Roosters,hawks and dawgs: Toward an inclusive,embodied eco/feminist psychology

Abstract

The gendered exploitation of roosters used in cockfighting is a case example of the social construction of gender via animals — a psychosocial process that injures both people and animals. Similar processes of social construction by way of animals occur in relation to race and sexual orientation, with similarly mutually hurtful results. The rehabilitation of roosters used in cockfighting illustrates the utility of an expanded and amended conception of Herman’s principles of trauma recovery enacted within the emerging insights of trans-species psychology. Those insights lead us toward a truly inclusive eco/feminist psychology centered on acceptance of situated human animality and an understanding of traumatic alienation as a factor in both personal and communal problems in living, including climate change. This perspective shifts the ground for clinical practice, mandating explicit attention not only to interpersonal and intrapsychic cleavages but also to schisms between self and nature, other animals, and one’s own animality.