Why aren’t feminists vegan? TW: Conscience. I know the two stances may not immediately seem like peas and carrots, but I was thinking about this the other day and it was troubling me. Both are at least partially about protecting and empowering marginalised groups. Both are (to me at least) very logical and progressive positions to take on the issues facing the world, being both more ethical choices in the short term and helping humanity in the long term. Both groups tend to be enlightened to greater or lesser extents on other issues like racism, homophobia – both even tend to take a similarly liberal stance on party politics. And although you’d be hard pressed to find a vegan who’s not a feminist, the reverse is not so. So why aren’t feminists vegan? Eating meat and dairy is certainly the default option in society today. The chances are that your families ate meat as you were growing up. Perhaps a small number were vegetarian. But veganism certainly isn’t common enough that it could be socialised into you. But then again, nor is feminism! – at least, according to the popular feminist model of the patriarchy, socialisation and society conditions us to believe that females are to have different characteristics from males from a very early age. But feminists have been enlightened enough to overcome this cultural bias. So why not overcome eating animal products? Would you accept, as an excuse for oppression – “That’s just how I was raised”? Of course this is true for many, but at the point when someone is forced to make the claim “That’s just how I was raised,” – at the point when they need to justify their behaviour – they must have already been presented with the alternative. Else there’d be nothing to be defensive about. So I put it to you that the omission to take up any stance is a conscious decision, so long as the stance has been presented to you. And as you’re reading this, consider it a presentation. So why aren’t feminists vegan? Of course there’s the health side. A vegan diet is dangerously low in protein, results in chronic fatigue, causes numerous vitamin deficiencies, and inevitably ends in osteoporosis and anaemia because plants don’t contain enough calcium or iron. Plus vegans hate humanity and whine all the time. But then again, feminists hate all men and want to eradicate them from the world; they cause the breakup of the family unit and turn children into criminals; they’re all lesbians, and they are invariably every bit as bitter and self-absorbed as their animal-loving counterparts. What do all these facts have in common? They’re all utter bullshit. The truth is both veganism and feminism are stigmatised and called extreme by the mainstream media. For vegans the problem is false information; for feminists, the problem is misrepresentation. The result is the same. Both groups are shunted to the side-lines when they should be shaping how society today is run. Feminists are intelligent enough to see through the deception conjured up by the media with respect to themselves. If only they had the same thirst for truth when it comes to health, environmentalism, and animal rights! Though these areas are hardly dismissed by feminists, they are taken as they come – spoon fed, without the same level of critical thinking of which you are demonstrably capable. So why aren’t feminists vegan? I’m sure many feminists admire and respect vegans without truly entertaining the idea for themselves. Or perhaps they understand that veganism is the clear ethical option, but choose to eat animal products for the taste, because it would be too much of a restriction to change. “I just couldn’t live without cheese!” or “But– bacon. Your argument is invalid.” Both popular justifications. But how would you respond to a man saying “I don’t care enough about women’s rights to take the pinup off the office wall” or “I know I shouldn’t rape women, but they just look so good…” Don’t feminists themselves often fall back on the argument that humans aren’t slaves to their desires, that we are each accountable for what we do and how we act? As you weigh up desire and principle, taste and morality, you are implicitly making a decision about which you value more. And when you choose one or the other, in whichever context, you are accountable for your choice. As feminists call out unenlightened men who support the oppression of women in their posts or in their speech, or those who harm women through their actions due to their perceived entitlement and superiority – so I am calling you out, now, in this post. So why aren’t feminists vegan? Feminists have managed to overcome the stigma entrenched in individuals and in society to identify as progressive and forward-thinking people… on the issue of gender equality. Why not species equality too? Why not make that extra leap for yourselves, for the planet, and for the animals? Both gender inequality and animal exploitation have been around since the dawn of humanity. Though our race has accomplished so much and come so far, we know we’ve had some dark spells throughout history, and we know there’s still a long way to go. But I’ll leave you with one final thought. In the last few centuries Western women have gained the vote, so that they have a say in the leaders who govern them. They have gained equal rights in the workplace so that they can work and earn a living on their own merit. Feminists have given women everywhere a voice and set an agenda for the equal treatment of women and men, hopefully to sooner or later result in practical equality of opportunity. Feminism is winning. Slowly, but surely. Not so animal rights. At the same time as feminism has been gaining momentum and changing the world for the better, the rape, torture, enslavement, and slaughter of animals has been increasing exponentially. Nations go hungry as we grow hundreds of millions of tonnes of wheat and soy, not to feed to people, but to feed farmyard animals to be fattened up and tortured or killed. As feminists inch closer and closer to political, social, and economic equality for women, animal consumption has exploded to the uncomprehendable 50,000,000,000 deaths per year in slaughter houses. That’s around 3,000 per second, and this number doesn’t include fish. Although vegans are growing in number, we are losing. Quickly and ruthlessly. So spare a thought for the females and males of other species who are a lot worse off than yourselves. See if you can spot the synergism between the two noble philosophies. I hold the opinion that any movements aimed at making the world a more compassionate, more beautiful place to live in should move together. How one good cause does not immediately see and take up another good cause for the benefit of both and the betterment of the world, I cannot understand. Though this post has been steeped in rhetoric, none of the questions are intended to be rhetorical. Please comment your views, thoughts, musings, answers. Why aren’t feminists vegan? Why aren’t you vegan?
Posted on: Fri, 19 Sep 2014 20:29:45 +0000
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