Frances Power Cobbe: Unapologetically Feminist, Disabled, Fat, Gay, and Antivivisectionist

There were many feminists of the Victorian era who tackled the horrors of vivisection, but perhaps none was so outspoken as Frances Power Cobbe. Born of landed gentry in Ireland, she was well educated, philosophically minded, motivated by morality, dedicated to reform, and a prolific speaker and writer. She was also unapologetically fat, more or less openly gay, and grappled with disability most of her life. Cobbe loved to eat, she loved a laugh, and she loved a good fight. Louisa May Alcott, upon meeting her, was taken aback by her presence, and pleased to find such a powerful advocate for justice who also happened to thwart the old maid stereotype that befell single women such as themselves.

Cobbe had been for some years heavily involved in anti-poverty efforts, religious and educational reform, and feminism, but the assault on Nonhuman Animals in vivisection laboratories and medical theaters would come to define her career. For her, there was a clear link observed between the ideological and material treatment of Nonhuman Animals and other marginalized groups. For instance, the heavy use of vivisection in medical training, she believed, was socializing a culture of cruelty in doctors. She and her colleagues saw the inhumane treatment of women (who were often made doubly vulnerable by poverty) as not dissimilar to that faced by other animals. Even the same disciplinary lexicon and utilitarian devices devised for vivisection would be reworked for medical treatments and experiments on women (Lansbury 1985). Cobbe was also aware that institutional prohibitions on women’s healing (midwives were outlawed by the 19th century and women were not allowed to attend medical school to become professional doctors) meant that patients were denied a kinder, more individualized approach to care. It was an intentional disarming of women to maintain their ignorance and dependence.

Vivisection, for Cobbe, was the exemplar for human immorality in a modernizing society; it was the bedrock for many social ills. Many tried to convince her that she was making much of nothing, that vivisection was rarely practiced and, for that matter, mostly harmless. Cobbe would have none of it, barrelling forward and drawing heavily on her scholarly training, gift for debate, and vast social connections to launch a campaign that she would fight until the end of her life. Kramer (1992-1993) credits her for organizing the first protest against vivisection, in fact. In 1863, she collected the signatures of 800 persons who insisted that exiled German physiologist Moritz Schiff cease his torturous experiments, leading to the formation of the Florentine Society for the Protection of Animals. Campaigners were particularly disturbed by the prolongation of violence against other animals in wholly unnecessary experiments conducted by scientists who dissected and mangled Nonhuman Animals without pain relief for purposes of curiosity and career advancement.

Back in Britain, Cobbe appealed to the RSPCA to intervene on the growing industry, quite unsuccessfully as the RSPCA was not wholly against speciesist scientific practices given its own class bias. Cobbe pushed ahead, gathering support where she could. Illustrations she collected from her research in medical journals were reproduced in a variety of campaigning materials, including color posters mounted in cities and railway stations across London and wider Britain. She had even hoped to include morally shocking images in a magic lantern show intended for family audiences (though, after much debate with her colleagues on the efficacy of such a tactic, was likely persuaded against it) (Williamson 2005).

Bolstered by the sympathies of Queen Victoria, Cobbe began to push for legislative regulation of the practice. With the encouragement of her colleagues, she formed the Victoria Street Society, what would become the National Anti-Vivisection Society (NAVS). This effort culminated in the passing of a parliamentary bill in 1875, but the considerable compromises necessary to move it forward manifested the 1876 Cruelty to Animals Act which effectively legitimated the practice and encouraged its rapid growth. Cobbe, a pragmatist, had been committed to restricting, rather than abolishing abolition. Considerable persuasion from her fellow abolitionists eventually moved her to adopt abolition herself, necessitating that she form a new organization, the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV).

The fight continued for the rest of her life. Indeed, it continues to this day. Cobbe, at the time living with her longtime partner, Welsh artist Mary Lloyd, died at the age of 81, leaving quite the legacy. Both NAVS and BUAV are still in operation today, and vivisection, while still well entrenched in scientific and pharmaceutical research, is declining in other industries, such as cosmetics, largely due to consumer pressure like that initiated by Cobbe almost 200 years ago. Technological advancements have created a number of ethical, more scientifically accurate alternatives to vivisection, furthermore, suggesting the possibility of a future cessation.

Cobbe’s legacy, however, is a complicated one. She was against “hunting and rejected the popular millinery fashion of wearing birds’ plumage, but she was not a vegetarian. Being both an advocate for women and an epicure (she claimed to have attended more than 2,000 dinner parties), she thought “meat” a necessity for good living, a necessity that was wrongly discouraged of girls and women. She was also known to be quite the bully, harassing colleague (and vegetarian) Anna Kingsford to the point of causing Kingsford ill health and necessitating her husband intervene with threats of litigation.

Cobbe was a stereotypical upper class Victorian whose wealth and wellbeing were made possible from colonial exploitation (her own family owned land in rural Ireland where her father worked as Dublin’s High Sheriff). She had some rather disparaging attitudes toward the colonies as a result, as well as some rather conservative ideas about gender roles despite her own independent lifestyle. Although she certainly advocated a much less restrictive set of expectations for women (championing their access to education, medical training, martial separation, and child custody), she took issue with women in certain leadership positions. She stocked her Victoria Street Society with men, for instance, to improve its credibility, and viciously attacked Kingsford (a wife and mother) for not restricting her campaigning to the domestic sphere.

For all her complexities, Cobbe is part of a rich history of queer anti-speciesist advocacy that informs a robustly diverse vegan feminist movement today. She certainly was not perfect, but she was a true force of righteousness that championed all sorts of causes. She lived an intersectional life and she recognized the intersectionality that shaped social inequalities. Her fortitude in the face of considerable patriarchal institutional violence and intimidation is nothing short of awe-inspiring.


References

Kramer, M. 1992-1993. “Frances Power Cobbe: Anti-Vivisectionism in Victorian England.” Feminists for Animal Rights Newsletter 7 (1-2): 5-17.

Lansbury, C. 1985. The Old Brown Dog. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press.

Williamson, L. 2005. Power and Protest. London: Rivers Oram Press.


Corey Lee Wrenn

Dr. Wrenn is Senior 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), Animals in Irish Society: Interspecies Oppression and Vegan Liberation in Britain’s First Colony (State University of New York Press 2021), and Vegan Witchcraft: Contemporary Magical Practice and Multispecies Social Change (Routledge 2026).

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You Are What You Eat: Nonvegan Pigs and Intersectional Failure

“YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT” warns People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals in a billboard designed for the residents of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. While audiences are unlikely to go vegan from such an approach, it does exemplify the Nonhuman Animal rights movement’s propensity to draw on human discrimination to shame compliance.

A PETA blogger writes:

Vegans weigh an average of 18 percent less than meat-eaters, and they are less prone to heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. I’d call that a good reason for Louisianans to cry “wee, wee, wee” all the way to the produce aisle.

This essay will unpack the number of ways in which mean-spirited campaigns, especially those lacking an intersectional lens, can become terribly counterproductive.

Sizeism

In a society that stigmatizes fat and a movement that is resistant to acknowledging the intersecting nature of oppressions, it is tempting to utilize fat-shaming to impose veganism as the preferable alternative as PETA has done. There are a number of problems with this tactic, however. First, scientific evidence supports that fat-shaming does not work, and it has actually been deemed a health hazard by some scholars due to its ability to inflict psychological, physical, and occupational harm to fat persons. Second, it is logically inconsistent. Many vegans weigh less, but as much as one third of plant-based eaters do not.

Speciesism

Perhaps the most paradoxical aspect of PETA’s pig campaigning is that the advertisements bank on the stigmatization of pigs in order resonate with viewers. Pigs are no more gluttonous than any other mammal, except those who have been genetically altered by modern agricultural practices. These pigs often have insatiable appetites as they have been “bred” for rapid growth to increase their market weight. Even if pigs were naturally gluttonous, however, utilizing a stereotype about Nonhuman Animals to advance Nonhuman Animal interests is logically unsound.

Classism and Racism

Louisiana is marked by extreme poverty and has a high population of people of color still reeling from a legacy of institutionalized discrimination. Louisiana was of course a slave state prior to the 1860s, but slavery continues today through the new system of mass incarceration. Louisiana is the world’s prison capital, with one in 14 men of color behind bars.  Baton Rouge ranks #4 in concentrated poverty, and ranks second to last in regards to children born prematurely and living in poverty. It is also plagued with food deserts, complicated by a substandard public transit system.  In fact, as many as 100,000 Baton Rouge citizens live in a food desert.  It’s not a matter of simply eating healthier, it’s a matter of having access to healthier options in the first place.

Given that the city PETA targets in this campaign has such a high population of people of color and lower income persons, the choice to animalize residents is also problematic. Historically, animalizing people of color and poor persons has served as a means of maintaining white superiority and class privilege. Animalization justifies institutionalized discrimination. As long as society sees Nonhuman Animals as a point of comparison to denigrate, this tactic will likely repel potential vegans rather than attract them.

Ableism

Lastly, it should be considered that regardless of body type, the consumption of animal products is linked to a litany of life threatening diseases such as those identified in PETA’s advert. These diseases hurt and kill, and mocking them with the “This Little Piggie” nursery rhyme is inappropriate. Disability is not a condition to be shamed or trivialized, especially so given its tendency to target vulnerable communities.

While this campaign is particularly confused, it certainly is not an anomaly in anti-speciesist claimsmaking. Ads like these demonstrate a serious need for diversity in movement leadership, as well as research into the effectiveness of persuasion techniques. Most importantly, there is a fundamental need to acknowledge the intersectional nature of oppression. Vulnerable human groups need not be degraded in the promotion of veganism’s message of compassion. Indeed, the tactic and goal in this case are wholly unsuited to one another.

 


Corey Lee WrennDr. Wrenn is Lecturer of Sociology and past Director of Gender Studies (2016-2018) with Monmouth University. 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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Real Power

Closeup of one of PETA's Lettuce Ladies wearing a bar in public with a large "GO VEG!" button on her bra strap

Real power isn’t gained and wielded based on anyone else’s desire for your body or how you think you look today — that’s about as disposable as it gets, dictated by someone else’s preferences and whims and discarded just as quickly.

If the viral video you are viewing or the “empowering” messages you are reading are asking you to value your beauty and your body at the expense of your goodness, skills, gifts, etc., that message is keeping you stuck in a place of self-objectification.

– Beauty Redefined (Facebook post, April 9, 2015)

Read more at “Loving Your Body 101: The Three Questions of Positive Body Image

The Sexual Politics of Vegan Food

Cover for "Crazy Sexy Diet"

Carol Adams has written extensively on the sexual politics of meat, arguing that women and other animals are both sexualized and commodified to facilitate their consumption (both figuratively and literally) by those in power. One result has been the feminization of veganism and vegetarianism.  This has the effect of delegitimizing, devaluing, and defanging veganism as a social movement.

But I argue that this process works within the vegan movement as well, with an open embracing of veganism as inherently feminized and sexualized.  This works to undermine a movement (that is comprised mostly of women) and repackage it for a patriarchal society.  Instead of strong, political collective of women, we have yet another demographic of sexually available individual women who exist for male consumption.

Take a browse through vegan cookbooks on Amazon, and the theme of “sexy veganism” that emerges is unmistakable.

Cover for "Ms. Cupcake:  The Naughtiest Vegan Cakes in Town!" Pictures a piece of cake with a tiny woman in a bikini sitting on top

Ms. Cupcake: The Naughtiest Vegan Cakes in Town!

Cover for "Skinny Bitch: Ultimate Everyday Cookbook" Shows author posing with food dishes

Cover for "Skinny Bitch in Love:  A Novel"

Oftentimes, veganism is presented as a means of achieving idealized body types.  These books are mostly geared to a female audience, as society values women primarily as sexual resources for men and women have internalized these gender norms.  Many of these books bank on the power of thin privilege, sizism, and stereotypes about female competition for male attention to shame women into purchasing.

Cover for "Become a Sexy Vegan Beast:  The Guide to Vegan Bodybuilding, Vegan Nutrition, and Body Fat Loss" Shows woman in a sports bra and shorts with hands on her hips looking behind her

Cover for "Skinny Bitch Fitness:  Boot Camp"

Cover for "Eat Yourselve Sexy", Shows a topless woman with her arms up and behind her head, looking seductively at the camera

Eat Yourself Sexy

Cover for "Appetite for Reduction" A vegan weight loss book. Shows an illustrated woman in vintage style

To reach a male audience, authors have to draw on a notion of “authentic masculinity” to make a highly feminized concept palatable to a patriarchal society where all that is feminine is scorned.  Some have referred to this trend as “heganism.”  The idea is to protect male superiority by unnecessarily gendering veganism into veganism for girls and veganism for boys.  For the boys, we have to appeal to “real” manhood.

Thankfully Meat Is For Pussies (A How-to Guide for Dudes Who Want to Get Fit, Kick Ass and Take Names) appears to be out of print.

Cover for "Skinny Bastard:  A Kick-in-the-Ass for Real Men Who Want to Stop Being Fat and Start Getting Buff"

Skinny Bastard: A Kick-in-the-Ass for Real Men Who Want to Stop Being Fat and Start Getting Buff

Cover for "Eating Veggies Like a Man"

Cover for "Real Men Eat Tofu"

Then there is the popular tactic of turning women into consumable objects in the exact same way that meat industries do.  Animal rights groups recruit “lettuce ladies” or “cabbage chicks” dressed as vegetables to interact with the public.  PETA routinely has nude women pose in and among vegetables to convey the idea that women are sexy food.  Vegan pinup sites and strip joints also feed into this notion.  Essentially, it is the co-optation and erosion of a women’s movement.  Instead of empowering women on behalf of animals, these approaches disempower women on behalf of men.

Image shows two white, tan women back to back wearing lettuce bikinis and opening their mouths wide to insert veggie dogs. Woman facing camera is wearing a Playboy necklace.

Alyssa Milano dressed in vegetables. Reads: "Let Vegetarianism Grow on You."


Corey Lee WrennDr. 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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Vegan Body Shaming: Analyzing the Evidence

Trigger Warning: Fat-shaming.Vegan Body Image Shaming

After coding data for a publication on demographic representations in vegan media, I was utterly shocked to discover that nearly all analyzed subjects were undeniably skinny.  Over a twelve year span, the two magazines included in my study featured only a handful of subjects (mostly men) who were noticeably athletic, toned, or carrying “excess” body fat.  Only one female subject appeared to deviate from the thin norm, but she was also wearing baggy clothing, so it was unclear.

Vegan campaigns sometimes go beyond this otherwise indirect connection between veganism and weight loss and blatantly suggest that if you want to be “hot” and “fit,” you need to go vegan.  Freedman and Barnouin’s Skinny Bitch is a prime example, as is PETA’s “Save the Whales” billboard campaign. The overwhelming representation of thinness in our movement is a problem in itself, but our fixation on veganism as a weight loss miracle carries with it several implications that target vulnerable populations:  women, people of color, and “obese” persons.

PETA Fat Shaming

Body shaming is especially problematic for a movement whose largest demographic is women.  When we promote veganism as a means to lose weight, we normalize thinness as the ideal body type.  This alienates those vegan women who do not fit within this ideal and it denigrates non-vegan women who do not fit it either.  Research has shown that veganism is indeed an important variable in reducing excess body fat, but one 2005 medical report found that as much as 29% of vegans are overweight or obese.  That means about 1/3 of our vegan community does not reflect the idealized thin body that represents us on magazines, websites, videos, and other lifestyle or outreach literature.

Idealizing thinness is really the idealization of higher socioeconomic class.  It oftentimes takes considerable income to have access to fresh vegetables and fruits.  Vegans without that luxury must rely on cheap, carbohydrate-heavy grains like flour, pasta, and potatoes.  Fresh fruits, vegetables, and even spring water tend to be far more expensive than their processed counterparts.

We cannot forget that socioeconomic status is not simply about economic resources, but social resources as well.  In the United States, African Americans, Native Americans, and Hispanics are disproportionately poor, a result of centuries of oppression and continuing inequality.  They are also disproportionately located in areas with limited availability for healthful foods (rural areas and segregated inner city neighborhoods); these are known as food deserts.  In The Inspired Vegan, Bryant Terry, who advocates for improving food access for disadvantaged peoples, notes that in 2007, Oakland California housed 53 liquor stores, but not a single full-service supermarket.  Those living in food deserts might not have a car, could lack access to public transportation, and they may lack the time to travel out of town for healthier groceries due to work and childcare responsibilities.

Finally, the demonization of “fat” in the United States has very real and disastrous consequences for those humans unfortunate enough to fit within that socially constructed category.  “Overweight” humans (especially women) can face hiring discrimination, are less likely to be promoted or selected for prestigious projects, and they ultimately make less money overall.  And of course, weight discrimination can result in hurtful interpersonal mistreatment as well, like name-calling and objectification.

Skinny Bitch

I can understand that many vegans enthusiastically promote veganism as a weight-loss diet, but we must be mindful that body weight is a complex social issue and the celebration of thinness can be hurtful to others who lack the social and economic privilege that most vegans enjoy.  This movement is about nonviolence, and this principle must extend beyond Nonhuman Animals to include our fellow activists as well.

Vegan media sources, too, should be aware of their influential role.  Consistently portraying a particular body type that is relatively unachievable for a good number of us creates a harmful and unrealistic ideal.  The impact of thinness in women’s magazines is well documented.  When the media is inundated with thin (often airbrushed) figures, this can seriously impact consumer self-esteem and lead to eating disorders. But some magazines like Seventeen have responded with a commitment to picturing “real” people.  This should be a goal for vegan media as well.

As social activists, we should not only be concerned with the well-being of our community members, but we should also recognize that our media portrayals are influential in attracting (or repelling) certain demographics.  If we consistently show thin people (or women, or whites, or higher socioeconomic status individuals), we are framing our movement as one meant for certain types of people, but not for others.  Yet, I suspect that diversity will be an essential variable in achieving social change.  I suggest, then, that we begin to think critically about how our movement is being represented and set our bar a little higher to include all body types and all backgrounds.

This post was originally published by One Green Planet on January 30, 2013.


Corey Lee WrennDr. 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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