Feminist theorist Josephine Donovan believes that in order to adopt this reverential and compassionate view of nature we need to adopt a feminist left brained view of interacting with the world. Donovan argues that not to be emotional or sentimental but rational is a masculine bias in animal theory, while women animal rights activists emphasize the emotional relationship with animals. While women are less guilty of animal abuse they are complicit in their use of luxury items and consumption. “From the cultural feminist viewpoint the domination of nature, rooted in post-medieval, Western, male-psychology is the underlying cause of the mistreatment of animals as well as the exploitation of women and the environment. “A discourse in animal rights theory must be more left brained and that human consciousness be seen not as different from other life forms, but as continuous with the ‘bimorphic’ spirit inherent in living beings. “

            To explore the way in which this left brained feminine and reverential way of viewing the world I needed to explore further the role of gender in the discourse of the exploitative relationship between humans and animals. In his book “Brutal: Manhood and the Exploitation of Animals” Brian Luke explores the relationship with gender and animals. He looks at the way in which it is more likely to be woman to be at a demonstration in opposition of animal cruelty. He believes that the enigma is not so much on how woman oppose animal exploitation, but more so in why more men seem to support it. In his view these exploitative institutions do not work to promote human flourishing but instead merely act as support for a particular construction of manhood. And it is this construct of what a man is supposed to be that perpetuates the  “standard defenses for animal use [that] fall into three general categories: those that refer to human rationality, those that claim divine sanction, and those that describe exploitation as natural.”