Pairing Veganism with Sanctified Inequality

Posted on by

By Marv Wheale

Is religious veganism a truth-informed disposition?

Vegans of theological persuasion feel that the speciesism of their faith traditions can be uprooted by educating nonvegan members about veganism and by appealing to spiritual teachings on compassion and mercy. A common assertion of these vegans is that religious institutions have corrupted the scriptures on which those organizations were originally based. The founding sacred testaments are said to be undefiled, divinely inspired, and hold potential for veganizing.

A thorough look into these ancient literary works however muddies the affirmation. They reveal that god created a social ladder of being. God, the supreme being at the top delegates authority to men (especially the prophets) to be the main spokespersons for divinity. Unequal male ranks of power run the world and are to provide for women. Women’s assigned gender roles tend to be nurturing, childcare, eldercare and meal preparation. Animals are placed at the bottom of the grand design serving human purposes.

The overall hierarchy is both gracious and punitive. Kindness, mercy, gentleness, patience, and sacrificial love are commanded by god in the pyramid structure. If the commandments are breached then punishment is to be enacted unless there is repentance. If so, forgiveness and reconciliation are bestowed.

Humans are appointed as stewards and caretakers of animals, a paternalistic relationship that places animals as dependent and vulnerable rather than equal to humans. Eating animals and their byproducts is deemed moral though they are not to be mistreated while alive. Abstaining from animal flesh is prescribed sometimes but is considered an act of spiritual purification not a deed of animal justice.

In fact, the ethics of care ideology in the words of god is an altruistic and violent message, including its benevolent sexism and classism. Class divisions, slavery, gender role designations, monarchies (divine right of kings) feudalism and other stratifications are all sanctioned; albeit self-sacrificing virtue and reprieve are demanded from all unequal sides.

The centrality of care and compassion diverts attention away from the injustice of inequitable power structures the very cause of the cruel behavior in the first place. Inequality is intrinsically unjust and leads to various types of humiliation and harm.

Furthermore, the god of scriptures wants to be worshipped and praised. No matter how empathic and forgiving this entity claims to be, the expectation of veneration is egotistical and petty. This god is vindictive when people reject god’s authority, love and morality; this seems a lot like men who control and commit violence against women when they are disobedient, followed by acts of affection. The analogy makes sense given that men wrote down the pronouncements of god.

Believing in an omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent god who wants to be adored and loved also infantilizes us. It holds us back from pursuing mature collective equality among ourselves and towards other animals.

To fully critique the hierarchies of god/s we have to question the very existence of the supernatural. There is no scientific proof of nonmaterial life. Religious belief is based on a “felt presence” beyond material observation. Faith in an intangible being is irrational.

The construction of god was a divergent process different groups of men developed over time. Their quest was to transcend bodily limitations, suffering and death. Eternal salvation was determined to happen through communion with the wonders of nature, with the creator, savior and lord of all, to reach a oneness of consciousness – building immortal castles in the sky.

One can not separate the invention of god from its contextual times – male-dominant cultures and institutions. God was conceived by them as the cornerstone of other hierarchies, among them, human-animal supremacy. It would be denying reality to give a historical account of nonhuman animal subservience without admitting the role of supposed divine revelation in scrolls and books.*

To associate veganism with faith teachings is to discredit veganism as something compatible with patriarchal mythology. This trivializes veganism as belonging to magical beliefs like ghosts, angels, fairies, santa claus, easter bunny…

Veganism is a political movement for animal and human-animal liberation. It is based on scientific methodology, reason and empathy, contradicting the illusions of religion.**

Spiritual vegans have to grapple with faith identities that don’t strive to abolish structural inequality in this world.

*I have intentionally avoided quoting scriptures as it would lend itself to an overly selective reading of these voluminous documents in such a short review. I have chosen to summarize the literature as a whole instead. If readers think this is unfair or insufficiently nuanced I invite them to study the testaments themselves to see if social stratification, love and violence commingle in the framed nature of god.

**Social scientists and other scientists who assert that the god of scriptures is real are betraying the observable evidence they are trained to study, thereby exhibiting an anti-science position.

Roe v. Wade and Your Milk & Eggs

Posted on by

In a world where billions of female animals’ bodies and reproductive systems are owned, controlled, and exploited by men, the dismantling of Roe v Wade in the so-called “land of the free” sadly makes too much sense.

Animal studies scholars have pointed to the emergence of domestication (the biological, physical and psychological control over animals to manage and exploit their reproduction) as a major turning point in human history whereby women’s social status, alongside that of other animals, plummeted. Women, too, were subject to “husbandry” to manage their reproduction for men’s aims.

In the United States, this is buttressed by a patriarchal religious institution and a patriarchal legal system that both normalize and enforce subservience to (human) male rule. Women and other animals alike are to be sacrificed and suppressed under men’s “stewardship.”

In this anthroparchal society within which the controlling and exploiting of animals is normalized, women will never be free. Feminists and their allies who will be sitting down to breakfast with milk and eggs in the morning might consider the systemic violence happening with other reproductive systems and what this means for us all.

Corey Lee Wrenn

Dr. Wrenn is Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Kent. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology with Colorado State University in 2016. 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 is the co-founder of the International Association of Vegan Sociologists. She serves as Book Review Editor to Society & Animals and is a member of the Research Advisory Council of The Vegan Society. She has contributed to the Human-Animal Studies Images and Cinema blogs for the Animals and Society Institute and has been published in several peer-reviewed academic journals including the Journal of Gender Studies, Environmental Values, 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), Piecemeal Protest: Animal Rights in the Age of Nonprofits (University of Michigan Press 2019), and Animals in Irish Society: Interspecies Oppression and Vegan Liberation in Britain’s First Colony (State University of New York Press 2021).

Receive research updates straight to your inbox by subscribing to my newsletter.

Frivolous Femininity and Plant-based Eating

Posted on by

 

In my research on the phenomenon of sexualized veganism, I have noted that veganism poses a threat to anthroparchal power in a speciesist society and is thus vulnerable to sexist repressive efforts. Despite decades of stigmatization and discrimination, veganism has nevertheless persisted. Some of this persistence is a result of capitalism’s co-optation of veganism. Capitalism has effectively transformed a social justice movement into lifestyle consumerism. Emphasizing the gender politics of plant-based products helps ease a radical resistance movement into the marketplace. Sexualized vegan advertising, in particular, effectively pulls on gender stereotypes, sex, and careless consumption to sell a disempowered, consumer-friendly “veganism.”

Consider the American chain restaurant Red Robin. In an advertisement for its large variety of burgers, it makes special mention of its newly available Garden Burger. Speciesist industries will often greenwash their branding in order to avoid critique of other, less sustainable products on offer. Adding a token vegan item, however, is also important for ensuring that one dissenting consumer will not prevent a larger group of speciesist consumers (i.e. their family or friends) from choosing that brand. Companies are thus in the tricky position of needing to accommodate vegans without repelling speciesists. 

Sex depoliticizes. Red Robin’s ad, for instance, specifically draws attention to its veggie burger as appropriate for teenage girls in the family who may be “going through a phase.” Sexualizing vegan food in this way–by 1) noting the presumed gender of the consumer, 2) disparaging her activism as “a phase,” and 3) phrasing this disparagement as “just a phase” to align it with the similarly disparaged LGBTQ+ community–helps to promote it as an option while protecting the anthroparchal status quo. 

By way of another example, American fast-food chain Subway promoted its largely “meat”-based mix-and-match lunch deal as an offer that has “something for everyone.” The ‘Veggie Delite’ sandwich is paired with a white woman stereotyped as a hippie love child. Like the Red Robin commercial, Subway reinforces the sexist notion that healthy and ethical consumption is associated with the feminine gender role. More than this, the trope of the silly, free-spirited, “meat”-free white woman that Subway applies reinforces the idea that veganism is a lifestyle choice frivolously based on one’s current mood or appetite; as changing and unserious as women are presumed to be. Veganism presented as a care-free, fun lifestyle choice disassociates it from the serious (and more masculized) realm of politics where veganism threatens the very status quo that enriches Red Robin, Subway, and other violent companies.

 

 

Corey Lee Wrenn

Dr. Wrenn is Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Kent. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology with Colorado State University in 2016. 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 is the co-founder of the International Association of Vegan Sociologists. She serves as Book Review Editor to Society & Animals and is a member of the Research Advisory Council of The Vegan Society. She has contributed to the Human-Animal Studies Images and Cinema blogs for the Animals and Society Institute and has been published in several peer-reviewed academic journals including the Journal of Gender Studies, Environmental Values, 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), Piecemeal Protest: Animal Rights in the Age of Nonprofits (University of Michigan Press 2019), and Animals in Irish Society: Interspecies Oppression and Vegan Liberation in Britain’s First Colony (State University of New York Press 2021).

Receive research updates straight to your inbox by subscribing to my newsletter.

Really Knowing and Interfering in Reality

Posted on by

Marv Wheale

Species are socially composed by human animals into a vertical chain of worth.  Species, gender, class, race, ability, size and age structures of nations are material extensions of patriarchal logic.  Vegan Feminism is the way onward and upward.

Assigned “edible animals” have a unique type of non-status in the species pyramid of patriarchy that is obscured by generic terms like speciesism and human supremacy.  These animals share no allowable claims to personhood and space; they are treated as a horde not as individuals; most of the places they inhabit are unlivable.

Another feature of consumable animals is that they are a mainstay of “men” made structures across time and location.  Whichever human animal society you study, – tribal, spiritual, religious, monarchical, feudal, nation state, capitalist, etc – has been built on the use of these animals and their secretions.

Capitalism, for instance, is dependent on food designated animals to achieve and reproduce itself.  Inducting them is not simply adding another product to the economic system.  Eating flesh (and plants) fuels both capital and labor to carry out their unequal power roles.  Huge profits are made by businessmen in the purchase and sale of bodies, dismembered parts, human labor, land, buildings, machinery, insurance, feed grains, fertilizers, water systems, fossil fuels, electrical power, transport, veterinarian skills, pharmaceuticals, human healthcare (to deal with the symptoms of eating other animals) and funeral industry services. The wealth gained is spent in part to boost more growth in buying and selling death, contributing to the expansion of the whole economy. 

Some theorists think capital is structurally indifferent to edibly purposed animals in the process of production and reproduction.  The hypothesis maintains that capitalism has no innate requirement for animals but merely makes use of them as opportunistic instruments to create another market for profits.  If there was no significant demand for animals in the future due to growing consumer awareness of animal suffering and of impacts on the biosphere, the system would move on to capture more lucrative ventures.

Historically however, in lived practice, “extra-economic” inequalities have always been part of the inner workings of capitalism and key to its dominating and alienating success.  Animal and human animal subjugation is a legacy from pre-capitalist times, a social inheritance baked into capitalism’s nature.  The economic model evolves past oppressive ties in varied ways to suit its own drive for accumulation.

The capitalist productivist mode could not endure without the nation state to regulate it.  Unrestricted market relations would end in a destructive free for all in an economically lawless world.  

In relation to consumable animals, state entities mediate the production and reproduction of such animals for capitalists.  Welfare state provisions/subsidies keep the system hardy, along with cruelty prevention laws (extolled by animal advocacy nonprofits), to ensure animals remain captive to capital use and keep the public content. 

What might we learn about social transfiguration when we start with the premise that eating animals is a keystone to the existence of capitalism, nation-building and male dominance not merely a correlation?  Could it be the adoption of Vegan Feminism, the commitment to veganism and to solidarity with anti-patriarchal-capitalist-racist organizations?

Nonhuman animal welfare fixtures and their fixations have omitted this assessment altogether.  They have dominated public policy shaping for nonhuman animal exploitation redress, without reference to the interconnections between patriarchal capitalism and the consumption of other animals.  Their short-sighted step-by-step proposals to the government and industry are otherwise known as incrementalism and siloing. Championing veganism and human equality coalitions in unison, as the solutions to animal and human animal oppression, go against the establishment’s standard practice of fundraising, publication, and lobbying to reduce harm.  What becomes of redress when mediocrity and decontextualizing injustice are the plan for change?

A Vegan Feminist paradigm recognizes eaten animals’ full structural position in the world through authentic ways of seeing, knowing and interceding.

*The revelations of this piece are not original to me

We All Want To Be Free: Disability, Veganism, Oppression & Trauma

Posted on by

By Michele K

In my experience when you’re disabled (and proud #represent ) but require home health care services, it seems like you can’t go 6 months without having to fight against cuts in funding, Which means, that every damn year, we are fighting against attacks (from democrats and republicans) on our literal freedom. Do you know what it’s like to fight to not be forced from your home and into nursing homes & institutions? It’s exhausting, it’s terrifying and it’s normalized. As of early April 2022, I have been signal boosting  #FairPay4Home Care, which works to solve the home health care worker shortage crisis by ensuring a fair wage (not poverty wage) for HHC workers, More workers in the HHC industry, less disabled and/or seniors forced from our homes. Our struggles are connected.

Getting involved in the movement has been simultaneously fulfilling as I am currently mostly bedbound (though working on getting stronger) and sometimes feel isolated from the world, so it has been nice to feel a part of something bigger than myself and my friends. But at times it was also triggering (in the actual psychological sense of the word, not as in a synonym for merely bothered as it’s often misused). No one deserves to be forced from their homes against their will and into institutions, where daily life is a dehumanizing assembly line. And that’s just when we’re not in a pandemic. When we are, such places can be a literal death trap and nightmare.

An experience, I unfortunately know all to well, as I spent several months in three different nursing homes from October 2021 to January 2022. Not only was I malnourished, not only did I at times experience abuse and neglect, but as I mentioned in the previous article which was somewhat controversial,  I (like many of those stuck in institutions) was not able to remain vegan.

And because at that point, I had already lost far too much weight as it was in these various hospitals and institutions, I had little choice but to consume animals like chicken and fish. And at first, it broke my heart more than I can say, but like many toxic experiences that occurred during that time, my way of getting through things was to shut down as I was essentially in survival mode. And it got to the point where I was so closed off emotionally, that after a month, I ate chickens and fish without much of a thought. To be clear I didn’t take pleasure in it. I didn’t take pleasure in much during that time. It was eat or starve – so I ate. But I never felt good about it. I just shut down from those feelings of sadness, the knowledge that I am eating a fellow being. Nope not a being. Just food.

When I got out of the nursing home, my health was not stabilized. In fact, it was worse. I had actually gotten covid while I was there because at first there was one case, then there was a whole floor of covid, and then it was on three floors of covid (including the floor I was on). And still, the owners of the nursing home kept accepting new people even though the staff was already overwhelmed and burnt out and could not keep up with the numbers that we had. In many cases, sometimes on a daily basis, the staff punched down. I remember being so dehydrated at one point that I collapsed on the floor, only to be yelled at because they didn’t have time for “these games”. It was not a game. So when I came home I was not only messed up physically but also mentally. I had experienced trauma and had a lot of healing to do. Anyone who knows that the path to healing from trauma is not an easy one because you have to remember, feel, process and grieve –  and I had gone to great lengths to avoid such things, I still get flashbacks and it remains one of the hardest things I have ever had to get through.

That said, one of the many good things about being home (besides being in a safer environment) was that I was able to eat whatever I wanted – within the realm of my allergies and dietary intolerances. At first I was concerned that going back to vegan “too quickly” might be too much of a shock for my body which was already pretty messed up at this point in time. In addition, one doctor had told me that eating soy might exasperate my thyroid issues, and so part of me felt scared about returning to tofu. I was also experiencing these really strong cravings for salmon that I initially didn’t understand. What if I can’t be vegan for medical reasons and if I stop eating fish I’ll get even worse? I realize now this thinking was partially rooted in trauma. With trauma responses, you experience really intense depression and intense anxiety, so making changes (even good ones) can feel incredibly overwhelming. But at one point in my recovery, as I started to heal, I reconnected to the realization that the salmon I was eating was not just “food” but this was a being, this was a life that was not mine to take. And when I reconnected to that, I cried. Like me, this was a life that deserved freedom and safety. But furthermore, I realized I don’t need to eat the fish anymore. I am no longer in survival mode. I am safe now and I can let it go. So, I looked for other sources of Omega 3 (hemp hearts and jackfruit according to the internet) and it felt safe to make the change.

Just as it was important for me to honor the life of the fish, it was also important for me to honor my feelings on the matter and what was needed to feel safe. Instead of just trying to ignore the feelings or even chastise myself for having them in the first place. My heart is vegan, why am I craving salmon?! I honored those feelings and looked at why I was having the craving in the first place. Turns out as my body was quite malnourished from my time in the various institutions, I needed more calories, more iron, omega 3, and protein than what I was eating as my body needed to heal. Once I ate more of what was needed, the cravings went away. It was never that I wanted salmon per se, but rather that my body just wanted the nutrients that salmon had.

Last week was the first week since I’ve been home that I was fully vegan.  I am feeling better physically (as my body tends to feel better when I eat a fairly whole foods vegan diet, It has a hard time absorbing nutrients from animals, so I tend to do better plant-based.) I am also feeling better emotionally. I am still healing from the trauma which is a work in progress. I’ve been having an increase in flashbacks since becoming more involved in #FairPay4HomeCare but I try to do something in the morning and then leave it alone for the rest of the day in the name of self-care, and honor the feelings in between. But I am also getting involved with activism again, starting to create again, listening to music more and reconnecting to my passions, and living accordingly to what I feel in my heart – which includes veganism. And this is key – to know how to feed my soul, and nourish my body, especially as I continue to heal and fight with my people to remain in our homes. For, in the end, we all just want to be free.

Esther the wonder pig is half sitting on her bed and half on the floor. She is smiling and hanging out with her best friend Phil the dog.

This essay originally appeared on Rebelwheels’ Soapbox in 2022.

me in wheelchairMichele 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.

The “No-Means-Yes” Rape Trope in PETA Pornography

Posted on by

Too often in the Nonhuman Animal rights movement sexist scripts are used to push messages of animal liberation. While utilizing the naked female form as a stand-in for other animals is a common tactic, there is a growing trend among some organizations to pull on more insidious themes in pornography to resonate with a sex-saturated society.

Consider the “I’d Rather Go Naked Than” ad campaign featuring Alexandra Burke. The advertisement itself is rather standard for PETA, but the promotional language is rather disturbing:

“I was nervous about posing nude as I’ve never done it before,” she said. “It was uncomfortable initially, but the photographer made me feel relaxed and at ease. Ultimately I love my body, so it was great to do something for such a worthwhile cause.”

As pornography becomes more normal in the public sphere, the scripts that used to tantalize are now tolerated. Producers have responded with increasingly shocking material. In the case of PETA, the “I’d Rather Go Naked Than” campaign that launched in the 1990s was initially quite shocking. However, naked women are now ubiquitous even in mainstream media. There is likely pressure to keep these campaigns relevant with more extreme and fetishistic framing.

In Burke’s case, the trope of the reluctant, innocent woman whose inner slut is waiting to emerge has been applied by PETA campaigners. This is not at all to slut-shame, but it is clear that the campaign’s language aligns with perhaps the most popular sexual script in pornography. It is found in the most viewed genres centering women and girls who are described as virgins, teens, or “barely legal.” Although she is clearly uninterested in a sexual exchange, she is persuaded to do so, and, after the act is complete, she indicates that she actually enjoyed participating.

This is a classic “no-means-yes” or “no-means-persuade me” myth that predators use to rationalize violence against women and pornographers use to shock consumers who have built up a tolerance. In both pornography and PETA campaigning, even if a man is not physically present in the scene, the power of the pornographer, media producer, and (patriarchal, male-owned) media, in general, is apparent in the ability to make the woman behave against her will.

Traditional gender norms teach us that women and girls are supposed to play “hard to get” and be innocent, pure, and unwilling.  It is this unwillingness that is eroticized. Rape and sexual domination are exercises in power.

PETA emulates this common pornography trope to titillate, but this tactic comes at the expense of women’s dignity. Furthermore, it risks aggravating rape myths that endanger us all. If the Nonhuman Animal rights movement actively contributes to a culture of domination and violence, it is unclear how this will be effective for animal liberation.

Corey Lee Wrenn

Dr. Wrenn is Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Kent. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology with Colorado State University in 2016. 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 is the co-founder of the International Association of Vegan Sociologists. She serves as Book Review Editor to Society & Animals and is a member of the Research Advisory Council of The Vegan Society. She has contributed to the Human-Animal Studies Images and Cinema blogs for the Animals and Society Institute and has been published in several peer-reviewed academic journals including the Journal of Gender Studies, Environmental Values, 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), Piecemeal Protest: Animal Rights in the Age of Nonprofits (University of Michigan Press 2019), and Animals in Irish Society: Interspecies Oppression and Vegan Liberation in Britain’s First Colony (State University of New York Press 2021).

Receive research updates straight to your inbox by subscribing to my newsletter.