Men, Show True Strength
Done with the Stone Age: “In a world without compassion, it was ‘eat or be eaten.’” With its new anti-meat spot “Stone Age,” aimed at men, PETA appeals to consumers not to cling to long-outdated gender roles when it comes to their diet. The animal rights organization uses the clip to call for a change in thinking with a touch of humor. Eating meat is yesterday’s news: men who want to prove true strength
Done with the Stone Age: «In a world without compassion, it was «eat or be eaten.»» With its new anti-meat spot «Stone Age,» aimed at men, PETA appeals to consumers not to cling to long-outdated gender roles when it comes to their diet. The animal rights organization uses the clip to call for a change in thinking with a touch of humor. Eating meat is yesterday’s news: men who want to prove true strength should show compassion and reach for vegan foods in the «hunting ground supermarket.»
Outdated Gender Roles
«Gender stereotypes like that of the strong, meat-eating man are long outdated. The fact that something has always been done a certain way, or has been done that way for a long time, doesn’t mean nothing needs to change,» says Hendrik Thiele, Head of Creation and Special Projects at PETA. «With ‘Stone Age,’ we worked together with the Film Academy Baden-Württemberg and triebwerk films to develop a humorous spot that will hopefully inspire many men to think differently.»
In the view of the animal rights organization, clichés such as meat as a source of vitality belong in the history books just as much as the stereotypes of the woman at the stove and the man as her protector. In earlier times, recreational hunting served the purpose of survival; depending on the region and food supply, however, even Neanderthals ate vegetarian and vegan diets. The fact is: there is no necessity to eat meat – the days of hunters and gatherers are a thing of the past. That is why PETA encourages consumers with «Stone Age» to hunt for tofu schnitzel and numerous other plant-based foods at the supermarket, rather than eating animals.
800 Million Animals per Year in German Slaughterhouses
In German slaughterhouses alone, approximately 800 million sentient beings are killed every year for meat production. Piglets have their curly tails cut off and male animals their testicles torn out within the first days of life, without anesthesia. They spend the rest of their short existence mostly on hard, filthy slatted floors. Sows are kept either in dirty, cramped pens or in farrowing crates so small they cannot even turn around. In most cases, the mother animals are separated from their offspring by metal bars. All of these practices are legal. Around 99 percent of pigs in the meat industry live in such conditions — and 100 percent are either killed in the end or die in the sheds.
PETA takes the position that animals are not here to be exploited for human nutrition. Vegans not only lead healthier lives — each individual also spares up to 50 animals per year from death in factory farms, slaughterhouses, or on fishing boats. With the free VeganStart programme offered by the animal rights organisation, switching to a purely plant-based diet is easy.
More on the subject of recreational hunting: In the dossier The Role and Criticism of Recreational Hunters we shed light on the training, power and self-image of recreational hunters. The scientific evidence is presented in the overview Studies on the Effects of Recreational Hunting.
The position of IG Wild beim Wild: IG Wild beim Wild rejects recreational hunting. Our model is the canton of Geneva, which has managed without recreational hunting since 1974: without hunting seasons, without hunting dogs, without driven hunts, without high seats, without the animal cruelty and crime that go hand in hand with hunting season elsewhere. What has worked there for over fifty years disproves every position paper by JagdSchweiz. An association that bases its policy on claims it refutes in its own documents is not a professional organisation, but a factory for misinformation.
