I’M ANGRY. And It’s My Right.

Posted on January 5, 2016 by Vegan Feminist Network

Content Warning: Discussions of hetereosexism.
Not Safe for Work: Contains strong language.

By Raffi Ciavatta

I came out when I was 13. The world before then was vampiresque, hollow and dark to me but after coming out of the closet, it became even more apparent to me how angry I really was when I started to experience systemic oppression through every pore of my body.

My first contact with activism was through the LGBTQ+ community. However back then I worked solo and not only mocked but despised and regarded LGBTQ+ activists as conformists and tame. The thought of anyone wanting to build bridges or work with heterosexuals was beyond my understanding.

“My voice and my anger were the only weapons I had against homophobia and I intended to use them as loud as I possibly could. I, was a lone gay warrior in a world that hated women and LGBTQ+ folks.”

My “no-sugar-coating” attitude and blunt anti-heterosexism soon began to be noticed in the small LGBTQ+ community of Sao Paulo through Orkut, a predecessor of Facebook (does anyone remember it?) and Fotolog.net. If I were to transport my Orkut account to Facebook this is what it would have looked like:

I bet many of you now are “appalled” by my behavior and perhaps many of you would have defriended me then, called me names or felt sorry for me. But listen up. I want to challenge the dynamics of this relationship.

My voice and my anger were the only weapons I had against homophobia and I intended to use them as loud as I possibly could. I, was a lone gay warrior in a world that hated women and LGBTQ+ folks.

When you live in a system where you cannot go one single day without being called a dyke, offered a dick by cis men (as if lesbians never date trans women who have dicks), being mocked at, laughed at, sexualized, physically assaulted, bombarded with images of straight happy couples, living a perfect life – you either break, become apathetic, find some strength to deal with all of it positively or you become angry. I chose the latter.

For the longest of time I never fully trusted straight folks. I always thought there was an underlying reason why they wanted to be friends with me – either because they needed to feel better about themselves with their “Look, I’m not like them!” argument or because they wanted something from me, like men getting aroused from my stories or similar things.

The truth is that no matter how loud I was, the chances of the world ever being LGBTQ-only was nearly impossible. So I ask that we pause and analyze the power dynamics that we have here: no matter what I said, by the end of the day the chances of me being verbally or physically assaulted were still very high. No straight person will ever have to worry about being beaten up over their sexual orientation. End of story.

It is my right, as someone who has been systematically oppressed, to let my rage breathe. No matter if the things I say are violent or offensive, it is not for straight folks to tell me how to deal with my anger.

Is exterminating all heterosexuals going to make the world a better place for LGBTQ+ people? No. I do not believe so and deep down I think I never believed it! The truth is that back then straight folks terrorized me, I said and did things that may not seem the most logical or effective.

But were my feelings justifiable? Yes. They were a perfectly natural response to oppression and it was the best I could have done at the time where I literally had no more energy left to keep fighting.

Could I have dealt with things differently? No. Not at the time. My spirit had been so broken that anger was the only way I found to vent. I have talked about how I don’t believe in misanthropy or how attitudes similar to mine are perhaps not beneficial to anyone or any movement. The toxicity of it actually hurts us. But we have to understand where they come from sometimes and let this rage breathe.

I worked really hard to break my cycle of anger and distrust but I don’t think it will be something I will ever fully overcome due to the various traumatic experiences I suffered and still suffer from! However, today I’m able to deal with homophobic situations much better and usually anger becomes secondary in the process of coping. I have found other things that help me deal with anger like working out, poetry, talking it out, and music, etc.

That is not to say I deserve sympathy or a medal. I have had moments where I snapped and I still never hold my tongue when people want to be oppressive towards me. The difference is, I have found other ways to put people in their place. And it makes me happier that I am able to fight back without self-destructing.

Next time you see someone with similar behavior, don’t be “appalled”. Don’t stop being friends with them, don’t call them names, and certainly don’t pity them. Let their rage breathe. Don’t try to say “It gets better,” especially if you’re not part of their community. Sometimes the best allies are the ones that know when to remain silent. If you make these mistakes, own up and apologize.

Anger is a way of resistance! Anger has been used by many people, movements, and countries! Think of Brazil’s (and Latin America in general) blunt anti-American stance: one of the ways a country built on colonialism has found to defy imperialism is by publicly “hating” on Americans. I included Brazil here and qualified it as rage since I observe a clear anger from Brazilians in relation to the US. Think of Black Rage: a book which focused on the racial crisis in the US. Think of Black Lives Matter: a movement which emerged out of the rage and mourning that accompanied George Zimmerman’s acquittal for the murder of Trayvon Martin.

Let’s do our best to support oppressed peoples in our communities the best we can. And when they get angry, let their rage breathe!

This essay originally appeared on Collectively Free.

Co-founder of Collectively Free, Raffi Ciavatta is vegan animal liberation activist, art director, poet, photographer wanna-be, DJ in some past live and most importantly… a big dreamer who makes things happen.

“The AK47 I Have Sitting Conveniently Beside My Coffee Machine”: Benevolent Sexism and Veganism

Posted on October 25, 2015 by Vegan Feminist Network

Content Warning: Contains sexist and ableist language in addition to threats of violence.

Photo of owner from White Moose Cafe Facebook page. Caption reads, "If you do happen to see Paul in the café, it is strongly advised that you do not approach him with any complaints. This is in the interest of your own safety, as well as the safety of others around you."

Photo of owner from White Moose Cafe Facebook page, Paul Stenson. Caption reads, “If you do happen to see Paul in the café, it is strongly advised that you do not approach him with any complaints. This is in the interest of your own safety, as well as the safety of others around you.”

What happens when a seemingly “vegan-friendly” restaurant gets a reaction it doesn’t want?

Apparently vegans can’t take a joke. Or at least that’s what the owner of Dublin-based restaurant Paul Stenson envisions as he grapples with a torrent of customer backlash.

The cafe reportedly published some snarky comments about vegans, only to experience a retaliation in bad reviews. From there, things escalated quickly.

An anti-cafe page emerged, then and anti-anti page emerged. Online networks were activated, and vegans came in droves to drive down the review rating of the restaurant. Stenson then began monitoring reviews and posting increasingly hostile public announcements on the Facebook page.

The show that has ensued makes for an amazing example of what can happen when male privilege is challenged by feminine forces.

First, presumably male customers are invited to bond (and become aroused) over the domination of feminized bodies:

Another response (likely due to his suspicion that many of the fake reviewers were American) was to fabricate “joking” threats to assault vegans with a high powered rifle. For Americans, mass shootings are a reality, and the owner intentionally draws on this trauma to demean and intimidate.

Not surprisingly, ableism is at the root of most interactions, as is misogyny:

Apparently, White Moose Cafe also has some serious issues with ethnocentrism and racism, having caught fire in the past for unapologetically hiring “Irish Only.” The restaurant is also openly hostile to poor and/or homeless persons, discouraging unworthy clientele from visiting its establishment. Owner Stenson writes:

Look we’re not a charity, if you want charity then go to a homeless shelter or sleep with a dog at the DSPCA [Dublin’s SPCA], you have to be firm with this otherwise people will walk all over you.

It is not uncommon for men and patriarchal spaces to react in this way. This is because male power is protected and replicated by 1. Dominating feminized bodies; 2. Denigrating all that is feminine; and 3. Using force and violence.

But, wait, what happened? Wasn’t this restaurant supposed to be vegan-friendly?

Feminists are often critical of benevolent sexism, that seemingly positive “special treatment” given to women that is generally rooted in discrimination and wields the potential for violence. “Cat-calling,” for instance, is supposedly just well-meaning guys “complimenting” women they don’t know on the street. In reality, it’s a show of male power over the public space and a not-so-subtle reminder to women that their existence in that space is conditional and vulnerable. If the men cat-calling do not get the response they want, women know all too well that things can become extremely threatening very quickly as men seek to establish dominance and exert male entitlement.

I see a similar pattern in the vegan/nonvegan interactions. In the case of White Moose Cafe, apparently some vegan options are offered on the menu, but if vegans step out of their place in the hierarchy (pushing back against anti-vegan “jokes”), patriarchal dominance will be enacted. White Moose Cafe does this by 1. Dominating feminized bodies (reminding the audience that the real heart of the business is hurting Nonhuman Animals; offering specials for Nonhuman Animal corpses); 2. Denigrating all that is feminine (using speciesist, misogynist, and ableist insults); and 3: Using force and violence (posting aggressive announcements and threatening a mass shooting).

Beware of benevolent sexism. When the male entitlement to feminized bodies is challenged, violence is often the next recourse to maintain dominance and power.

Note: While Irish gun control is quite strong and the possibility of Stenson committing a mass shooting is rather small, it is also important to consider the considerable white privilege he is able to engage by repeatedly making public threats without fear of police intervention.

Dr. Wrenn is Lecturer of Sociology. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology with Colorado State University in 2016. She received her M.S. in Sociology in 2008 and her B.A. in Political Science in 2005, both from Virginia Tech. She was awarded Exemplary Diversity Scholar, 2016 by the University of Michigan’s National Center for Institutional Diversity. She served as council member with the American Sociological Association’s Animals & Society section (2013-2016) and was elected Chair in 2018. She serves as Book Review Editor to Society & Animals and has contributed to the Human-Animal Studies Images and Cinema blogs for the Animals and Society Institute. She has been published in several peer-reviewed academic journals including the Journal of Gender Studies, Feminist Media Studies, Disability & Society, Food, Culture & Society, and Society & Animals. In July 2013, she founded the Vegan Feminist Network, an academic-activist project engaging intersectional social justice praxis. She is the author of A Rational Approach to Animal Rights: Extensions in Abolitionist Theory (Palgrave MacMillan 2016).

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The Power Of The Vegan Who Remembers Their Roots

Posted on September 9, 2015 by Vegan Feminist Network

By Michele Kaplan

CONTENT WARNING: This article contains a couple of sentences (quotes from others) that reference misogyny, homophobia, and ableism.

NOT SAFE FOR WORK: Some violent language in said quotes.

Author’s Note: The following is in no way an attack on Direct Action Everywhere, but rather a discussion inspired by one of their graphics. I chose to use a DxE graphic because it’s the graphic that sparked this conversation on Facebook and thus inspired this article. I am not suggesting that the comments that were made, represent DxE as an organization, as you can’t control who comments on a public post. I wanted to write this article because variations of the comments that were made in reaction to this graphic, are comments that I’ve heard for years within the Animal Rights Movement and I wanted to speak on that.

Question: When you read that, what thoughts pop into your head?

For some animal rights activists (at least going by the comments on the internet), the response is one of anger. But not just anger. A kind of vindictive anger.

“A heartless piece of work…”
“He’s a f**king idiot!”
“Calling him a human is going too far.”
“Could we crowdfund to have the doctor dropped off somewhere in Africa, stripped naked and then hunted like an animal?”
“He’s a f**king, coward, tool who sucked someone’s dick to stay out of jail? The question is who’s whore is he?”

I could go on, but you get the gist. Now, putting aside for a moment that some of these comments are incredibly ignorant and some just disturbing, I would like to look at the overall vindictive and angry nature of the comments.

Question: How many of us within the Animal Rights movement were born vegan?

Not many. In fact, I think it’s safe to say that the majority of us participated in the killing and consumption of animals, at some point in our lives. While we may not have gone hunting (though I am sure some of us did), does it really matter if we directly or indirectly killed an animal?

The end result is the same. An animal who did not want to die is dead. So, if we too once participated in the death of animals, then it begs the question:

Question: As vegans, do we forget our speciesist roots?

I know when I heard about someone harming an animal, I would get really upset. But not just upset. Angry. “What a jerk!” I would say. And when I would make this comment on social media, it would get plenty of likes and support.

But one day, I stopped and pondered if I was being hypocritical to get mad and vindictive simply because a person hasn’t unlearned speciesism at the same rate/pace that I have?

This is not to say that it is wrong to feel angry. Anger (when used constructively) can inspire us to further fight for what is right. What can get in our way, is when it becomes vindictive. It can lead us to think things like “What kind of person does this sort of thing?!” instead of realizing “Oh, right. That was me.”

And once I realized this, and thus let go of the hypocritical and vindictive anger, it made room for empathy. As a result, I was having a much easier time communicating, connecting and reaching people who weren’t vegan.

“Walter says he killed Cecil because he didn’t know his name… Let’s hope Walter knows his patients’ names.” read the graphic posted on Facebook. “His reasoning makes no sense.” I thought at first “What about the dog he passes by on the street but doesn’t know the name of?”

But instead of just chalking it up to Walter being senseless and unintelligent, I stopped and remembered my roots. And that’s when it occurred to me (and I left the following comment) : “I think what he (possibly) meant was that he never thought that an animal such as a lion would have a name / life / purpose etc. Which is no different than the people who eat pigs [and other animals] because they just viewed the animal as a means to their pleasure and never stopped to think / was not raised to think that animals have lives and hearts and emotions [and] aren’t just there for our consumption.”

Empathy is power. It’s great that we fight for the liberation of animals, my fellow vegans but always remember your roots.

This essay originally appeared on Rebelwheels’ Soapbox on May 17, 2015.

Michele Kaplan is a queer (read: bisexual), geek-proud, intersectional activist on wheels (read: motorized wheelchair), who tries to strike a balance between activism, creativity and self care, while trying to change the world.

La Política Sexual del Veganismo Moralmente Superior

Posted on September 4, 2015 by Vegan Feminist Network

Translation by María. María is active with Ochodoscuatro Ediciones, a non-profit anti-speciesist book house that is noted for translating Carol Adams’ The Sexual Politics of Meat into Spanish. You can view the original English version of the essay below by clicking here.

Por Corey Lee Wrenn

La línea de moda vegana de Stella McCartney apareció en un reciente artículo de la revista feminista Bustle en la sección “Moda y belleza”. Al principio, me sentí encantada de que presentasen el veganismo en un espacio feminista, cosa que no suele suceder tan a menudo como debería.

Parece que la autora, también, es consciente de la falta de conexión política entre feminismo y veganismo, pues se encarga de amortiguar a los lectores con una advertencia. Siguiendo una declaración de McCartney que dice que su marca es “la empresa más ética y amorosa de la industria de la moda”, Bustle aclara:

La declaración apunta que ella dijo eso en broma, indicando que no se siente moralmente superior acerca de su postura libre de crueldad, cosa que no siempre es el caso de los activistas por los derechos animales.

Encuentro esa advertencia bastante curiosa, estando en el contexto de la política feminista. Las feministas generalmente ponen resistencia cuando alguien intenta controlarles el tono en que dicen algo y a menudo castigan a las celebridades que se niegan a identificarse a sí mismas como feministas. Pero todo vale cuando hablamos de los derechos de los animales no humanos. En otras palabras, las feministas fomentan con determinación un feminismo fuerte y orgulloso, en un esfuerzo por desestigmatizar el activismo de justicia social, pero pueden darle rápidamente la vuelta y vilipendiar a aquellas que hacen lo mismo en nombre de los otros animales.

Dado que el 80% del movimiento por los derechos de los animales no humanos está formado por mujeres y siendo que el veganismo está extremadamente “feminizado”, es importante reconocer los matices sexistas en la estereotipación de las veganas. Es posible que esa “superioridad moral” asignada a activistas y veganas sea de hecho una forma de vigilancia de género. En otras palabras, estos estereotipos trabajan para avergonzar y silenciar a las mujeres “engreídas” que se atreven a politizarse.

Las feministas deberían mantenerse al margen la ridiculización de la justicia social. Preocuparse por la opresión de las demás no debería ser algo que ocultar o que minimizar. El compromiso para acabar con la injusticia debería ser algo de lo que estar orgullosa. Deberíamos estar celebrando el activismo. Es un trabajo duro, se ganan pocos amigos, es mentalmente agotador y pocas personas están dispuestas a participar. Las feministas no deberían poner añadidos a esa dificultad, cuando podrían ser una fuente importante de apoyo. Esto especialmente cuando la mayor parte de activistas por el veganismo son mujeres y cuando el especismo está íntimamente ligado al patriarcado.

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Lack of Intersectionality: A Moral Inconsistency of the Animal Rights Movement?

Posted on August 26, 2015 by Vegan Feminist Network

By Raffi Ciavatta and Lilia Trenkova

Animal rights activists are often accused of not caring about humans. We can argue that usually these accusations come from people who have just had their speciesism challenged and who feel attacked, so they’re reactionary statements. We can obviously also argue that we do indeed care about other humans. Yet this happens so often that even people who’ve never faced their speciesism have come to believe that animal rights activists simply do not see humans as important as non-humans.

How can we change this view? There are among us those who truly believe we cannot fight one system of oppression (speciesism) by supporting another system of oppression (sexism, for example). It is morally inconsistent to claim we care about the bodily autonomy of hens but to oppose the bodily autonomy of women, just as it is morally inconsistent to say we care about equality but exclude certain species who are worthy of that consideration.

According to Javed Deck, for animals rights “[…] to be a movement that actually transforms relationships between humans and animals it needs to take seriously issues of race, class, and gender, and the ways these impact animal systems. Just like the transformations feminist and queer struggles have undergone as they crossed cultural boundaries, so must animal struggle change across these boundaries.”

>In the 70’s, black feminists who worked both for women’s rights and civil rights, started to look at gender and race as connected issues. The feminist movement back then wasn’t talking about race, and the civil rights movement wasn’t addressing gender. They developed a theory and practice called intersectionality, a term coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw in her insightful 1989 essay, “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics”.

Applying Crenshaw’s frame of intersection to other systemic oppressions, we can no longer see discrimination based on gender, race, class, ability, sexual orientation, religion, caste, species, et al, as separate and independent from one another. Axes of identity interact on multiple levels, contributing to systemic injustice and social inequality.

Oppressive systems also share the same roots. They not only have the same strategy, the same tactics, but they also share patterns of behavior and thought. In her essay, Crenshaw uses an analogy to a traffic intersection, or crossroad, to concretize the concept:

“Consider an analogy to traffic in an intersection, coming and going in all four directions. Discrimination, like traffic through an intersection, may flow in one direction, and it may flow in another. If an accident happens in an intersection, it can be caused by cars traveling from any number of directions and, sometimes, from all of them.”

So why should we care about others’ struggles?

Because it is the right thing to do. There is nothing wrong with choosing to be morally consistent.
If we want animal liberation, then we had better build bridges. According to professor Will Kymlicka, 99% of the intersectional analysis that is done by the left today completely ignores the intersection of species. He adds, “I think there’s no way for the animal rights movement to possibly succeed without the support from other social justice movements.”
Being able to create a safe space for activists and potential supporters is key to grow our movement. If we choose to ignore the intersections of oppressions, we run a great risk of turning people away from our cause.

The word intersectionality currently seems to be getting a lot of attention as well as confusion. Quite often there isn’t a mention of the originators of the concept, leaving it to be a white-centric circle, as explained here. Love it or hate it, the concept is challenging all of us, and we shouldn’t turn away from it.

We would like to share our view about it and how we are learning to apply it to Collectively Free. When we first started CF, our dream was to create an anti-speciesist group that embraced the intersections of oppression, both internally in our community and externally in our actions.

Within our community, we strive to create a safe space for activists to express themselves and for potential supporters to join us. We have made plenty of mistakes along the way, but we have also tried our hardest to remain humble enough to recognize our mistakes and implement prompt changes to repair them. A great example of that was when the amazing activist, Heather P. Graham, felt triggered during one of our protests after hearing an activist use the word “rape” trivially.

We reached out to her, heard her concerns and asked her to do a panel discussion about the “Importance of Language In Our Movement” followed by a Q&A. We learned a lot from Heather that day. It pushed us forward to officially retire a poster we hadn’t used in a long time, part of our early days, which had the r-word in it. The decision wasn’t because of personal purity, because we care more about what other people may think, or because we don’t believe that mother cows are truly sexually assaulted – it is because we learned that we can achieve the same result in making people understand our message without running the risk of triggering them. Lesson learned: always listen when people who have been hurt share their stories, and always listen when someone brings up issues to your attention.

In terms of delivering an effective message for our activism and building bridges, our first big effort was at NYC PRIDE 2015 (here’s a YouTube link if you don’t have Facebook). We wrote a speakout and chants that reflected the common goal of anti-speciesist, anti-heterosexist and anti-cissexist struggles – liberation from oppression and equality of consideration. Feedback on our video from that day was overwhelmingly positive, from both animal rights and LGBTQ rights activists. Another lesson learned: participate in different movements’ protests and support their causes.

It wasn’t until we launched the campaign against Starbucks that we had the opportunity to really bring that concept out in our actions. We spent several months trying to convey a strong message for the animals while highlighting Starbucks’ exploitation of coffee workers. We have never felt so listened to in any action we ever participated in as on our first day of action, and we are certain it was because we carefully brought together human rights and animal rights.

Our community is not perfect, and we’ll surely continue to make mistakes and learn from them. But if we all stay open to ideas that challenge us we’ll also make strides. Don’t worry, our community will still be hard-core, progressive, envelope-pushers – but now with a bonus! Our activism will no longer appear as a one-way street but as a lane on a highway, a highway shared with other fighters for liberation, equality and freedom.

Lilia Trenkova is an activist vegan, set designer, fabricator, organizer and musician.

Practicing Healing and Self-Care

Posted on May 11, 2015 by Vegan Feminist Network

We Are Not Advocacy Robots

At the 2015 Sistah Vegan conference, Dr. Breeze Harper featured an amazing talk on self-care by Jessica Rowshandel, LMSW (the conference recordings are available for purchase on Dr. Harper’s website). What I enjoyed about the talk was that it offered a few clear suggestions (most notably, the importance of friendship and community), but it was also realistic about the barriers many social justice activists face in practicing self-care. Self-care really can be a luxury for some, and sometimes, we just can’t afford to engage it (financially, time-wise, ability-wise, etc.).

Sometimes it’s more than physical or material barriers that prevent us from prioritizing the self. Sometimes, it can be a matter of female identity or our current position in the activist journey. Women are socialized to be givers, to be selfless, to expect abusive behavior, and to be objects for the resources of others. This feminine identity, then, can really get us into some tough spots in our activism, especially when the activist space is patriarchal, as the Nonhuman Animal rights movement is.

But also, the typical activist, I think, experiences an identifiable growth cycle. We learn about injustice, we get angry, and we stay in a rage. We get involved in the movement, we build connections with others, and we learn that social movements are highly contentious spaces with lots and lots of in-fighting and abusive behavior (particularly by men). We rage some more. And then, as the years pass, either we drop out or we start to adopt a sort of activist wisdom. We learn that the schisms and abuse are normal parts of collective behavior, just as they are normal parts of the outside world we wish to change. That doesn’t make it okay, it simply means that we need to prepare for this inevitability. Women and especially empathetic people are going to very sensitive to this constant negativity (and these are the very types of people attracted to the movement). At some point, we have to make changes in how we choose to expend our energy in order for our activism to be sustainable and in order to remain healthy.

For those of you who have pre-existing issues with depression, anxiety, and abuse (if you are female-identified, statistically, this probably includes you, my dear reader), the added stress and vulnerability created by our activism can really become a huge burden. There are a lot of things in this world that we cannot control, but activism is one thing that we can. And while many of us do not want to cut out activism from our life (especially because it can be extremely rewarding to give back through pro-social behavior and because our activist networks can be a positive addition to our lives), we need to recognize that there must be boundaries.

Woman at her desk raising a hammer to her laptop

Photo from The Frisky

Finding boundaries and having the mental strength to reinforce those boundaries is something that I’ve really been working with. I have to stay out of vegan groups, because I know that internet spaces invite vitriol and aggressive behavior. I have to disable comments on my blogs, because, again, the anonymity of the internet and my female identity makes my online activity a beacon for vitriol and aggressive behavior. I have to reevaluate how I will spend my time blogging: will I use the space to vent my frustration on yet another abusive person or corrupt organization? Sometimes that is necessary. But it’s also important to start engaging positive contributions.

As the summer begins to settle in this year, I’m finding myself emerging from a very gloomy winter and spring, wondering what I can do to heal from these past few months. I’m trying to find my grounding after the death of my best friend, the death of my dog, the brutal academic job market, the poverty of graduate school, revising my book, finishing my dissertation, being apart from my partner for many months, a very toxic family situation, and waves of harassment from anti-feminists, neo-nazis, and sexist or racist vegans. I mean, woah. That’s enough to bring anyone down. It’s time to come up for air. With so little out of my hands, it is prudent to ask myself: what exactly can I control?

It’s really important for us to recognize that we are humans. We are not advocacy robots: we have feelings and weaknesses. We get run down, we get tired, we get our feelings hurt, and we find it hard to trust. Doing what we do is hard work. Let’s be honest about the reality of activism. It’s totally okay to acknowledge that sometimes it becomes too much to take.

My plan for Vegan Feminist Network this upcoming summer is a little bit in the air. I’m spending the next three months in Ireland with my partner, and I hope to stay off the internet as much as possible. I want to reconnect with him, cook healthy vegan food, squeeze in some hiking and a 5k, explore the pubs, and just allow myself to live (though I couldn’t help but pack some vegan leaflets!). Again, self-care can often be expensive. I have the privilege of taking the summer off because I am an online instructor, and we were fortunate enough to “afford” (i.e. go broke on purchasing) an expensive plane ticket (which is several months salary for many graduate students like myself). Some people might have financial security, but no loved ones to spend time with. Some people have families depending on them, and time is just not available. I know everyone has barriers, but we need to do what we can with what little we have to nourish our mental health.

African American woman of size Jessamyn Stanley demonstrates a complex yoga stretch.

Jessamyn Stanley; Photo from Jessamynstanley.com

I have discovered that yoga is one of those concrete ways that we can actually do something to repair ourselves from the damages of patriarchy and toxic activism. And it’s inclusive. There are variations of yoga for all body types and ranges of ability. In activist spaces, so often we focus on the mental emancipation through critical theory, learning, reading, and studying. Yoga is the other half of that–it helps us regain awareness and control over our bodies. Much like veganism, yoga is feminist praxis. For someone like me that has suffered with anxiety for my entire life, I have found that it is an amazing reward to my battered self to just take some time on the mat to stretch and breathe.

And you don’t need any expensive equipment–just comfy clothes and bare feet. I finally splurged on a mat, but it’s not necessary for yoga, just a nicety. For those who cannot afford yoga classes (like me!) or who are geographically isolated (like me!), yoga is freely available online (and allows you to practice from the peace and privacy of your own home). I have found Yoga with Adriene to be an amazing gift. Particularly helpful is her 23 minute “Yoga for a Broken Heart,” which is a gentle, beginner’s level session that will relax and soothe. See also the Instagram and Tumbler of Jessamyn Stanley, who combats the white- and thin-centricism of yoga practice in the West with body-positive curvy yoga. Or, Chelsea Jackson, who integrates critical thinking in her yoga practice for Black-identified persons facing trauma. “I see yoga as a tool to dismantle structural oppression,” she says. “It can help us interrogate systems that are constantly putting us in boxes or marginalizing us.”

Chelsea Jackson; Photo from Yoga Journal

Finally, if you are fortunate enough to have a companion animal in your family, give them a snuggle. Research shows that interacting with them can lower blood pressure and ease anxiety.

If all else fails…flip to a random page and prepare as directed (with appropriate modifications for my gluten-intolerant and diabetic friends!). I have heard many say that cooking and baking is a calming experience. And cupcakes are happiness, no doubt about it.

I agree with Jessica Rowshandel in the acknowledgement that self-care will differ for every individual, and sometimes it’s hard for us to really take it seriously and work it into our schedule. Most of us lack the space, money, freedom, or motivation necessary to take time for ourselves. I don’t have all the answers, but I do want to start a dialogue. Some of you reading this might be new on your activist journey and just want to saturate yourself in negativity and fight through it all, but I have a feeling you will reach a point where you must acknowledge that boundaries are necessary. When you reach that point, I hope your remember this post and revisit it. I may revisit this post as well, as I may have new ideas or experiences to share. In the meantime, you may want to take a peek at this step-by-step self-care guide presented by one of my favorite Black feminist blogs, For Harriet.

Take care and be well my friends.

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Vegan Feminist Network

Critical essays and resources for vegan women and their allies

Tag Archives: Activism

I’M ANGRY. And It’s My Right.

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The Power Of The Vegan Who Remembers Their Roots

Question: When you read that, what thoughts pop into your head?

Question: How many of us within the Animal Rights movement were born vegan?

Question: As vegans, do we forget our speciesist roots?

La Política Sexual del Veganismo Moralmente Superior

Lack of Intersectionality: A Moral Inconsistency of the Animal Rights Movement?

Practicing Healing and Self-Care

We Are Not Advocacy Robots

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