Vegan Feminist Family Planning

Posted on January 15, 2016 by Vegan Feminist Network

Content Warning: This essay constitutes a trans/intersex exclusionary discussion of birth control. It also focuses on heterosexual relationships.

Not Safe for Work: Contains a discussion of family planning which, while not graphic, may not be appropriate in some office spaces.

Have you considered if your family planning is vegan? What’s in your birth control? Was your birth control tested on Nonhuman Animals? Will the waste matter from their production and use harm free-living nonhuman communities? Vegan Warrior Princesses Attack tackle these issues in an advice column, “Is Birth Control Vegan?” which inspired me to think a little deeper about structural barriers in our activism.

They say the personal is political, and not much gets as personal as what we put into our bodies and how we express our sexuality. It makes sense to question how anthroparchy can shape our sexual relations. It is definitely worth asking how vegan your birth control is. However, it’s also worth asking how feminist it is.

Birth control has been lauded by the women’s movement as one of the great liberators from patriarchal confines. It freed women from mandatory motherhood and allowed them greater control over their life course. But birth control is not evenly enjoyed or evenly accessible.

Certain disabilities can seriously inhibit cis-women’s choices in hormonal birth control (for example, I have a hearing and balance disorder that is triggered by most mainstream products). Additionally, hormonal birth control can be extremely detrimental to women’s physical and emotional health. Among other things, it can cause debilitating depression, cardiovascular problems, and brain cancer. These are risks that men need not incur as a participant in the relationship.

Indeed, the extreme burden placed on cis-women in heterosexual relationships is another issue we should consider when discussing vegan family planning. Obtaining and maintaining a birth control regime, especially for poor, teenage, uninsured, or undocumented women, is very difficult, expensive, time-consuming, and often physically and emotionally uncomfortable or traumatic.

In the poor Appalachian community in which I grew up, uninsured girls and women would have to make multiple phone calls, make multiple visits, wait hours in the understaffed community health department, endure humiliating and sometimes painful exams, and sit through condescending lectures about sexual health by staff who presume that if you can’t afford birth control, you must also be ignorant of basic body functions.

Even after all of these hoops of fire vulnerable women are expected to jump through (and few will), they can still be expected to pay based on their income or that of the person with whom they are living. I can remember vividly the shame of being turned away when I couldn’t afford the ten dollars my health department required for reduced cost birth control.

At the end of the day, it’s nobody’s business how anyone seeks to manage their own sex lives. We’re vegan in an imperfect world. If you can access vegan birth control and it doesn’t negatively impact your health, that’s brilliant: please keep doing that. If you cannot, don’t beat yourself up about it. There are some structural issues that are very difficult for activists to impact or to circumvent when living our politics. Much of our vegan philosophy is developed by elite, native-born, insured, well-paid, able-bodied white men. Their idea of perfection isn’t realistic for many marginalized communities. At least not yet.

Incidentally, vegan condoms are available. I have seen them for sale on vegan websites like VeganEssentials.com. However, their cost and the inconvenience of mail order means that even this option has its limitations (and condoms only have about an 80% real-world success rate in preventing pregnancy, 98% in “perfect” circumstances). Continued vegan activism will ensure that affordable vegan birth control will be more accessible as veganism popularizes. In the meantime, do the best you can.

Ms. Wrenn is the founder of Vegan Feminist Network and also operates The Academic Activist Vegan. She is a Lecturer of Sociology with Monmouth University, council member with the Animals & Society Section of the American Sociological Association, and an advisory board member with the International Network for Social Studies on Vegetarianism and Veganism with the University of Vienna. In 2015, she was awarded Exemplary Diversity Scholar by the University of Michigan’s National Center for Institutional Diversity. She is the author of A Rational Approach to Animal Rights: Extensions in Abolitionist Theory.

Does the C-word Belong in the Vegan Movement? Because It’s Here Right Now

Posted on January 13, 2016 by Vegan Feminist Network

Content Warning: Discusses systemic sexism, online harassment, and misogynistic language.
Not Safe for Work: Contains coarse language.

Editor’s Note: The author and I wish to make it clear that we do not endorse the notion that only cisgender women have vaginal canals, and we wish to acknowledge that some women do not have vaginal canals. We also acknowledge that intersex, transgender, agender, and other gender fluid persons can experience the sexism described in this essay.

By Eve Christa Wetlaufer

“STOP EATING ANIMALS YOU CUNTS.”

I did a double take. Did he really just use that word – and to promote veganism at that? Yes, he did, in a meme on his Instagram feed. A feed with 50,000 followers.

I was stunned and sickened, but sadly, not surprised.

In recent weeks, I have become increasingly aware of members within the vegan community casually using term “cunt” to refer to (and scold) non-vegans. I have seen it used in at least a dozen captions of pictures and comments on social media. Perhaps its most vigorous adherent is “vegan famous” YouTuber @Durianrider, who uses the term in his videos, which can get up to 65,000 views. The majority of the voices using this term have been straight white men.

Whenever I see the use of this word, I have responded by commenting my gut reaction. I explain that using this term to urge others to become vegan is both harmful towards people who identify as female, and also harmful towards the movement’s health and validity. I write that for a movement based on compassion for “all” animals, it is shocking to see what disregard there can be for the oppressions of human animals. I’ve also mentioned the recent article, “When is being vegan no longer about ethical living?” written by Ruby Hamad, in which she asserts:

Any vegan who thinks animal liberation can be achieved without addressing human oppression is kidding themselves.

And on one of the posts I wrote:

Yes, peace on Earth will be vegan – but it will also be a world free of racism, sexism, religious discrimination, ableism, ageism, etc.

The response to my comments? Backlash – immediate and alarming. I was told to “Shut the fuck up.” I was told I was being “too soft,” that I was the “#funpolice,” “too politically correct,” and to “go cry somewhere else.” The supporters of using this term tried to silence me, and even questioned whether or not I was actually a vegan. As if a vegan would never point out inconsistencies within a movement – especially if the victim was a human! Especially if the victim was a woman.

After receiving these hateful comments, I did some research. Was I, in fact, over-reacting? I did a quick survey of the women in my house, and found that they too would be offended if called a “cunt.” My mother practically blanched at the question, and replied:

As far as I’m concerned, that’s the ultimate insult to a woman. You just don’t say it.

I then looked online and found that, interestingly, in England and Australia, “cunt” is generally used much more casually than in the United States, carrying much less of a sexist, derogatory stigma. Ok. But does that matter? Are we to forget the very real historical and contemporary uses of this term that have been, and still are, used to violate, denigrate and belittle those who identify as female?

I most certainly do not have all the answers, but I do understand that this topic is complicated. For instance, as a woman myself, I could feel empowered to use this term as to “reclaim” it, as different communities have done with words that have been used marginalized and oppressed them. I am also by no means speaking for all women, as I understand some are not offended by this word. But we cannot forget about those who are offended by it. We cannot call for liberation with words that do not further the liberation of other identity groups.

Since all ethical vegans want the world to go vegan, we need to start tailoring our language to be as effective and inclusive as possible, to make our mission based on love, on loving. If vegans really want to change the world, we need to stop using ethical eating to diminish or ignore other very real systems of oppression. It is also crucial for us to have the understanding that the vegan movement is just one puzzle piece in the greater movement for social justice. True social justice cannot be reached until all forms of oppression have been eradicated, and many of these injustices are linked. When we realize his struggles are her struggles, are their struggles are my struggles, the unity and support of each movement can propel us further into a more peaceful and just world.

The complex, gendered, and charged connotations with the term “cunt” should by no means be a part of the vocabulary of a movement comprised of individuals who preach compassion for animals. Changing the hearts, minds, and behaviors of non-vegans is crucial, but that also means investigating and changing our vocabulary at times. Although disagreements and conflicts within movements can potentially hinder the overall progress, it is important to constantly check ourselves and each other’s activism to make sure we are being as effective and compassionate as possible. So yes, I will continue to speak up when vegans use harmful words like “cunt,” and if you agree, I urge you to as well.

Eve Wetlaufer is in her third year at New York University in the Gallatin Program, with an individualized major investigating the historical human orientation toward animals, spirituality, and the environment, with a minor in the Animal Studies Initiative. Eve also holds a certification in plant-based nutrition from the T. Colin Campbell Center for Nutrition Studies. She has worked at several animal rescues, most recently Catskill Animal Sanctuary, as an Outreach and Education intern. She is also the loving companion to a rescued hound named Chrissy.

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.

Fedoras for Animal Rights

Posted on January 2, 2016 by Vegan Feminist Network

Why fedoras? See bottom of essay.

Dear readers,

Are you tired of endless microaggressions and intentional ignorance disrupting your activism? Totally over the overt racism and sexism levied at you by privileged persons determined to ruin your day? Got a racial tension headache?

Annoyed at the time wasted every day bouncing off derailing comments when you could be advocating for social justice? Yuck. I know I am.

Of course, activists are well aware of the tough resistance inherent to social justice work. Social change is hard. People don’t want to give up their privilege.

But feminists are also aware of a particularly insidious aspect of this work: the frustration, stress, and energy expended in grappling with disingenuous persons who want nothing more than to cause us pain and to block social progress. You know, the doxxers, the cyber-stalkers, the “all lives matter” espousers, the “not all men” proclaimers, and the “reverse racism/sexism” wannabe philosophers. It’s the trolling, the mocking, and the jabs at underprivileged people made by privileged people. It’s the revelry in bigotry.

Certainly, we do not live in a post-racial/post-feminist world, and these attitudes and behaviors are still commonplace in our society. However, it is especially disheartening when they characterize social movements. It’s also especially crushing when it takes place online, where there is little recourse for those targeted. In fact, this kind of behavior especially flourishes in online spaces (male-created and male-dominated) where marginalized persons network and advocate at low cost (which is crucial for us, as poverty targets women and people of color).

Racism, sexism, ableism, ageism, and other oppressions that seem to proliferate and flourish online can leave activists feeling frustrated, sidetracked, and ineffective. And that’s the point. Countermovements and bigots are successful when they keep activists from doing their important work.

Just how to handle this conundrum has been heavily debated. Some advocate ignoring it, while others advocate spiritual recentering and understanding. Some prefer to tackle it head on by publicly shaming and outing abusers to demand accountability. Whatever works for you, it is still important to acknowledge that the negative impact that systemic oppression has on marginalized activists is real. It hurts.

It also hinders.

My wise friend Aph Ko once explained to me that we all know how to break things down and criticize what is wrong in the world, but we don’t seem to be as skilled in building things back up. We don’t nurture our imagination for reconstruction enough. Instead of incessantly focusing on the negative, how can we start to create the positive world we want to inhabit? Can we start to tune out the bad with stronger, clearer, more radiant messages of social justice and equality?

And so, my dear vegfems, this is my resolution to share with you. Every time someone with ill-intentions seeks to bring you down, slur you, scare you, silence you, try this:

Do something positive for Nonhuman Animal liberation (or Black liberation, or trans liberation, or women’s liberation, et cetera).
♥

Take the ugliness you have been served and use it to fuel your actions in the service of good.

Can you do that? Try it. It doesn’t have to be major. If someone tells you that Black Lives Matter is narcissistic, bring some food to a feral cat colony in your area. If someone calls you a cunt, send an email to a feminist friend and offer some support and tend to the friendship. Shamed for promoting anti-reformist approaches to animal rights? Go post some leaflets in your community. Received a microaggression on Facebook? Give your dog a nice brushing, or treat your cat to some playtime. You get the idea.

Take that negative energy and flip it. When life gives you fedoras, make social justice.

Keep putting the good out there. It won’t stop the hate, and it won’t stop the violence. But it can help you to cope in a constructive way, and it will move us closer to our goal of peace.

So let’s give it a go, okay?

And let us know how it turned out! Please stop by Vegan Feminist Network on Facebook and share your stories, or email them to us! Check out WhyVeganism.com for more ideas.

In love and solidarity,
Vegan Feminist Network

Why Fedoras? In modern feminist spaces, fedoras have come to symbolize fraudulent “Men’s Rights Activism,” or feminist countermovement activity.

“My Dog gets Hit on More than Me:” The Objectification of Female Human and Nonhuman Bodies

Posted on December 14, 2015 by Vegan Feminist Network

Content Warning: Contains uncomfortable discussion of sexual harassment of girls, women, and dogs.

Melly getting ready for a winter walk.

It was a muggy, July mid-afternoon the first time a man hit on Melly, my Pitbull mix.

We strolled up Carteret Street towards the local park. Wiping off sweat beads from my forehead, I soaked in the scenery. The rows of houses’ shutters knitted together, blocking out the oppressive sun rays. The yellow paint seemed to melt off the street pavement. It was quiet, save for the faint buzz of air conditioning units and the hiss of mosquitos. Melly, already panting, sniffed half-heartedly at a tree.

“Sorry, Mel,” I rubbed her white-and-brindle spotted head, “I know it’s hot.”

At twenty-one-years-old, I deftly calculated our walking routes down to a fine science. I was my family’s designated dog walker since we adopted our first dog, Cody. Nine years of dog walking taught me the art of avoiding sexual harassment. I learned Jaguars owners were just as likely as unnamed Junker cars drivers to ogle out their window. Walking with earbuds in, even if music wasn’t playing, lowered the honking rating; harassers won’t bother if they don’t have an audience. It’s important to balance out the amount of naked skin: wear shorts with t-shirt or capris with a tank-top. Never wear a tank top with shorts.

I checked my watch. It was 3pm. If I stuck to the residential Carteret, Midland, and turn around at Walnut Street, I could still wear my cool summer dress without being harassed. But, I needed to move quickly on Midland; despite being buried in the suburban thicket, there were still plenty of cars zipping up and down.

Chills always ran down my spine whenever I turned onto Midland. I was twelve, walking down this road, the first time a car followed me.

At first, I did not notice the reptilian green pick-up truck crawling next to me. I wore my earbuds and I was looking down at my dog at the time, Cody. Suddenly, the hairs on the back of my neck prickled. I jerked my head to my left and found a middle-age man sitting in driver’s seat. Small framed sunglasses covered his eyes. His features were solemn as he peered out the window towards me.

I froze, unsure what to do. A million questions raced through my head: what do I do? Why did he stop? Is he lost?

“Can I help you?” I asked.

He didn’t answer. The truck continued to slide forward. The man moved his head, never looking away from me. Suddenly, the driver slammed on the gas pedal and screeched around the corner.

I shrugged and brushed off the incident; it was a fluke. Maybe he was looking at the house behind me. Maybe I had something in my teeth. Cody and I walked further down the road. He stopped and sniffed a pile of newspapers.

As I tapped my foot, a low rumble of a car came towards us. Brakes screeched to a halt.

Looking up slowly, I came face to face again with the green pick-up truck. This time, the man pulled over to curb and lowered his sunglasses. His blond moustache sneered. Mud eyes scavenged my pre-pubescent body. It felt like his pupils slipped underneath my flat t-shirt and unbuttoned the top of jean shorts. When he met my eyes, the man bit his lip, winked at me, and sped off before I could even scream.

That night, I scrubbed every inch of my body till I glowed crimson. And yet, I still couldn’t get feeling of shame off of my skin.

My mom teared up when I told her about the incident. She gripped me to her chest and whispered, “I’m so sorry, honey. I didn’t think it would happen so soon.” Mom then passed down to me my womanly inheritance: catcalling coping mechanisms, eye avoidance tactics, and developing thick skin techniques.

When I tried telling it to my girlfriends, they sighed.

“I mean yeah, it’s creepy, but I mean it’s kind of flattering, too,” they insisted.

So when the clunker Honda Sedan slowed down next to me and Melly, I had a thousand years’ worth of knowledge. Eyes to the ground, I jerked her leash with one hand, and flatten the back of my white dress with the other. Melly scoffed. She dug her paws in the ground. At 65 pounds of pure muscle, she was not going anywhere; she was going to sniff that tuft of grass whether I liked it, or not.

“Melly, walk walk,” I snapped. The Sedan pulled over to the curb across from me and Melly, sputtering to a stop. Its tawny body clashed with the electric green driver’s door. The back side passenger’s side window was covered in duct tape and cardboard.

I cursed to myself for not bringing any treats.

“Melly, let’s go,” I urged, clicking my tongue. A single brown ear shot up, but she didn’t move from sniffing the grass.

“Hey,” a man’s voice called out to me. Gulping, I looked up.

The driver leaned against the mismatched door. He was young thirty, with a shimmery bronze skin, black hair, and black eyes. He wore a muscle-tee, jeans, with two black sweatbands around his wrist, and a black bandanna.

“I was wondering—” he began.

I gulped and took a step behind Melly. Her head was towards the street and her hindquarters to me. I nudged her back leg, trying to get her to look up. Melly was a very loving dog; however, she was fiercely protective. If the man could just get a glimpse of her jaws, may he would leave me alone.

“—is that a girl?” he asked.

I blinked, “What?”

The man motioned to Melly, “Is it a girl?”

Stunned, I nodded, “Yes, she’s a girl.”

He crouched on the other side of the street, inspecting her like a car needing a tune-up. Melly kept one eye on him while chomping on grass. The hairs between her shoulders stood-up ever so slightly.

I scrunched my forehead. There was something familiar about his expression.

“She’s a real beauty,” he said.

“I know.”

He sat on his heels and looked up at me.

“Can I breed it with my dog?” he asked.

My jaw dropped, “You want to do what with her?”

“Breed it,” he repeated, “I’ve been searching for a girl with that same brindle and white color. Wait, does she have that diamond spot on the top of her head. Man, that’s perfect!” he said.

I could have told him that Melly was found on the streets, abandoned by her previous owner. She was twenty-three pounds and sickly when my family adopted her. After she started to gain some weight, her stomach bulged out. The vet found her uterus sloshing with retained fluid after an ultrasound. When the vet spayed her, he found her uterus corroded with disease. The vet reasoned it was probably because she was breed too early, compounded by neglect.

I settled on, “She’s fixed.”

The man scowled, “What the hell did you do that for?”

Suddenly, it dawned on me. He was inspecting my dog the same way the man in the pick-up truck inspected at me. It was a certain configuration: the narrowed brows, dilated pupils, taunt mouths. It wasn’t about lust, but about ownership. Melly and I did not exist. To them, she was only good for her fur, diamond spot, and uterus. I was only good for my legs.

Anger burned the back of my throat. I was tired of putting up with the stares, catcalling, and honking. I was tired of adjusting my route and my body to prevent others from objectifying me. Melly’s past owners, the drivers in the green truck, and the man standing before me did not care that Melly and I snore, enjoyed napping, or loved peanut butter. They only cared how well we pranced.

I wanted to say, “Because people like you force puppies like her to get pregnant, pop out more puppies, and then just leave her to die.”

Instead, I gripped the leash, and said, “She was sick.”

He clucked his tongue, “Too bad.”

The man got back in his deprecated car, winked at Melly, and sped off.

Staring after his car, I broke out in hysterical laughter. I fell to the sidewalk and doubled over, tears springing to my eyes. Melly nudged my face with her wet, brown nose and licked my cheek.

“How about that, Melle-Belle,” I held her downy face between my palms, “you get hit on more often than I do.”

“You should be flattered,” I said. The sarcasm tasted bitter on my tongue.

Sarah McGrail is currently a senior at Monmouth University. She is majoring in English with a concentration in Creative Writing and a minor in Sociology. Her poems, “A Ten Minute Love Story,” “Blind Reflection,” and “Victoria Tube Station Food Chain” were published in the literary magazine, The Monmouth Review in Spring 2015 and in the upcoming issue Spring 2016. She was awarded the 2015 Monmouth University English Departmental Creative Writing Award for her nonfiction essay, The Martian. She is currently a research assistant for Monmouth University’s director of Sociology and Gender Studies program, Dr. Johanna Foster.

The Sexual Politics of Breast Milk in the Amazon

Posted on December 7, 2015 by Vegan Feminist Network

Content warning: Contains images of victimized Nonhuman Animals.
Not Safe for Work: Contains images of people unclothed.

Image credits: Domenico Pugliese | Image was not altered by VFN

In a story with Bored Panda, a photographer’s account of an indigenous tribe in the Amazon highlights the practice of breastfeeding nonhuman species. The above image is used to bait readers into clicking and visiting the site, suggesting that the practice is considered shocking and strange.

From a vegan feminist perspective, this “click bait” is intriguing.

Why stigmatize when humans breastfeed other animals? It erodes that hierarchy of power and dominance–it reminds us that we are all animals.

Sq A cow being milked by machine uirrels aren’t the only opportunists. Many humans consume enormous quantities of nonhuman breast milk. Importantly, it is mechanically collected. Why is it stigmatized to drink directly from the breast of other animals? Again, it reminds us that we are animals. Separation also helps to commodify and objectify the persons exploited in the process. This is necessary because intimacy and empathy disrupt oppression.

It should also be noted that breastfeeding in general is rather stigmatized in the “developed” world. Again, this likely has to do with breast feeding reminding us that we are animals, too. Of course, it also uses a sexualized body part for something other than male pleasure, a cardinal sin in the patriarchy.

As shocking as these images may be to some readers, humans breast feeding other animals is not new or unheard of. It is, however, rarely visible in patriarchal, elite-run media spaces and historical accounts.

Image credits: Domenico Pugliese

What is also interesting from this story is that the Bored Panda story fails to include any images from the collection that depict animals in various states of death, decay, and butchery. This gruesome theme featured prominently in the original photographer’s gallery.

But nonhuman suffering does not fit into the journalist’s one-with-nature paradise narrative. Consider the images below, for instance. Bored Panda chose to share the image of a man kissing a monkey, but did not include the image of the monkey broiling for dinner.

The photographer is quoted:

They feed the squirrels and monkeys like they feed their kids, breast feeding. [ . . . ] It highlights how far we have come from where we were. [ . . . ] They are so close to nature. [ . . . ] In fact, it is not even close – they are part of nature.

Indeed, indigenous communities are frequently subject to this romanticization, a process that is objectifying in itself. Inaccurate and infantilizing, these stories make good entertainment for the perceived white audience in the West.

Image credits: Domenico Pugliese

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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