Demystifying Dairy

In this paper, I examine the dairy cow, her body and disposition, with a specific focus on the way we humans have designed her for our purposes, through the use of selective breeding and reproductive technology. I will also examine the consequences of this design for the health and welfare of the dairy cow and her calf. I will conduct this examination through the concept of ‘naturalistic mystification’, which I will use to challenge the dominant, hegemonic message, which presents the cow as natural, and milk as a nonharm product. Rather, I will demonstrate that the cow and her milk are the creation of human intention, effort and the application of technology with a view to using the animal for gain, and that while these technologies have greatly increased the milk yields of dairy herds, it has come at a high cost to the dairy cow and her calf. This design project is now embedded in a variety of social, legal, political and economic institutions, which work to mystify the materiality of human interference and the exploitation of the animal. Its scope and impact will be demonstrated through an examination of the historical changes wrought on the body of the dairy cow over many centuries

Silence and Denial in Everyday Life—The Case of Animal Suffering

How can we make sense of the fact that we live in a world where good people co-exist in silence about widespread animal suffering. How is it that sites of suffering such as laboratories, factory farms, abattoirs and animal transportation are all around us and yet we ‘do not, in a certain sense, know about them’ [1]. This ‘not knowing’ is one of the most difficult barriers for animal activists who must constantly develop new strategies in an attempt to catch public attention and translate it into action. Recent contributions from the ‘sociology of denial’ have elucidated many of the mechanisms involved in ‘not knowing’ in relation to human atrocities and genocide. In this context, ‘denial’ refers to the maintenance of social worlds in which an undesirable situation is unrecognized, ignored or made to seem normal [2]. These include different types of denial: personal, official and cultural, as well as the process of normalization whereby suffering becomes invisible through routinization, tolerance, accommodation, collusion and cover up. Denial and normalization reflect both personal and collective states where suffering is not acknowledged [3]. In this paper, I will examine insights from the sociology of denial and apply them to human denial and normalization of animal suffering. This will include an examination of denial which is both individual and social and the implications of these insights for theory and practice in the human/animal relationship

Contested femininity: gender and work at the Sydney infirmary, 1868-1875

Prior to the arrival of the Nightingale trained nurses at the Sydney Infirmary in 1868 gender relations at the Infirmary were based on clear cut authority relations between 'respectable' male doctors and administrators and female nurses who were outside acceptable Victorian notions of ideal femininity. While the Nightingale nurses brought with them the protection of respectability, higher class and status, they also held professional aspirations concerning the creation of an autonomous sphere in which to establish their own set of authority relations within the Infirmary. The struggle which ensued had ramifications for gender relations within the institution, for the status of women in colonial Sydney society and also for the nascent colonial state, which set a precedent for state intervention into gender relations