What They Do to Her, They Do to Us: On Feminism and the Dairy Industry

By emilie isch

I, like many others who have made an active effort to remove dairy products from our diets, know the industry to be cruel and senseless. There are numerous negative effects of dairy on our collective and individual health, our environment, and overall wellbeing. The production of milk, cheese, and other dairy products amount as a massive contributor to global temperature rising, despite the prominent focus on factory farming for meat. Dairy production accounts for increased water pollution, land degradation, air pollution, poor soil health, and deforestation – just to name a few of the major contributors (Hussain, 2022). For example, one single litre of milk requires 8.95 square meters of land and 628.2 litres of freshwater (Hussain, 2022). The dairy industry in Canada is responsible for nearly 20% of all greenhouse gas emissions, and 90% of that comes directly from farm related activities with the greatest level of emissions released happening during forced lactation (Vergé et al., 2013; Mcgeough et al., 2015). Additionally, nearly 70% of the world’s population cannot digest milk sugars (lactose intolerance), a phenomenon which is occurring more specifically amongst people of African, Asian, Hispanic, and Native American identity (Del Prado Alanes, 2022). Meaning the consumption of dairy is directly responsible for worsened indigestion, IBS, and health sensitives. It’s also resulted in a prominent racial bias as milk continues to be sold and marketed to folks with lactose intolerance, as mentioned, typically those of racial identity. This why folks who are vegan say that giving milk to our Indigenous and black or brown friends is actually a continued act of colonization.

According to Gabrielle Victoria Fayant, a member of the Assembly of 7 Generations, milk is part of the three deadly ‘whites’ brought to their communities during colonization along with flour and sugar (Panel discussion held in Ottawa on April 14th, 2025). Indigenous peoples in Canada were not consuming milk before the arrival of cattle during the 1500’s to 1700’s when cattle first appeared off Nova Scotia, then Quebec, and later Newfoundland and Manitoba (MacLachlan, 2006). The import of Portuguese, British, and French cattle assisted in the takeover of land through trading posts and foodstuff (MacLachlan, 2006). Mathilde Cohen, professor of law, has long written of this tie between milk and colonialism as part of a growing scholarship on ‘Animal Colonialism’. In her 2013 paper she argues “that lactating animals became integral parts of colonial and neocolonial projects as tools of agro-expansionism and human population planning” (p. 297). Not only is there themes of population control, eugenics, and expansionism, but as I will expand on in this article, the treatment of female cows and lactating animals is a direct reflection of the ongoing sexual assault of women, girls, and gender diverse folks. In essence, what they do to her (the animal), they do to us (the human). Dairy is inequitably an intersectional issue, and one that is necessary for any conversation on the rights of mothers (both animal and human), and the rights of female bodily autonomy (of animals and of humans). More importantly, it’s a conversation we are long overdue having around the conscious efforts for anti-speciesism as part of any liberatory or abolitionist ideology. We are not truly liberated unless we are all liberated.

Part One. Milk as a Colonial (and Neo-Colonial) Tool

Let’s return to the work of Mathilde Cohen. Cohen, along with many other scholars interested in the intersections of law, ecology, and our society have begun to write on milk as a tool of power and colonialism. How this has proliferated will be explored throughout this article, but specifically as we discuss milk as a colonial tool. Anthropologist Rosa E. Ficek explains how cattle began to take more and more space through conquest, and as a result, native inhabitants like animals and humans were invaded not only just by the colonizers but by the very animals that surrounded them. The land began to shape to fit the needs of colonizers, and not the people from that land. Moreover, writer Matilde Nuñez del Prado Alanes (2022) expands on capital interest and the growth of forced milk consumption throughout the Americas even after independence was granted from Europeans colonizers. This is why scholars name milk as a tool of colonialism.

Milk as a colonial tool extends to the behaviors of numerous colonists who used animals to conquer ecosystems from the time of Christopher Columbus in 1617 with the import of horses, cattle, swine, sheep and goats, to Dutch settlers who brought their own cows in 1629, and to the British who arrived with sheep and bovine on the shores of Australia and New Zealand in the 18th and 19th century (Alanes, 2022). Before modern colonization, the act of animal milk consumption was confined to only select parts of the globe, those being Central and Northern Europe, what is known as the ‘middle east’, sub-Saharan Africa, central Asia, and the Indian subcontinent. Historian Deborah Valenze expressed how the global history of milk was really the emergence of it as a cultural and universal commodity. This depicts a story “of [the] conquest of space, energy, and dietary preferences.” The arrival of these various domesticated animals to colonized lands suited European interests, as settlers continued their habits of milk product consumption abroad. As we approach the late 19th century, dairying became one of the leading industries in Europe and the United States through “economic rationalization and new technologies which transformed milk from a substance that spoiled so easily that it had to be consumed on the spot into a commodity that could travel huge distances” (Cohen, 2013, p. 269). This where we begin to see connection between the globalization of food markets, which it possible to consume dairy products in one side of the world, produced in a completely different part of the world.

Part Two. Cultural Hegemony, and Media Representations of Dairy

In Marxist ideology, cultural hegemony is defined as the domination of culture in a society whereby the ruling class shape the culture of that society. This refers to the ways in which our culture is influenced by norms, representations, and the status quo – all which is determined by those who hold power, the capital owners. To contextualize cultural hegemony within the dairy industry this section will unpack the interests of the dairy farmers, the industry as a whole, and more pointedly, the media and advertising realm that control the attention of our minds and wallets.

‘Got milk?’ advertisements ran from the early 1990’s, peaking in popularity throughout the late 90s into the 2000s. Created by one American advertising agency in 1993, the campaign was originally created with interest of the California Milk Processor Board, a non-profit marketing board funded by the California dairy processors (James, 2015). The board came into existence in light of declining milk sales in the 90s as Americans consumed other beverages such as soft drinks. The ’got milk? ads typically displayed celebrities or models drinking milk with the very infamous milk mustache. In Figure 1, we see Beyonce and her mother, Tina Knowles posing with text below that reads “milk your diet, loose your weight” accompanied by so-called expert advice that encourages women to low fat or fat free milk as part of a way to lose weight. Not only has milk been used as a feminine and puritan symbol, as discussed in culture and film commentator Mina Le’s video (2024) on the “Evil Symbolism of Milk”, this along with countless similar advertisements reminds women to hate our bodies and always be looking for ways to improve ourselves. The ad can also be analyzed as an insidious celebrity marketing tool targeting younger Black women, given the immense sway and fame someone like Beyonce has in the Black community. Moreover, pulling insights from Le (2024), milk within the media often represents whiteness, making got milk? ads that feature black people an ideal marker of culture’s obsession with whitewashing Black people and further positions a cultural hegemony that places whiteness at the centre.

These ads, and many other depictions of milk showcased muscular or fit bodies also cement a manufactured tie between sex appeal and milk. Milk was, and is, desperate to be sexy and cool. And by that, I mean those who ran the milk lobbies were desperate to keep milk relevant in our culture. Since its peak there has been an attempted resurgence of these ad campaigns. The board was also part of a few other marketing endeavours and the more recently in 2023 with the ‘Get Real Inc.’ targeting Hispanic American consumers in Spanish (Get Real). The desire of this ad was to encourage the supposed ‘real’ benefits of consuming milk during these unprecedented times of AI, and ‘new’ fad milks (California Dairy, 2023). Essentially, this the board’s attempt to position dairy milk as ‘real’ and other types of milks as ‘not’ real. This stance is illustrated in their media campaigns with cow milk juxtaposed alongside alien, octopus, bee, and salmon milk. The emphasis of this campaign on ‘real’ is a shallow attempt to combat research coming out around milk being an insufficient source of nutrients (Alexander et al., 2016). It is also meant to poke fun at the rise and popularity in alternative milks such as oat milk (more on that later). The intentional ploy to have these ads run in Spanish and feature Latinx faces is also yet another example of racial capitalism and the very direct ways in which the health and wellbeing of some of our most vulnerable community members are not taken seriously. I repeat. Milk consumption has been proven to not be healthy. Most Black and Brown people are lactose intolerant. This is simply greed and intentional life denying politics.

Beyonce and Tina Knowles posing in a got milk? Advertisement

Figure 1. Beyonce and Tina Knowles (2006)

Meanwhile, Fortis B.C and the Canadian Dairy Industry have been hard at work greenwashing campaigns of their own. Specifically, the two have partnered up to boost lies that Fortis B.C will help produce RNG (renewable natural gas) with the offset of a dairy farm in Chilliwack, BC. However, feeding cows to produce milk is not, and will never be, a sustainable process. This will only continue to be a harmful practice and dairy will never be a comparable RNG source. Secondly, the Dairy Farmers of Canada (DFC) are also claiming they will be “net-zero” by 2050 (Figure 2). I should note here that DFC is the national policy, lobbying and promotional organization representing Canadian dairy producers. Meaning, just like ads like got milk? and the DFC has a vested interest in maintaining the positive image of milk in order to continue profit generation. The DFC ads which ran in 2022 used a lot of fluffy, nonsense language like ‘planting trees to purify the air’ and ‘reducing emissions’, all the while images of hand drawn cows next to a red barn with a windmill and trees covered the landscape. These imageries, parried with greenwashing lies about the dairy industry foster a sense of whimsical bliss and unrealistic positivism. Greenwashing campaigns heavily rely on childlike imageries, and this evident as we see the DFC ‘cute-ifying’ their aesthetic. These fictious ads prey on the consumer with a promise of feeling good, and ethical, because the images used are pointing to a make-believe world where the worlds roam the fields in glee, with nothing scary or violent happening to them at all. This is doubled down in a recent campaign from Farm Boy (an Ottawa based chain grocery store) where plush cows were neatly positioned in woven baskets next to the diary aisle. The cow has a name, a cute face, and is something your kid can take home with them. Attempts to make the dairy industry palatable and cute is no different than Japan’s ‘Kawaii’ culture, a deliberate strategy to deflect their war crimes, and have their culture instead known for hello kitty and other cute iconography. I won’t spend too much time getting into the history and concept of Kawaii, but I will link resources to learn more in the reading list at the end. How Japan is externally branded reflects this internal cultural denial of their rampant violence and imperialism, and just like the dairy industry across North America.

Two cows stand in grass with trees, a windmill, and a red barn behind them

Figure 2. Net Zero Graphic

The power of the dairy lobbyists in both the US and Canada are extremely strong. Just like the meat industry, dairy has the single interest of maximizing profits. They want to uphold a particular cultural hegemony to be successful in maximizing those profits. The culture they are building and maintaining is one where dairy and meat are central to the diets and lifestyles of the traditional all-around American family. However, the recent rise of alternative and plant-based milks has left dairy with an interesting new association, and one that is seemingly unfavourable to many gen-zers. Oat milk is cool, hip, and queer, and dairy milk is not. In fact, there’s been so much relevant cultural indicators of this shift, that some baristas will ask if you want a non-dairy milk right off the bat. Although the vast majority of these trendy cafes charging sometimes upwards of two dollars extra for plant-based milk will never be cool, hip, or queer. Now, the consumption of plant-based milks as a trend isn’t entirely evil, since I do marvel at the fall of big dairy, but there’s a fine line to walk when it comes to consumption because of ideology and out of an ethics, and consumption for status or for an attempt to fit in. This lends itself to unsustainability in behavior, since there’s no real backing to your choice, just a desire to be Instagram worthy. If you’re catching yourself choosing plant-based milks, that’s awesome, and hopefully you’ll continue reading this article and decide to cut out all dairy products, not just pick and choose for your morning coffee.

So, I mention queerness and oat milk not because I personally identify with this stereotype as a queer woman who drinks a lot of oat milk, but to draw our attention to the very deliberate ways that food choices reflect onto our culture and vice verca. Raw milk for instance has become another one of these ‘new’ trends in the world of food culture. The consumption of raw milk has been heavily connected with what many are calling the “crunchy to far right pipeline”. Influencers all over TikTok and Instagram preach the supposed benefits of raw milk, oftentimes arguing in tandem for the consumption of other raw animal products such as raw beef. These individuals may also be against vaccines, believe in a whole host of conspiracy theories and generally, are advocates for an alternative (conservative) leaning lifestyle. They may have started out more benevolent, going on juice cleanses, or even being plant based, but the years post pandemic we see this dramatic shift from silo to mainstream. I won’t really be getting into all the nuances of raw milk drinkers here as I don’t condone attention on conspiracy theorists or anti-vaxers, instead I bring them up however as an example of dairy’s association to right wing ideologies and dangerous portrayals of so-called health and wellbeing.

Part Three. The Dairy Industry is Anti-Feminist: Exploitation, and Rape

This will likely be the heaviest section of the article. Please read with discretion.

Cows, like human mothers, give birth after carrying their young for 9 months. Cows, like human mothers, lactate milk from their breasts as food for their young. Cows, unlike human mothers, have their young taken away from them at birth because the milk they produce instead actually for their calves, it’s for us – grown adults, children, and even pets. Humans are the only species on this earth that drink the breast milk of another species.

Farmers can’t waste even a drop of valuable profit filled milk, so the separation of calves and mothers happens typically right away or within a day. USDA statistics reveal that “97 percent of calves are separated from their mothers within the first 12 hours of birth” (Cehn, 2023). Once the milk production begins for the matured female cows they undergo mechanical milking – different from the joyful images you may have in your head of a gentle handle milking on an udder early morning at the farm. These machines are instead hooked to the cow’s udders, and they are milked 2 or 3 times per day (Cehn, 2023). Dairy cows are bred to produce over 10 times the amount of milk they would naturally make, which means many suffer from painful udder infections, often resulting in pus in the milk (Najana, 2023). Yuck!

The fate of those separated calves is much like the fate of their mothers. A lifeless adolescence void of companionship and bonding from their mother and siblings. The calves, unable to be breastfed are forced to consume bottled formula and confined to cramped quarters. Once the female calves hit 2 years old and are considered fertile, the cycle begins once again. Insemination tools (see Figure 3, although please note it is mildly graphic) are used to forcefully impregnate cows who have reached puberty. Just as their mothers were once forced to endure, the farmer’s hand is inserted inside the cow’s anus to complete this invasive procedure. Let’s pause here. The cow in that moment has zero ability to consent to what is done to her – and before we get caught up in the speciesist debate claiming that a cow’s ability or inability to consent is not worth our time, because they are just a cow, I want to remind everyone reading that a cow’s consent is just as important as our own consent. Behaviour imposed onto one living being reflects all living beings. Why should a farmer stop at forcefully impregnating cows. We know well from history that female bodies are constantly disrespected, and their autonomy compromised, all the same as these cows. The point isn’t whether one body belongs to a human, and one belongs to a cow, the point is that a patriarchal society will always jeopardize and take control of what they deem the subordinate. In this case the cow and the human are not so different in how assault and rape become normalized.

A diagram illustrates how to artificially inseminate a female cow.

Figure 3. Their Turn, 2016

So, after around 5 or so years of non-stop milk production, the female cows have served their purpose and are usually no longer able to produce any more milk. This doesn’t mean they get to live happy lives free from torture, no, these cows are useful still as meat and are sent to the slaughterhouse.

We have not mentioned yet what happens to the male calves, those who cannot produce milk. Male calves are typically raised to be beef cows, and undergo the torture of being overfed, and under stimulated. However, some are kept to be slaughtered immediately as veal meat, and in some situations, they are raised to be higher priced veal. Higher priced veal requires the calf to have tender, pale meat. This means they need to be underfed, enough to be low iron and anemic (Cehen, 2023). This portion of the industry is more widely rejected for the known and inhumane conditions the male calves are put in, however the connection between the dairy industry and the veal industry are inherently tied. To condemn one part is to condemn it all. This draws parallels to the conditions in which one overarching harmful industry, dairy, also influences the harms of another industry, veal. Just as a patriarchal society harms women, it also harms men. Men are perpetrators of most of the sexual assault and violence, not because they are biologically predisposed to be the agitator, the conditions in which this system allows their behavior to proliferate and go unchecked is the cause for attention. Fighting for justice and liberation as a feminist also requires the ongoing work to unpack how all genders are forced to conform to social norms and behaviors.

Cows possess intelligence, social bonds, the ability to grieve, and form memories. Their emotional and physical torment experienced during the course of their life as a dairy cow or as a beef or veal cow is not without its own form of trauma and lasting distress. Women and all genders who have suffered from assault and violence are not magically healed one day and left to forget all that was done to them. Cows, like humans deserve a life that is mitigated from unnecessary harm and unwanted experiences. 

Part Four. On the rights of mothers: Reproduction and Breastfeeding

The violation of a cow’s reproductive system draws parallels on the forced sterilization of Black, Brown, and Indigenous women across time and place. Paola Alonso, scholar at the Texas Women’s University outlined reproductive rights and eugenics in one of their papers. They point to one district Alabama court exposing “between 100,000 to 150,000 poor people were sterilized annually under federally funded programs, and others were coerced into consenting to sterilization under the threats by doctors to terminate their welfare benefits if they denied the procedure” (Alonso, 2018, p. 4). This was almost exclusively happening to Black and Latino women in the US, with Puerto Rico having some of the highest sterilization rates of women in the twentieth century (Alonso, p. 5). In Canada, a very similar project of sterilization was occurring for Indigenous women, notably one of these being Alberta’s Sexual Sterilization Act from 1928 to 1972 (Stote, 2019). The reasons being disdain for these population groups expanding, and a desire to control the levels at which they reproduce. While forced sterilization is happening less overtly today, the eugenics programming is alive and well. Discourse around who should be ‘allowed’ to have babies, and why is very prominent in immigration policies, and media propaganda. The rights of mothers to continue their bloodline, especially if it is one the ruling class does not view of worthy of life, is a radical act. This of course is determined by the important notion of choice. Anti-abortion rhetoric continues to serve as a political pawn, fueling religious and cultural talking points. The bodily autonomy of women here is no different than the bodily autonomy of a cow. Ultimately, the commodification of cows for meat or dairy is the crux here and what leads to all this in the first place. An ideology which marries the patriarchy and capitalism is indeed our society’s treatment of animals and by extension, women. Specifically, this connects race issues, feminism, and the rights of mothers.

The forced separation of cow and calf is no different than the forced separation and kidnapping of Indigenous children by social workers and other officials during the 60s scoop, a colonial tactic which continues to this day. The commodification of early child nutrition has meant than millions of babies across the globe do not consume the breastmilk of their mothers and are instead given baby formula. This is the colonial capitalist output of years of melding in the affairs of mothers and families. When the Gold Coast was fighting for independence from the British in the 1950’s, the colonial British government released a cookbook which they claimed to be a source for nutrition and cooking (Nott, 2019). A long-utilized tool, as we discussed earlier, food as a power grab was maintained and the cookbook argued to add milk in tea for extra protein, and further encouraged the consumption of meat, and fish which were not typical parts of a traditional diet. Moreover, the cookbook suggested that breastfeeding was not an adequate source of nutrition for babies and instead began to market baby formula as the necessary ‘missing’ part. John Nott, professor of medical history discusses the rise in bottle feeding across colonial African countries arguing that in Uganda, the percentage of children who were bottle fed in the early 1950’s went from 14% to 40% by the 1960s (Nott, 2019). Additionally, long time evil villain company, Nestlé was found to be melding with affairs in the early 1970s, depicting their employees as nurses in uniforms in various maternity wards across Africa, South America, and South Asia (Sartore, 2022). These ‘Milk Nurses’ encouraged the growing curated dependence on breast milk substitutes and is explored in more detail in Mike Muller’s 1974 report titled ‘The baby killer A War on Want investigation into the promotion and sale of powdered baby milks in the Third World.’ Here, we begin to understand just how integral Black liberation, and food politics really is.

This incessant shift towards bottle-feeding is nothing new however, it goes back even as far as 1939, when a speech given by Cicely Williams, a Jamaican physician on the Gold Coast, called out the marketing and policy shifts for baby formula “murder” (El-Sherbiny, 2022). Of course, much of this was guised under the banner of foreign aid, with the caveat however of introducing dependency on billion-dollar corporations like Nestlé. It was estimated in 2015 six companies, including Nestlé, “spend close to $50 for each baby born worldwide to market breast milk substitutes, a total of $6 billion a year” (El-Sherbiny, 2022). This is no different than pulling cow mothers away from their calves, who the milk is produced and intended for, and instead is fueling the pockets of the dairy industry. Just as Indigenous peoples across this globe were sold the lie that formula was better for their baby than their own breastmilk, we are complicit in the intertwining of claves consuming formula, cow mothers producing milk for humans, and human mothers “choosing” oftentimes to consume both formula and cow milk. (I say “choosing” because as we have just learnt, the push for formula and for cow milk is largely curated for profit and capital growth by the ruling class).

A much simpler and more natural (but less profitable) solution to all this we leave the milk produced by cows and humans for their own respective babies.

Part Five. Towards Anti-Speciesism

There’s no better way to close a piece on animal and human liberation than with a push for anti-speciesism. Anti-speciesism is in its simplest definition is the case for a dismantling of the unjust hierarchies and power structures which impose human exceptionalism and an argument against positioning humans above animals. Speciesism promotes the systems of which the dairy industry exists and continues to shift norms and practices that harm our ecologies. Working towards a world without racial capitalism and heteropatriarchal values means working towards a world without speciesism. There is no way around that.

Now, this is not to say the point of this entire article is to pressure or ‘force’ anyone to go vegan. I’m just here to expose the contradictions and leave you to figure out the rest. Because I am a Marxist-Leninist, I also know there is no ‘forcing’ someone to become a communist, because well, once you begin to explain the scientific empirically tested method of Marxism to anyone who has begun to seriously question capitalism and imperialism, the rest just falls into place. I believe strongly in my duty as someone with the resources, time, and privilege of education to share my knowledge and the knowledge of countless other scholars in an effort to inform and empower the masses. There is no reason to walk away from this article feeling guilty – I have consumed dairy for the better of my life as a person who was raised not as a vegan, and I imagine many of you are in the same boat. But it’s not too late to shift habits, and to become an outspoken advocate of an anti-speciesit future. Going vegan is a fundamental way to be a better feminist, a stronger ally to our Black, Brown and Indigenous friends, and to really begin to advocate for total liberation.

Note to readers: I did not cover anything relating to the labour rights of human industry workers, interconnections between human and animal under capitalism or studies showing higher rates of toxic health issues, and violence and aggression amongst meat and dairy workers. This is simply because the article would have gotten too long. That is to say, another article on those topics will be coming out soon. 

References

Alexander, P., C. Brown, A. Arneth, J. Finnigan, and M. Rounsevell. 2016. “Human Appropriation of Land for Food.” Global Environmental Change 41 (Novembe): 88-98.
Alanes, M. 2022. “Dairy in the Americas: How Colonialism Left Its Mark on the Continent.” Sentient Policy.
Alonso, P. 2018. “Autonomy Revoked: The Forced Sterilization of Women of Color in 20th Century America.” Health Equity 2 (1): 249–259.
Cehn, M. 2022. “What’s Wrong With Dairy & Cow’s Milk? World of Vegan.
Dairy Farmers of Canada. n.d. Net Zero by 2050 | Sustainability.     
El-Sherbiny, E. 2022. “Baby Formulas and Cash Crops in Africa Led to Poor Diets.” New Lines Magazine.
Hussain, G. 2019. “The Devastating Impact of the Dairy Industry on the Environment.” Sentientmedia.org.
James, S. 2015. “Got milk? (A Brief History).”         
Maclachlan, I. n.d. The Historical Development of Cattle Production in Canada.
Mc Geough, E., S. Little, H. Janzen, T. McAllister, S. McGinn, and K. Beauchemin. 2012. “Life-cycle Assessment of Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Dairy Production in Eastern Canada.” Journal of Dairy Science 95 (9): 5164–  5175.
Media, M. 2023. “California Milk Processor Board Launches ‘Get Real Inc’.” California Dairy Magazine.            
Mina Le. 2024. The Evil Symbolism of Milk.         
Muller, M. 1974. The Baby Killer.
Najana, P. 2023. “A True Feminist Is Also Vegan.” Medium.
Nott, J. 2019. “’No One May Starve in the British Empire’: Kwashiorkor, Protein and the Politics of Nutrition Between Britain and Africa.” Social History of Medicine 34 (2): 553–576.
Nuñez del Prado Alanes, M. 2023. Sentient.            
Sartore, M. 2019. “Nestle Bombarded Developing Countries With Their Baby Formula, and The Consequences Were Deadly.” Ranker.
Seger, S. 2023. Veganism Is Not Anti-Indigenous.
Staff, E. 2023. “RNG – Thoughtful Journalism About Energy’s Future.” Thoughtful          Journalism about Energy’s Future.
Stote, K. 2019. Sterilization of Indigenous Women in Canada. The Canadian    Encyclopedia.
Vergé, X., D. Maxime, J. Dyer, R. Desjardins, Y. Arcand, and A. Vanderzaag, A. 2013. “Carbon Footprint of Canadian Dairy Products: Calculations and issues”. Journal of Dairy Science 96 (9): 6091–6104.

Recommended Resources

Statistics and Data
Ritchie, H., M. Roser, and P. Rosado. 2023. “Meat and Dairy Production.” Our World in Data.

Collection of Animal & Earth Liberation Zines
Warzone Distro: Category: Animal Liberation & Earth Liberation. 2025. Noblogs.org.

Learn More about Kawaii Culture
Miller, L. 2011. “Cute Masquerade and the Pimping of Japan.” International Journal of Japanese Sociology 20 (1): 18–29.
Osenton, S. 2007. “Insidiously ‘Cute’: Kawaii Cultural Production and Ideology in Japan.” Library And Archives Canada = Bibliothèque Et Archives Canada.

Learn More about Veganism from Black Vegans

Events, Resources and More:
https://blackvegsociety.org
https://www.afrovegansociety.org/black-vegan-activist-resources

People to Follow:
Tabitha Brown @IAmTabithaBrown
John Lewis @BadAssVegan
Russel Simmons @UncleRush
Alexis Nicole Black Forager
Eats by Will @eatsbywill

Documentary:
They’re Trying to Kill Us (2021) directed by John Lewis and Keegan Kuhn

Music:
Wu-Tang Clan (most of the members are vegan!)
Stevie Wonder
JME
Lenny Kravtiz
Akala
Mya
Macka B


emilie isch (she/her) is an interdisciplinary scholar and community organizer currently residing on unceded Syilx Territory in British Columbia. 

Sacrificing the Goddess: How Speciesism Undermines Feminist Spirituality

For most contemporary ecofeminists, Wiccans and witches, animal sacrifice is rejected as masochistic, counter to feminist and ecological values, and unnecessary in an abundant natural world that already provides that which is necessary to thrive.

And yet nonhuman sacrifice remains extremely prevalent in neo-pagan mythology, creating an air of tolerance and even excitement. Starhawk, for one, seems to find charm in this lore. Despite her opposition to the practice in modern times, she suggests that Nonhuman Animals willingly sacrificed themselves in ancient times (1999). A romanticization of women’s spiritual practice in an imagined past too often maintains human dominance. Animal sacrifice is rarely critiqued when shielded within “the past,” while the institution of domestication–the corporeal and cognitive manipulation of other animals for the benefit of the dominant class–is itself naturalized as a human entitlement. There is no domestication without domination and sacrifice, and there is no feminism if the anthropocentric commitment to oppression remains unchecked. Thus, as feminist spirituality has attempted to discover and reclaim power in women’s history, goddess traditions have frequently merged with, rather than supplaced, patriarchal traditions.

Ironically, this animal oppression often required overlapping with the feminine to legitimize women’s shadowy pseudo-power, suggesting that, symbolically, the control over animal bodies and women’s bodies are entangled and mutually reinforcing. This relationship in bondage is rendered both credible and impervious to challenge through a lense of sacrality. Sjöö and Mor (1991) emphasize that the Goddess took the form of other animals in ancient depictions, offering sexualized mythologies of union between men and women, nature and humans. Warriors pierced and bloodied the bodies of nonhuman victims to create a “symbolic resolution,” as a penis entering a vulva (82). This sacred likeness between goddess and nonhuman, in their estimation, was culturally necessary to support the belief that nonhuman victims willingly sacrificed themselves for their human oppressors and relieve any associated guilt in the suffering it invariably caused. This suggests a false feminine empowerment. It is instead the fetishization of suffering under oppression.

Sjöö and Mor exalt the magical powers of blood harvested from the gaping wounds of dying sacrificial bulls, drunk by priestesses to increase their mystical power and spread across fields to improve the resourcefulness of the land. What they do not contend with, however, is how this willing victimhood would also be attributed to women and all manner of other vulnerable social groups to normalize and naturalize severe inequality and violence (Collard 1988). Neither do they contend with the anthroparchal implications of shifting to this warrior cultish “hunting”-based society; this was a violent political and economic revolution that transformed Nonhuman Animals from social equals to commodity objects.

The trope of the sacrificial goddess can also be found in non-Western cultures. Hinduism, most notably, overlaps the Goddess with the mother cow, and in doing so, helps to normalize the exploitation of feminized labor as something mystical and sacred. Researchers have expressed concern as to how these spiritual mythologies have been responsible for the entrenchment of speciesist practices that are highly resistant to critique (Narayanan 2018). Indeed, today India is one of the world’s top producers of dairy, “beef,” and “leather,” despite the supposed sacredness of cows.

The religious sacrifice of Nonhuman Animals, who symbolically represent the Goddess, is, by extension, also an attack on the sacred body and spirit of the Goddess. Killing to obtain the power found in victims’ blood, furthermore, is the ultimate patriarchal contract. The wholly unnecessary violence against female and nonhuman bodies for the benefit of the dominant class is behavior that is characteristically aligned with the active degradation of women and other animals and has nothing whatsoever to do with respecting them, worshiping them, or elevating their status. A truly feminist spirituality will need to sacrifice its allegiance to patriarchal myths to truly transform humanity’s relationship with nature and other animals.

Works Cited
Collard, A. 1988. Rape of the Wild. The Women’s Press: London.
Narayanan, Y. 2018. “Animal Ethics and Hinduism’s Milking, Mothering Legends.” SOPHIA 57: 133-149.
Sjöö, M. and B. Mor. 1991. The Great Cosmic Mother. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco.
Starhawk. 1999. The Spiral Dance. Third Edition. New York: HarperOne.


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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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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The Alcotts and Vegan Feminism of the 19th Century

Fruitlands. Photo credit: Wikicommons, Daderot

Although most of the early vegetarian feminists were not quite willing to acknowledge or resist the inherent violence in animal-derived foods and products beyond “meat,” political veganism in the West has been in practice since at least the early 19th century. The famous Alcott family of the United States, for instance, understood Nonhuman Animal rights as complementary to their abolitionist efforts. In the 1840s, they attempted to put their transcendentalist philosophy and social justice values into action not simply by practicing veganism by way of diet, but by creating a utopian-oriented communal farm (Francis 2010, Shprintzen 2013). They acquired a large 90-acre tract of farmland in rural Massachusetts they named Fruitlands. Here, they hoped to grow their own food—all vegan—without the use of horses, oxen, or other animals for draught nor manure.1

This emphasis on the utopia should not suggest that people of the era had an unfamiliarity with plant-based living. In 19th century Ireland, for instance, colonization ensured that the agricultural exploitation of cows and other animals for flesh and breastmilk was relegated primarily to British colonial landowners bound for industrializing England and the booming slave trade in the Americas. The Irish peasantry survived primarily on the farming of potatoes and other vegetables for their own consumption, and vegetarian advocates of the day saw this as evidence of the nutritional suitability of animal-free consumption (Wrenn 2021).

Veganic farming, for that matter, was not unknown prior to the industrialization of agriculture. For instance, abundantly available seaweed was used as a potent fertilizer in Ireland, while Native Americans did not rely on Nonhuman Animals for plowing and many tribes ate very plant-heavy diets (Robinson 2024, Teufel 2009). While the destruction of the American buffalo is often cited as a strategy in Indigenous genocide, less discussed is the assault on the American chestnut, a far more widespread and actively managed food source for natives of North America.

The Alcotts were familiar with these vegan-oriented food production systems and more, citing them in their writings as rationales for their own experiments. What they were less familiar with, however, was how to operationalize these techniques with little practical experience of their own. As upper-middle class artists, authors, and speakers, they were truly unprepared for the immense efforts needed to operate a fully self-sustaining farm. Louisa May Alcott (who authored the famous classic in American women’s literature, Little Women) was also acutely aware of the gender politics that remained largely unchanged in this little utopia (Shprintzen 2013). The male inhabitants of the project continued with their busy advocacy and lecture circuits, leaving the women behind to maintain the everyday drudgery of operating a working farm.

Within a year, the project came to an end. Historians have pointed to the eschewing of Nonhuman Animal labor as reason for the failure (Francis 2010), but it seems more likely that the philosophical interests and commitments of the residents distracted from the material requirements of farm life. They seemed more interested in pontificating about utopia than doing utopia.

That said, Fruitlands does provide evidence of early interest in the manufacture of a vegan society, one that was born of an intersectional praxis given the founders’ participation in so many social justice efforts of the time. It was also evidence of an early vegan feminist critique of male privilege in the movement. As would become a pattern across the next century, women would be burdened with the drudgery of organization and project upkeep, freeing men to undertake the more glamorous and celebrated public-facing work.

Notes

  1. Many “back to the land” hippie and feminist campaigns in the United States fail to consider the legacy of colonialism and Indigenious removal in the “taking back” of land. Fruitlands (now a museum) continues to occupy traditional lands of the Agawam, Nipmuc, and Pawtucket tribes in Harvard, MA.

References

Francis, R. 2010. Fruitlands. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Robinson, M. 2024. “Indigenous Veganism.” Pp. 295-313, in The Plant-based and Vegan Handbook. Y. Athanassakis, R. Larue, and W. O’Donohue (Eds.). Cham: Springer.

Shprintzen, A. 2013. The Vegetarian Crusade. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press.

Teufel, N. 2009. “Nutrient Characteristics of Southwest Native American Pre-contact Diets.” Journal of Nutritional & Environmental Medicine 6 (3): 273-284.

Wrenn, C. 2021. Animals in Irish Society. New York: SUNY Press.

Wrenn, C. 2022. “Society Writings.” Pp. 333-348, in The Edinburgh Companion to Vegan Literary Studies, L. Wright and E. Quinn (Eds.). Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh 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.

Lesbianism in 2nd Wave Vegan Feminist Advocacy

From the Papers of Marti Kheel Archive, Harvard University

Formed in the early 1980s, Feminists for Animal Rights (FAR)1 was typical of radical feminism in the latter half of the 20th century, embracing lesbianism in a larger social justice space (the Nonhuman Animal rights movement included) that more or less adopted a “don’t ask don’t tell” that approach. Founder Marti Kheel openly identified as gay and gender “deviant” (Kheel 1998: no page), and FAR participated in LGBT+ events from its beginning.

In its first year of official operation, FAR participated in the San Francisco International Lesbian/Gay Freedom Day, its table ironically placed next to a “burger” stand. FAR also marched in the Boston Gay Pride Parade with its banner as well as signs that read “Extend the Circle of Compassion: Go Vegetarian,” “Subvert the Dominant Paradigm,” and “Vegetarians Taste Better.” The latter was apparently the “crowd favorite” (Solomon and Stone 1999: 10). Regular engagement is listed throughout the twenty years of FAR’s newsletter publication, including attendance at the East Bay Lesbian and Gay Celebration and the Lesbian Empowerment Conference in Florida.

The Georgia Lesbian Ecofeminists, a branch of FAR, explains the centrality of this intersectional thought to the vegan feminist approach:

When the group formed we decided to call ourselves Ecofeminists because the term underscored for us the connection between feminism, animal liberation, and ecology. We also chose to include Lesbian in our name because most (but not all) of us are lesbians, and we see our visibility as lesbians as a political issue. We also identify the oppression we face as women and homosexuals as intricately related to the exploitation of animals and the earth by the same patriarchal mentality

(Georgia Lesbian Ecofeminists 1991: 4)

One FAR article, “‘So, What Do You Eat’ and ‘What Do You Do (In Bed)?’,” draws connections between veganism and lesbianism in how they are marginalized and how their personal relationship with their own body is scrutinized:

What do I eat? Anything I want, as long as it tastes good, is nutritious, is accepted by my body, and does not directly harm, or indirectly support harm, to any other creature on the planet. What do I do (in bed)? Anything I want that feels good, with or without a partner, is accepted by my body, and does not perpetuate hetero-patriarchal structures or beliefs.

(Post 1993: 13)

The connections were not always apparent. FAR members were regularly frustrated by the intersectional failure between anti-speciesism and gay rights. FAR organizer Batya Bauman (1990) notes, for instance, the regular occurrence of individuals claiming to be “animal lovers” in singles classifieds in popular lesbian magazines that also mention personal interests that include “fishing” and eating “meat.” FAR (1984) took issue with the “Gay Rodeo” as well, distributing protest literature on the event and sending letters of complaint to the gay publication, Coming Up.

Houston LGBT History.org

Likewise, FAR was adamantly opposed to AIDS research conducted on Nonhuman Animals, insisting that all progress in AIDS research had been achieved through nonanimal experiments (Todd 1991-1992). Kheel reiterated this value, insisting that the “best cure lies in prevention,” as animal-based testing is “morally bankrupt” and “scientifically invalid” with high failure rates and unintended side effects (1984: 4). “As a gay person,” she continues, “I sincerely hope that the gay community will question the type of research being done on their behalf and condemn all research that inflicts pain and suffering on innocent beings.” (4).

It would not be until the 2010s and 2020s that the professionalized Nonhuman Animal rights movement began to openly acknowledge and respond to sex and gender diversity and queer vegan theory established itself in scholar activism. These developments in visibility may reflect the larger successes of the gay rights movement, but it should be clear that the thoughts and actions of vegan feminists were aligned with these issues for many decades prior. Although third wave vegan feminism is often presented as an important countervoice to heteronormative feminist theory of the 20th century, the truth is that vegan feminists of that era were also explicitly engaged in queer activism, recognizing and responding to important intersections (and intersectional failures).


Notes

Although FAR was perhaps the most well known (or at least well remembered) of the lesbian-inclusive vegan feminists groups, it was certainly not the only one. In Britain, for instance, Lesbians for Animals’ Irreducible Rights surfaced in the late 1970s, bringing speciesism (vivisection, in particular) to the attention of the gay community through publications, leaflets, and participation in rallies (Adams and Gruen 2022).

References

Adams, C. and L. Gruen. 2022. “Ecofeminist Footsteps.” Pp. 1-43, Ecofeminism, C. Adams and L. Gruen (Eds.). London: Bloomsbury.

Bauman, B. 1990. “What is Loving Animals All About?.” Feminists for Animal Rights Newsletter 5 (3-4): 1.

Feminists for Animal Rights 1984c. “Gay Rodeo—A Sad Event.” Feminists for Animal Rights Newsletter 1 (1): 3.

Georgia Lesbian Ecofeminists. 1991. “Georgia Lesbian Ecofeminists.” Feminists for Animal Rights Newsletter 6 (1-2): 4.

Kheel, M. 1984. “The Monkey Business Behind AIDS Research.” Feminists for Animal Rights Newsletter 1 (2): 4.

——. 1998. Untitled talk. Papers of Marti Kheel. Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute. Archive item sch01622c00397—MC962_4.17.

Post, L. 1993. “‘So, What Do You Eat’ and ‘What Do You Do (In Bed)?’.” Feminists for Animal Rights Newsletter 7 (3-4): 13.

Solomon, S. and R. Stone. 1999. “Taking Action in Boston.” Feminists for Animal Rights Newsletter 11 (1-2): 10.

Todd, B. 1991-1992. “AIDS & Animal Research: False Hope, Wasted Lives.” Feminists for Animal Rights Newsletter 6 (3-4): 1-9.


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.

Witches for Animal Rights

In my forthcoming book, Vegan Witchcraft, I explore the history of feminist witchcraft in the US and UK, arguing that, despite many key parallels, feminist witches have failed their commitments to other animals (often referred to as familiars) in either ignoring or outright rejecting veganism and total liberation.

That said, I have found evidence that some witches are making this connection. In the early 1990s, for instance, the Feminists for Animal Rights Newsletter announced the formation of a new sister group in New York, Witches for Animal Rights. Witches for Animal Rights rallied fellow witches by imploring them to “save the world with your fork.” Feminists for Animal Rights (1994) explains that “members worship the Goddess by promoting the wellbeing of her nonhuman animals” (16), suggesting that interested readers contact the Morningstar Coven in McDonough, New York. Witches for Animal Rights also surfaces in the record as a performing group in “No RIO,” an anti-gentrification guerrilla project in New York City that provided space and platform for radical artists and activists (Forte 1989). This organization was likely shortlived as I was unable to find futher reference.

In the 2010s, a the Protego Foundation formed from a group of Harry Potter fans who contextualize their anti-speciesist activism in the magical creations of J. K. Rowling. A registered nonprofit, the Protego Foundation “fights to end the abuse of the animals in the Muggle world through our inspiration from the magical creatures in the wizarding world […] empowering all magical persons to get active for animals.”

Gregory Maguire’s (1995) retelling of the “Wicked” witch of Oz sees her (Elphaba Thropp) as a social justice activist, advocating for Nonhuman Animals and the environment. Indeed, vegan scholar Christopher Sebastian (2020) suggests that her skin is green as a symbolic reference to her advocacy for nature and other animals, but also to mark her as a monstrous other in protesting the violent social stratification of Oz where the oppression of humans and other animals are explicitly entangled.

Witches for Animal Rights, Wicked, and the Protego Foundation are interesting examples of witchcraft engaged in the service of other animals, but they are exceptions, not the norm. Many feminists have embraced spirituality, paganism, and witchcraft as an important thealogical, philosophical, psychological, and even strategic means of resilience and resistence, but few extend this nature-based practice to include veganism and species-inclusiveness. It remains to be seen if modern witchcraft will, on a whole, begin to incorporate these values. To date, it is not sufficiently distinct from mainstream speciesist feminism and anthropocentric institutionalized religions.

References

Feminists for Animal Rights. 1994. “Resources.” Feminists for Animal Rights Newsletter 8 (1-2): 16.

Forte, S. 1989. “Guerilla Space: A Few Many Things about ABC No Rio.” X-posure Summer: no page.

Protego Foundation. No date. Who We Are. Retrieved April 15, 2024, from: https://www.protegofoundation.org/who-we-are.html.

Maguire, G. 1995. Wicked. New York: HarperCollins.

Sebastian, C. 2020. “Adaptation: No One Mourns the Wicked, But We Should.” Pp. 212-221, in The Edinburgh Companion to Vegan Literary Studies, L. Wright and E. Quinn (Eds.). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Witches for Animal Rights. 1994. “Save the World with Your Fork!” Feminists for Animal Rights Newsletter 8 (1-2): 15.


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.