted herself like a harbor seal, and then let everyone club her.

    Best line ever.

    I think I usually hate what Salil says but this is pure gold.