Gender is not only a construct that has consequences for how we deal with other humans, it also influences how we perceive animals. When watching Andrea Arnolds documentary Cow (2021) what most struck me is the fact the milking cows are female cows. In most of Arnolds other movies, the main characters are young women.[1] She’s even directed a movie called Milk (1998) about a woman having a miscarriage. At first Cow seems to misfit this line of Arnolds career, but I’ve never seen a movie about animals where I was suddenly reminded of the fact that this animal is a female animal. Cow is in a lot of ways a movie about a woman. The documentary is not a form of vegan propaganda or a ‘sad’ story of the horrible life of milking cows. But in the mundane fragments of a milking cow’s life, you become more and more aware of the strangeness of this situation. The language that is used around female animals (Good girl!) is in weird ways condescending. When researching how farmers talk about their cows, I noticed that they are often referring to them as ‘their girls’. As if their femininity makes it easier to possess and take from them.*
MARIT MIHKLEPP, EVERY SECOND IS KISSED BY BILLIONS OF LIPS, 2023, FOTO: GUNNAR MEIER, © RADIUS CCA