Violence is central to patriarchy, and Western society’s various forms of systemic violence are interconnected. Recognizing similarities across forms of oppression such as racism, child abuse, speciesism, and sexism, for example, is essential . . . . We can curb this tendency only if all forms of violence are exposed and challenged—rape and slaughter, rodeos and brothels. We cannot expect to put out a fire by removing only one coal.

. . . no human being would wish to trade places with nonhuman animals in factory farms or laboratories. . . . The legal status of women and nonwhite racialized minorities has improved markedly in the past fifty years; matters have grown considerably worse for nonhuman animals.

In the racist, sexist United States, nonwhite racialized minorities—and women in particular—are subjected to more than their share of horrific violence, but no human being would wish to trade places with nonhuman animals in factory farms or laboratories. . . . The legal status of women and nonwhite racializedminorities has improved markedly in the past fifty years; matters have grown considerably worse for nonhuman animals.

Many social justice activists--many feminists--continue to work against one form of oppression while feeding the flames of another, without noticing that the blow torch behind the flames must be tuned off before we can have any hope of putting out the resultant fires.

Failing to notice a lack of Latino and African-American representation in congress is a result of systemic oppression – racism. General indifference to the fact that white men dominate large corporations is part of the invisibility of both racism and sexism. A lack of concern about the plight of a “breeding” sow on a factory farm is also a result of normative systematic oppression – speciesism.

Oppressions are by definition linked--linked by common ideologies, by institutional forces, and by socialization that makes oppressions normative and invisible.

Through dualism, those living in patriarchies tend to view the world in terms of opposites, beginning with male and female, and extending to a plethora of other contrived divisions, such as white/other races, human/animal, culture/nature, and reason/emotion.

Diversity” too often diverts attention from the root problem: Normative whiteness.

Ecofeminists call attention to the fact that environmentalists, feminists, and those fighting racism and poverty, are pulling on different straws in the same broom.