Tag Archives: Veganism

The Alcotts and Vegan Feminism of the 19th Century

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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.

The Influences Of Ableism in Veganism: A Disabled Vegan Perspective

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Image description: a collage. background is a field with a blue sky and white clouds and a field of rows of flowers of various colors. standing in the field is a silhouette of a pig that takes up most of the art. their shape is filled with a photo of from the universe (space) there is a human eye on them that slightly blends in with the space pattern. lastly behind them but towards the right is a pink cosmo flower with an orange center. as if the pig is smelling the flower.

by Michele Sommerstein


I don’t know about you, but for me between the multiple genocides, the rise in COVID cases, the massive COVID denial, the related rise in mask bans, the elections, police violence, the rising threat of fascism, climate change, and so many other issues – for fuck’s sake! it’s a lot.

And so lately, I’ve been feeling like while I am doing what I can to be part of the collective effort for justice, (for another world is possible), I can’t only make protest art. My heart also needs lighter projects.

And so recently I’ve returned to making vegan content. But not some call for intersectionality, articles discussing inner-movement issues, kill counter references, and environmental stats, as I had done in the past. Just lighter. And perhaps because it has been a while since I have made vegan content, I found myself unexpectedly reflecting on the intersections of my disability and vegan identity.

Before my disability identity-themed YouTube show (Rebelwheels NYC), I had a short-lived vegan cooking show called My Easily Amused Kitchen.

[image description: video thumbnail. a screenshot from the video taken in my apartment. a white wall and a purple couch behind me. text reads MEAK ep 1 creamy pea soup of vast fantasticness! my easily amused kitchen. there is olive oil being poured onto a bowl of peas. and I am pointing with my finger up sitting next to a penguin stuffed animal. I have glasses, a black shirt, and longer hair with bangs]

And looking back on that time, I realize that I really wasn’t being fully authentic in the videos. Of course, it was done in my motorized wheelchair and there was some of my quirky humor, but I remember I often downplayed any kind of physical fatigue even though that is part of my disability.

You see, between my animal rights activism at the time and the vegan content that I watched on YouTube, I was very much familiar with the protein myth. The false idea that if you go vegan, that you will by default, be physically weak due to not being able to get enough protein on a vegan diet.

Often I saw other (physically able-bodied) vegans whether in person or via YouTube videos who were very intentional about presenting veganism as part of an energetic lifestyle in an attempt to counteract said misinformation.

And there are many professional athletes who are vegan. I personally knew a guy (not professional) who was vegan, who lifted weights and ran marathons with ease.

[image description: The background is a colorful collage of blue, yellow, and pink. The main text reads pity is not compassion! The vibe is artsy and punk. There is smaller text on top that reads spare us your pity we want our rights! And then towards the lower left-hand corner, it reads intersectional disability solidarity. Lastly underneath the word compassion is the phrase unlearn ableism.]

And then there was me, a disabled vegan, and not Paralympic disabled, disabled with low spoons (slang term for energy), disabled with health problems, disabled where muscle weakness is literally part of my disability. And now I can type that and say “represent” with a sense of disability pride, but back then it almost felt like it was a hindrance to the cause.

And to be clear, no one ever said to me “hide parts of your disability for the movement.” It was just the way it was presented that made me feel like I should.

And it wasn’t just the impression I got from a lot of people in the vegan community. I could sneeze and an omnivore would say “Is that because you’re vegan?” (as if they themselves never sneezed?)

As a result, I was very aware of how my disability was somewhat being linked to the protein myth. As if I wouldn’t be disabled if I wasn’t vegan. As if people aren’t born with disabilities. As if disability and veganism were somehow incompatible.

Image description: white background. black typewriter font. “Ableism is… (a form of) discrimination. The false idea that disabled people are by default, inferior. When in truth disability is just another way for a mind and/or body to be.

And so part of me felt that to show my truth was feeding into that weakened stereotype, thus hurting the movement and thus hurting the animals, which obviously as a vegan and animal rights activist, you don’t want to do.

Looking back, it was also a lot of internalized ableism on my part, for I had yet to be aware that ableism was even a word, let alone working to unlearn it, and certainly had not yet found my groove and voice in my disability identity.

That said, I now see how essential it is to have a variety of vegan representation in all areas but in this case, ability and health.

And so, in the name of creating something lighter, and because it just so happened that I needed a new vegan cheese (long story), I filmed a taste test where I was un-apologetically me. Full throttle neurodivergent, processing delays, immensely honest, not downplaying when I was physically fatigued or in pain nor the fact that while there are many vegan cheeses out there, I could not try a lot of them, due to dietary intolerances and ingredient sensitivities.

[image description: tumblr has cropped the video thumbnail. the full thumbnail is as follows. Background gold glitter. Over that rainbow stripes. Purple blue green yellow orange red and dark red. To the left a photo of myself wearing a silence equals death with a watermelon pink triangle symbol on it holding up a piece of vegan cheese. I have oversized black cat eye eyeglasses and my rainbow flower crown hair band is pushing back my dark hair. Next to me is a collage of various vegan cheeses. And over that is the text in a bold black font “disabled and neurodivergent vegan taste test vegan cheese.” Every line has a white rectangle behind it and behind that is a black rectangle shadow. In white text with a black rectangle behind it. “Not sponsored. Very honest.”]

And as a result of being authentic and sharing my truth, I’m starting to come across other disabled vegans like me, chronically ill vegans, neurodivergent vegans, etc. and it’s lovely.

Many years ago, I wrote an article entitled Is Veganism Ableist? A Disabled Vegan Perspective. And in regard to the ideas of veganism, the answer remains no.

However, I do think in the wanting and sometimes desperation to do all we can to save the animals (and to a certain degree, the planet as animal agriculture is one of the larger contributors to climate change), a lot of us took action to dispel the protein myth, and while in ways it was good, some of our actions had consequences that also caused harm.

It is a reminder that when we take action to fight misinformation, we must make sure that we are also not punching down in the process (whether intentionally or not.) This is something that goes far beyond veganism.

In the end, us vegans from marginalized communities must represent with as much realness as possible, not only so people know that vegans vary, but so other marginalized people who are perhaps ‘vegan-curious’, will know that they too are welcomed in the movement. After all, the animals need as many allies as they can get.

   

Author’s Note: In the past, I have written articles using my birth name Michele Kaplan. However, in the past year, I have decided to use my mother’s maiden name, and thus why this article is by Michele Sommerstein, while past articles are by Michele Kaplan. Same person. I didn’t get married. This just felt right to me for personal reasons.

This essay originally appeared on Rebelwheels’ Soapbox in 2024.

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

2nd Wave Vegan Feminism

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As the animal rights movement expanded in the late 20th century, fuelled in large part by the popularity of the civil rights movement, vegan feminism took shape as a potent and explicit critique of patriarchal oppression women and other animals and the male-centeredness in anti-speciesist mobilization.

In addition to the influences of anti-racism, feminism, and other social justice movements of the era, the environmental movement also offered a much-needed seedbed for theoretical development. Vegan feminism might be identified as a theory of animal rights, but it owes much of its development to the ecofeminist movement of the late 20th century. Many scholar-activists from the animal rights movement, such as Carol Adams, Greta Gaard, Lori Gruen, and Marti Kheel published and presented extensively in ecofeminist spaces.

Ecofeminism emerged in resistance to the androcentrism of environmental philosophy and activism, arguing that gender inequality served as the foundation to environmental destruction and subsequent violence against women and the natural world. Vegan ecofeminists expanded this discourse in the late 1970s, 1980s and 1990s by explicitly acknowledging the oppression of nonhuman animals as important for advancing ecofeminist theory to its fullest intersectional expression.

As vegan ecofeminism gathered strength, it began to take on the Nonhuman Animal rights movement with more confidence. This culminated in the formation of Feminist for Animal Rights in 1981. For the next twenty years, FAR would develop an activist-oriented theory of vegan feminism that would interrogate anti-speciesism as a gender-neutral affair.

Corey Lee Wrenn

Dr. Wrenn is Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Kent. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology with Colorado State University in 2016. She was awarded Exemplary Diversity Scholar, 2016 by the University of Michigan’s National Center for Institutional Diversity. She served as council member with the American Sociological Association’s Animals & Society section (2013-2016) and was elected Chair in 2018. She is the co-founder of the International Association of Vegan Sociologists. She serves as Book Review Editor to Society & Animals and is a member of the Research Advisory Council of The Vegan Society. She has contributed to the Human-Animal Studies Images and Cinema blogs for the Animals and Society Institute and has been published in several peer-reviewed academic journals including the Journal of Gender Studies, Environmental Values, Feminist Media Studies, Disability & Society, Food, Culture & Society, and Society & Animals. In July 2013, she founded the Vegan Feminist Network, an academic-activist project engaging intersectional social justice praxis.

She is the author of A Rational Approach to Animal Rights: Extensions in Abolitionist Theory (Palgrave MacMillan 2016), Piecemeal Protest: Animal Rights in the Age of Nonprofits (University of Michigan Press 2019), and Animals in Irish Society: Interspecies Oppression and Vegan Liberation in Britain’s First Colony (State University of New York Press 2021).

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Feminism in Men’s Meat Market

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The cultural drive for men to consume other animals is well understood in the social science literature, but less research has examined how women as a distinct social class might also wish to consume Nonhuman Animals, and, more specifically, why women might actively resist vegan outreach efforts.

For some women, the alignment with male consumer behaviour and value systems could indicate an attempt to bargain with patriarchy, a strategy some women use, whether consciously or not, to protest their station as a woman or even improve their status by aligning with male power.

Other women may celebrate their consumption of other animals as a demonstration of their improved social status in a “postfeminist” society. Women and girls, after all, have been systematically denied access to higher-value foods, such as animals’ flesh. Many are deprived of sufficient calories due to cultural norms.

Women’s access to animal bodies may therefore signal “We’ve come a long way, baby.” Claiming “meat” allows women to claim their power. To this end, many feminists are resistant to vegan claimsmaking, arguing that food deprivation and dietary dictates are sexist.

Although feminism has historically employed consciousness-raising to awaken women to their personal and shared oppressions, the neoliberal influence over contemporary feminism has encouraged more feminist attention on individual freedom and considerably less on collective liberation. As a result, mainstream feminism has obstructed solidarity with other animals, as the requisite adoption of a vegan diet is dismissed as a matter of “personal choice.”

Sociological and psychological research on the relationship between gender and veganism often feeds the scientific trend in reifying gender essentialism (assumed fixed differences between women and men), focusing on women’s tendency toward plant-based eating and men’s tendency to eat more “meat.” More research, however, is needed to address a trend that is frequently overlooked in the literature: despite women’s cultural affiliation with other animals, most women continue to them.

Corey Lee Wrenn

Dr. Wrenn is Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Kent. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology with Colorado State University in 2016. She was awarded Exemplary Diversity Scholar, 2016 by the University of Michigan’s National Center for Institutional Diversity. She served as council member with the American Sociological Association’s Animals & Society section (2013-2016) and was elected Chair in 2018. She is the co-founder of the International Association of Vegan Sociologists. She serves as Book Review Editor to Society & Animals and is a member of the Research Advisory Council of The Vegan Society. She has contributed to the Human-Animal Studies Images and Cinema blogs for the Animals and Society Institute and has been published in several peer-reviewed academic journals including the Journal of Gender Studies, Environmental Values, Feminist Media Studies, Disability & Society, Food, Culture & Society, and Society & Animals. In July 2013, she founded the Vegan Feminist Network, an academic-activist project engaging intersectional social justice praxis.

She is the author of A Rational Approach to Animal Rights: Extensions in Abolitionist Theory (Palgrave MacMillan 2016), Piecemeal Protest: Animal Rights in the Age of Nonprofits (University of Michigan Press 2019), and Animals in Irish Society: Interspecies Oppression and Vegan Liberation in Britain’s First Colony (State University of New York Press 2021).

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Men, Meat, Milk, and Toxic Masculinity

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Vegan feminism is not only a critique of women’s experiences, the feminization of protest, the sexual and sexist exploitation of animals, or the patriarchy in the abstract. To be fit for purpose, vegan feminism must also contend with the male experience. Anthroparchy, a social system of human and male rule, is a conflict-based, hierarchical arrangement of power that is especially detrimental to women and other animals, but it is also detrimental to boys and men.

Vegan feminism examines sociological, psychological, and social work research on the relationship between masculinity, speciesism, and wellbeing. Research increasingly demonstrates that men’s aggressive or demeaning attitudes toward nonhuman animals are linked to similar attitudes toward women and other marginalized groups, but masculinity itself is quite fragile, requiring its adherents to constantly navigate a hierarchy of worth that regularly threatens to degrade the status of boys and men at the hint of any weakness.

Because masculinity is primarily enacted and demonstrated through power over others, boys and men who lack access to this power (such as those from the lower classes, communities of colour, or the global majority) will be at a disadvantage. All men, regardless of background, are expected to participate in this conflict-based social system and may be punished for deviating. This is certainly the case for vegan men who must balance their compassion for other animals with the societal pressure to appear tough and dominant.

Ultimately, the anthroparchy facilitates a type of toxic masculinity by enforcing violent, dominant, anti-social attitudes in boys and men. The considerable expectation that boys and men consume animal products, for that matter, creates–quite literally–a culture of toxic masculinity, as they will experience higher rates of fatal and chronic diet-related diseases resulting from their embodiment of masculine gender norms through food.

Lastly, vegan feminism acknowledges masculine norms as they persist in the animal rights movement. With compassion for other animals and plant-based eating considered feminizing traits, male-identifying activists sometimes work to protect their fragile masculinity with aggressive, confrontational, and even violent tactics and macho claimsmaking. Ultimately, it is argued that the protection of masculinity in anti-speciesist efforts only buttresses the problematic anthroparchal social system that the animal rights movement hopes to dismantle.

Corey Lee Wrenn

Dr. Wrenn is Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Kent. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology with Colorado State University in 2016. She was awarded Exemplary Diversity Scholar, 2016 by the University of Michigan’s National Center for Institutional Diversity. She served as council member with the American Sociological Association’s Animals & Society section (2013-2016) and was elected Chair in 2018. She is the co-founder of the International Association of Vegan Sociologists. She serves as Book Review Editor to Society & Animals and is a member of the Research Advisory Council of The Vegan Society. She has contributed to the Human-Animal Studies Images and Cinema blogs for the Animals and Society Institute and has been published in several peer-reviewed academic journals including the Journal of Gender Studies, Environmental Values, Feminist Media Studies, Disability & Society, Food, Culture & Society, and Society & Animals. In July 2013, she founded the Vegan Feminist Network, an academic-activist project engaging intersectional social justice praxis.

She is the author of A Rational Approach to Animal Rights: Extensions in Abolitionist Theory (Palgrave MacMillan 2016), Piecemeal Protest: Animal Rights in the Age of Nonprofits (University of Michigan Press 2019), and Animals in Irish Society: Interspecies Oppression and Vegan Liberation in Britain’s First Colony (State University of New York Press 2021).

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Vegan Campout…for Men?

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Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Vegan Camp Out is a British vegan festival held every uly that gathers thousands of attendees for a weekend of vegan talks, activities, and socialising. With tickets starting at £85 pounds, Vegan Camp Out is hardly an accessible event. Folks who rely on mobility devices would also find the campground difficult to access. Women, too, it seems are having issues with accessibility. Year after year, “the world’s largest vegan camping festival” features a nearly all-male lineup. 

In 2023, Vegan Camp Out highlights 20 speakers and performers on its promotional flyer. Only 6 of them appear to present as women.

In 2022, it highlighted Earthling Ed, Evanna Lynch, Simon Amstell, Lucy Watson, JME, Gaz Oakley, Bimini Bon-Boulash “and many others.”

In 2021, it celebrated its “incredible line-up” of Russell Brand, BOSH!, Chris Packham, Joey Carbstrong, Benjamin Zephaniah, P Money, Cosmic Skeptic “and more!”

In 2019, it cheered its “impressive line-up” of Earthling Ed, Matt Pritchard, Shikari Sound System, Akala “and many more.”

In 2018, it touted its “fantastic line-up” consisting of Simon Amstell, JME, Macka B, Neal Barnard, Melanie Joy, Heather Mills “and many more!”

The above highlights pulled from the Vegan Camp Out “Previous Years” website (as of April 23, 2023) include 28 speakers and artists. Only four of them present as women (in addition to Bon Boulash who is openly non-binary). The other female speakers, we are left to assume, must be counted among the “many more.”

The fantasy that Vegan Camp Out nurtures, whether intentionally or not, is a vegan movement by men for men. Too often in social movements, women are not deemed worthy of political thought or organizational contribution beyond making coffee and copies or serving as groupies. In the animal rights movement, which is comprised of a female majority (approximately 4 out of 5 vegan activists are women), the invisibilization of women exemplifies institutionalized sexism. It misrepresents, devalues, and erases women’s contributions while platforming men as more interesting, intelligent, and appropriate for leadership.

When challenged on this misrepresentation, Vegan Camp Out responded to me via Facebook on April 20, 2023, noting that their mostly male approach is acceptable because “the number of high profile acts/activists is [not] always proportionate” and “we book our line-up by listening to who our audience wants us to see, rather than us specifically.”

It is a Catch-22. Vegan Camp Out defers to audience polls to determine who will be approached as a speaker. Yet, with perpetual all-male lineups across the animal rights movement, how could the average activist be expected to know of any speakers who are not male? Women aren’t granted platform and this, in turn, ensures they will not be granted platform into perpetuity.

For that matter, the reality is that our society is sexist and male-favoring. Women, too, are socialized by patriarchy. The point is that movement leaders like Vegan Camp Out are in an important and influential position to develop the movement rather than replicate its weaknesses. Rather than recognize this responsibility, leaders too often dismiss anti-sexist critiques with gaslighting.

Vegan Camp Out furthers:

We don’t just book other people that our audience aren’t interested in seeing just to increase the number for that demographic, as we don’t book people based on their race or gender as that would be discriminatory and something we don’t agree with.

Vegan Camp Out bills itself as “The UK’s Best Vegan Festival.” This means it is in a unique position of professional obligation. When feminists and anti-racism activists raise attention to inequality and demand intervention, a common liberal response is to charge them with “reverse sexism” and “reverse racism.” This kind of response is an effective means to resist meaningful diversity efforts and maintain systems of inequality. It is effectively anti-affirmative action to the effect of maintaining white male supremacy. As a social movement, we have a duty to challenge inequality, not make excuses for it. Particularly for community leaders like Vegan Camp Out, it is vital that platforms are used to promote the world we want to see rather than replicate inequality and marginalization. 

The vegan feminist community calls on organizations and individuals to do better. Organizations should actively ensure a diversity of contributors (and accessibility for a diverse audience). Men should boycott events that do not have some semblance of diversity in representation. Everyone can nominate more women, trans women and men, non-binary people, people of color, people with disabilities, and other folks from marginalized groups who, despite their marginalization, have important things to say. Everyone can read more of their work, reference them more, and make space for their ideas and experiences that might differ from the middle-class white male Western experience.

This is not just a matter of equality for our movement, but it is of vital importance for creating a robust and effective movement. Western white men created many of these problems, we should hesitate in deferring to Western white men to fix them. Their expertise should be integrated into a multifaceted repertoire of tactical knowledge and theories of change, not rise to the top of that repertoire and crowd out the rest. This is not a matter of divisiveness; it is a matter of consistency in the anti-oppression work we engage in anti-speciesist spaces. To achieve total liberation for all species, vegan activists must also examine their own participation in inequality. If we, as a movement, cannot take seriously gender discrimination, this renders dubious our challenge to species discrimination. Why? Because oppressions share similar roots and mechanisms; sexism and speciesism are intimately entangled. 

 

Contact Vegan Camp Out and ask that they step up as movement leaders and ensure a more diverse program:

Twitter: @VeganCampOut
Facebook: @VeganCampOut
Instagram: @VeganCampOut

 

Read more about this issue in my 2017 essay, “Uh Oh… Your Vegan Panel is All White or Male.”


Learn more about challenging vegan sexism from our “Tips for Male Allies“

Corey Lee Wrenn

Dr. Wrenn is Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Kent. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology with Colorado State University in 2016. She was awarded Exemplary Diversity Scholar, 2016 by the University of Michigan’s National Center for Institutional Diversity. She served as council member with the American Sociological Association’s Animals & Society section (2013-2016) and was elected Chair in 2018. She is the co-founder of the International Association of Vegan Sociologists. She serves as Book Review Editor to Society & Animals and is a member of the Research Advisory Council of The Vegan Society. She has contributed to the Human-Animal Studies Images and Cinema blogs for the Animals and Society Institute and has been published in several peer-reviewed academic journals including the Journal of Gender Studies, Environmental Values, Feminist Media Studies, Disability & Society, Food, Culture & Society, and Society & Animals. In July 2013, she founded the Vegan Feminist Network, an academic-activist project engaging intersectional social justice praxis.

She is the author of A Rational Approach to Animal Rights: Extensions in Abolitionist Theory (Palgrave MacMillan 2016), Piecemeal Protest: Animal Rights in the Age of Nonprofits (University of Michigan Press 2019), and Animals in Irish Society: Interspecies Oppression and Vegan Liberation in Britain’s First Colony (State University of New York Press 2021).

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