In my research on the phenomenon of sexualized veganism, I have noted that veganism poses a threat to anthroparchal power in a speciesist society and is thus vulnerable to sexist repressive efforts. Despite decades of stigmatization and discrimination, veganism has nevertheless persisted. Some of this persistence is a result of capitalism’s co-optation of veganism. Capitalism has effectively transformed a social justice movement into lifestyle consumerism. Emphasizing the gender politics of plant-based products helps ease a radical resistance movement into the marketplace. Sexualized vegan advertising, in particular, effectively pulls on gender stereotypes, sex, and careless consumption to sell a disempowered, consumer-friendly “veganism.”
Consider the American chain restaurant Red Robin. In an advertisement for its large variety of burgers, it makes special mention of its newly available Garden Burger. Speciesist industries will often greenwash their branding in order to avoid critique of other, less sustainable products on offer. Adding a token vegan item, however, is also important for ensuring that one dissenting consumer will not prevent a larger group of speciesist consumers (i.e. their family or friends) from choosing that brand. Companies are thus in the tricky position of needing to accommodate vegans without repelling speciesists.
Sex depoliticizes. Red Robin’s ad, for instance, specifically draws attention to its veggie burger as appropriate for teenage girls in the family who may be “going through a phase.” Sexualizing vegan food in this way–by 1) noting the presumed gender of the consumer, 2) disparaging her activism as “a phase,” and 3) phrasing this disparagement as “just a phase” to align it with the similarly disparaged LGBTQ+ community–helps to promote it as an option while protecting the anthroparchal status quo.
By way of another example, American fast-food chain Subway promoted its largely “meat”-based mix-and-match lunch deal as an offer that has “something for everyone.” The ‘Veggie Delite’ sandwich is paired with a white woman stereotyped as a hippie love child. Like the Red Robin commercial, Subway reinforces the sexist notion that healthy and ethical consumption is associated with the feminine gender role. More than this, the trope of the silly, free-spirited, “meat”-free white woman that Subway applies reinforces the idea that veganism is a lifestyle choice frivolously based on one’s current mood or appetite; as changing and unserious as women are presumed to be. Veganism presented as a care-free, fun lifestyle choice disassociates it from the serious (and more masculized) realm of politics where veganism threatens the very status quo that enriches Red Robin, Subway, and other violent companies.
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.
In my experience when you’re disabled (and proud #represent ) but require home health care services, it seems like you can’t go 6 months without having to fight against cuts in funding, Which means, that every damn year, we are fighting against attacks (from democrats and republicans) on our literal freedom. Do you know what it’s like to fight to not be forced from your home and into nursing homes & institutions? It’s exhausting, it’s terrifying and it’s normalized. As of early April 2022, I have been signal boosting #FairPay4Home Care, which works to solve the home health care worker shortage crisis by ensuring a fair wage (not poverty wage) for HHC workers, More workers in the HHC industry, less disabled and/or seniors forced from our homes. Our struggles are connected.
Getting involved in the movement has been simultaneously fulfilling as I am currently mostly bedbound (though working on getting stronger) and sometimes feel isolated from the world, so it has been nice to feel a part of something bigger than myself and my friends. But at times it was also triggering (in the actual psychological sense of the word, not as in a synonym for merely bothered as it’s often misused). No one deserves to be forced from their homes against their will and into institutions, where daily life is a dehumanizing assembly line. And that’s just when we’re not in a pandemic. When we are, such places can be a literal death trap and nightmare.
An experience, I unfortunately know all to well, as I spent several months in three different nursing homes from October 2021 to January 2022. Not only was I malnourished, not only did I at times experience abuse and neglect, but as I mentioned in the previous article which was somewhat controversial, I (like many of those stuck in institutions) was not able to remain vegan.
And because at that point, I had already lost far too much weight as it was in these various hospitals and institutions, I had little choice but to consume animals like chicken and fish. And at first, it broke my heart more than I can say, but like many toxic experiences that occurred during that time, my way of getting through things was to shut down as I was essentially in survival mode. And it got to the point where I was so closed off emotionally, that after a month, I ate chickens and fish without much of a thought. To be clear I didn’t take pleasure in it. I didn’t take pleasure in much during that time. It was eat or starve – so I ate. But I never felt good about it. I just shut down from those feelings of sadness, the knowledge that I am eating a fellow being. Nope not a being. Just food.
When I got out of the nursing home, my health was not stabilized. In fact, it was worse. I had actually gotten covid while I was there because at first there was one case, then there was a whole floor of covid, and then it was on three floors of covid (including the floor I was on). And still, the owners of the nursing home kept accepting new people even though the staff was already overwhelmed and burnt out and could not keep up with the numbers that we had. In many cases, sometimes on a daily basis, the staff punched down. I remember being so dehydrated at one point that I collapsed on the floor, only to be yelled at because they didn’t have time for “these games”. It was not a game. So when I came home I was not only messed up physically but also mentally. I had experienced trauma and had a lot of healing to do. Anyone who knows that the path to healing from trauma is not an easy one because you have to remember, feel, process and grieve – and I had gone to great lengths to avoid such things, I still get flashbacks and it remains one of the hardest things I have ever had to get through.
That said, one of the many good things about being home (besides being in a safer environment) was that I was able to eat whatever I wanted – within the realm of my allergies and dietary intolerances. At first I was concerned that going back to vegan “too quickly” might be too much of a shock for my body which was already pretty messed up at this point in time. In addition, one doctor had told me that eating soy might exasperate my thyroid issues, and so part of me felt scared about returning to tofu. I was also experiencing these really strong cravings for salmon that I initially didn’t understand. What if I can’t be vegan for medical reasons and if I stop eating fish I’ll get even worse? I realize now this thinking was partially rooted in trauma. With trauma responses, you experience really intense depression and intense anxiety, so making changes (even good ones) can feel incredibly overwhelming. But at one point in my recovery, as I started to heal, I reconnected to the realization that the salmon I was eating was not just “food” but this was a being, this was a life that was not mine to take. And when I reconnected to that, I cried. Like me, this was a life that deserved freedom and safety. But furthermore, I realized I don’t need to eat the fish anymore. I am no longer in survival mode. I am safe now and I can let it go. So, I looked for other sources of Omega 3 (hemp hearts and jackfruit according to the internet) and it felt safe to make the change.
Just as it was important for me to honor the life of the fish, it was also important for me to honor my feelings on the matter and what was needed to feel safe. Instead of just trying to ignore the feelings or even chastise myself for having them in the first place. My heart is vegan, why am I craving salmon?! I honored those feelings and looked at why I was having the craving in the first place. Turns out as my body was quite malnourished from my time in the various institutions, I needed more calories, more iron, omega 3, and protein than what I was eating as my body needed to heal. Once I ate more of what was needed, the cravings went away. It was never that I wanted salmon per se, but rather that my body just wanted the nutrients that salmon had.
Last week was the first week since I’ve been home that I was fully vegan. I am feeling better physically (as my body tends to feel better when I eat a fairly whole foods vegan diet, It has a hard time absorbing nutrients from animals, so I tend to do better plant-based.) I am also feeling better emotionally. I am still healing from the trauma which is a work in progress. I’ve been having an increase in flashbacks since becoming more involved in #FairPay4HomeCare but I try to do something in the morning and then leave it alone for the rest of the day in the name of self-care, and honor the feelings in between. But I am also getting involved with activism again, starting to create again, listening to music more and reconnecting to my passions, and living accordingly to what I feel in my heart – which includes veganism. And this is key – to know how to feed my soul, and nourish my body, especially as I continue to heal and fight with my people to remain in our homes. For, in the end, we all just want to be free.
Esther the wonder pig is half sitting on her bed and half on the floor. She is smiling and hanging out with her best friend Phil the dog.
Michele Kaplan is a queer (read: bisexual), geek-proud, intersectional activist on wheels (read: motorized wheelchair), who tries to strike a balance between activism, creativity and self care, while trying to change the world.
“We could worship even animals but would not tolerate fellow humans to sit beside us.” Bhagat Singh, freedom fighter, in Issue of Untouchability, 1928.
“Do not keep contact with those who feed ants with sugar, but kill men by prohibiting them to drink water.” Babasaheb Ambedkar, chief architect of Constitution of India and social reformer, in What Path to Salvation? 1936.
We all want to align ourselves with what is good and kind, and we are only too willing to buy in to stories that reinforce our self-perception as ethical and humane. Myriad companies employ the strategy of “humane-washing” in an effort to capitalize on these instincts. Humane-washing is a way in which companies attempt to convince consumers that their products are less cruelly sourced than those of their competitors. A familiar example would be the label “cage-free eggs,” which might be accompanied by images of chickens living free in lush, idyllic pastures. To the contrary, “cage-free” often still results in thousands upon thousands of birds being crammed together in large warehouses; they’re just not kept in individual cages. The warehouse, in turn, serves as a sort of “mass cage.” In the entirety of their short lives, these chickens will never see a pasture.
Similar myths are propagated around “happy cows” in dairy production, deliberately obscuring the mechanics of the dairy industry— which include forced insemination, early culling of male calves, and a variety of other abhorrent practices about which we would prefer not to know. As long as we can be convinced that our milk or eggs are “humane,” we need not pursue the matter further.
Kindness to animals can be used as a tactic in signaling a moral character in general. In fact, Israel has been engaged in a more comprehensive “vegan-washing” in order to bolster its image as a just and peace-loving country. Along with other emerging social movements of interest to millennials, specific campaigns have been undertaken to promote Israel as a paradise for vegan living. Much has been made of the vegan options offered to the soldiers in the Israeli Defense Forces, including vegan leather boots. Palestinian activists have of course pointed out the irony of compassionate vegan options when the state is occupying their land. They point out that Israel is one of the biggest consumers of animal foods in the world, and that proportion of vegans in Palestine is reported to be twice that of Israel.
In many ways, India’s famed vegetarian diet and promotion of “ahimsa” as a fundamental tenet of Hinduism has a flavor of humane-washing to it. Along with other spiritual practices and the prominence of MK Gandhi, much of the animal rights movement outside of India (and even within it) holds up Hinduism as a model of nonviolence and compassionate care. Leaders of animal rights organizations in the USA sign off their emails with “ahimsa,” name their organizations “Aum,” and are often pictured with its Sanskrit symbol or Mr. Gandhi displayed prominently behind them. However, when we look beyond the surface, we see that “ahimsa” is actually a humane hoax, a deliberate campaign of humane-washing that hides violence against other humans as well as animals. The academician Pratap Mehta stated that “The centrality of ahimsa in the Indian tradition was not a description of our non-violent history. Quite the contrary, it was a testament to the centrality of violence…. the discourse on ahimsa was more a sign of violence inherent in [our] society.”
The humane hoax of ahimsa is a little like Israel’s vegan-washing campaign, only hundreds of years older. Only a minority (about 30%) of Indians practice vegetarianism, and these are predominantly the privileged castes. Dietary habits are one of the most blatant caste markers today, both in India and in the diaspora. If the rest of the world thinks of India as a “vegetarian nation,” it is only because members of its privileged castes— who have had a public voice denied to those of lower castes— are vegetarian, and the privileged minority have been eager to represent India.
The priestly caste of Hinduism is called Brahmin, and the original precursor to what later became Hinduism was known as Brahminism. Scriptural sources indicate that both meat consumption and animal sacrifices were part of religious practices during early Brahminism (1500 BCE)— and that, at a later point, privileged castes (particularly Brahmins) switched to a vegetarian diet. Who were the Brahmins? Why did they establish a sacrificial culture, and why did they later eschew it for vegetarianism?
Various sources (including linguistic and genomic evidence) indicate that the Vedas were composed by “Brahmins”— identified in this case not as people indigenous to the subcontinent but as migrants from the Steppe grasslands of central Asia who began to settle in northern India 3,500 years ago. The evidence suggests that the Steppe migrants imposed both sacrificial culture and the caste system on the indigenous peoples, who then began to rebel against both practices. Buddhism, the main opponent to Brahminical ideology, speaks against the injustice and irrationality of both the caste system and ritual animal sacrifice. In an attempt to overthrow the advancing threat of Buddhism, Brahmins decided to eschew meat in order to claim the moral high ground, as well as spiritual and bodily purity.
In other words, their reason for adopting vegetarianism was to ostracize others as “untouchable” and not compassion or desire for ahimsa. This is clearly explained by Dr. Ambedkar, India’s preeminent social reformer, in his book Who Were the Untouchables? (1948) and followed up by Dr Ilaiah Shepherd in the essay “Freedom to Eat” (Caravan India, 2019).[1] To quote Dr. Pratap Mehta again, “Behind the solicitude for the cow lay a visceral hate for beef eaters, as if the very gentleness towards the cow was merely a sublimated form of cruelty towards others.” In addition, the scriptures are also very revealing with respect to how different human communities were ranked in relation to each other— and, most importantly for this context, how they were ranked in relation to other animals. In other words, certain communities were first degraded and banished, then further vilified for eating the only foods available to them, in an endless cycle of ritual humiliation. In the current day, the formerly “untouchable” are called “Dalit,” they number between 200 and 300 million and are among most oppressed people in India and the world.
Even if we choose to disregard the history of vegetarianism as described by Dr. Ambedkar and others, we know beyond any doubt that meat- and beef-eating is associated with the majority oppressed caste population (which includes Muslims as well as the caste oppressed), and it is very much denigrated in the present day by the oppressor castes. The tensions continue to play out as the current ruling party in India, the BJP, has applied stringent cow slaughter bans over progressively more and more Indian states. The BJP is the political wing of the fascist Hindu nationalist organization, the RSS, which proposes to impose Brahminical values on the people of India. Cow slaughter ban might look like ahimsa to outsiders, but actually the consequences of the ban are to further marginalize and criminalize Dalits, Muslims and other groups. Over the last several years, the incidents of “cow vigilantism” have increased, where dozens of marginalized people have been killed and hundreds injured in mob violence upon the suspicion of eating beef or trading in cattle. Perpetrators of violence are punished by the government reluctantly, if at all.
Not only are humans being harmed, but also neither cows nor buffalos are truly protected by the beef ban. India remains one of the top exporters worldwide of both cow and buffalo beef. There are many legal loopholes that allow animals to be slaughtered despite the beef ban. While small butcher shops run by the marginalized have been targeted and shut down, large slaughter plants continue to function. Recent reporting by The Caravan India indicates that oppressor Hindu castes (specifically Brahmins) are in charge of the surreptitious transport and selling of cows into slaughter. Taken together, the evidence indicates that the tenet of nonviolence undergirding Hindu vegetarianism is merely a “humane hoax” that hides violence towards animals— including humans. The beef ban and related vigilantism underscore the throughline of our history: using professed nonviolence towards nonhumans to oppress and brutalize other humans.
Many characteristics of humane-washing can be found in both modern US marketing campaigns and Brahminical vegetarianism. Let’s consider some of them.
The basic characteristic of the humane hoax is the manipulation of language to obscure the truth. The humane myth is essentially an example of doublethink: to have some intimation of the truth, but also to believe a carefully constructed lie that is its opposite. By definition, it uses language that obscures and even reverses the actual meaning of words. “Humane slaughter” is an oxymoron, as there is nothing humane about the involuntary and premature death of an animal. A product in the US can be “Certified Humane” but still allow many types of confinement and mutilation. “Cage-free” and “free-range” mean intense confinement; “happy cows” mean confinement, forced insemination and separation from new-born calves.
Cruelty, in other words, is termed as its opposite, kindness. In the same way, Hindu scriptures also contrived to turn himsa into ahimsa. While switching from animal sacrifices in the early Vedic scriptures to “ahimsa” branding, intermediate scriptures reinterpreted ritual killing as non-harm: “Manu asserts that animals were created for the sake of sacrifice, a that on ritual occasions is non-killing and injury as enjoined by the Veda is known to be non-injury.” The scripture goes on to add that Vedic sacrifices were not only not harmful, but a benefit that accrued to both the animals being sacrificed and the persons who are carrying out the sacrifice.
The second characteristic of the humane hoax is that is promulgated by groups or organizations who are otherwise predicated on the well-being of animals. The Humane Society of the United States, the most well-funded advocacy organization for animals in the US, is a major player in the humane hoax arena. HSUS (and similar organizations) often strike deals with the animal-killing industry and promotes its “happy meat.” By carefully crafting a brand founded on animal protection, the HSUS not only provides cover for the use and abuse of animals but also profits from it.
In the same way, being predicated on ahimsa, anything that a Brahmin does is automatically cleared of any suspicion. In recent times, having a Brahmin surname and identity has provided useful cover when smuggling cows to sell to slaughter. In the Caravan article on Hindu cattle-smuggling networks, Rajesh Prakash narrates:
“…the social worker… explained why Brahmins had an advantage when it came to transporting cattle. “It’s only the Brahmin caste that can come and go with the cow anywhere,” he said. “He will neither be caught nor killed in the name of cow protection, nor will the police arrest him. If a Brahmin is taking a cow to sell it for slaughter and someone stops him on the basis of suspicion, he can make an excuse that the cow has come as a donation from some village and he is taking it to some other village.”
The humane hoax offers exceptions for cruelty if they are supposed to serve some greater purpose that is vaguely but reverentially described. Authors like Michael Pollan talk about the intelligence and moral virtue of animals even as they relish hunting and eating them because it satisfies some delirious, quasi-spiritual concept of the Circle of Life. Some of the mystical language in the Pollan’s book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, may come right out of the Rig Veda or the Upanishads. For instance, Pollan writes, “Sun-soil-oak-pig-human: There it was, one of the food chains that have sustained life on earth for a million years made visible in a single frame, one uncluttered and most beautiful example of what is.”
In the Vedic literature, sacrificial rituals were undertaken to impose order on the universe. Even the creation of the cosmos was through sacrifice of Purusa, the primordial being, which gave existence to the four castes as well as the rest of creation. It says, “It was Purusa, born in the beginning, which they sprinkled on the sacred grass as a sacrifice.” The Upanishads, considered the most supreme and lofty of the Hindu scriptures, begins with comparing the sacrificial horse to the parts and processes of the material universe.
In the current day, a reworking of the humane myth certifies the cow (“gho”) as the “divine mother” to allow us to consume dairy despite the inherent exploitation.
“To the Hindus, the cow is sacred because it represents life and fertility. On account of the manifold usefulness of the cow, India has conferred a religious role upon the cow, having raised her to the status of a goddess, mother to one and all and an object of worship. In the appellation gho-mata, mata (mother) is more attached to cow than any other goddess in Indian mythology.”
Owing to this reverential labeling, the cow becomes the most abused animal in the subcontinent. Even though Brahminism has eschewed meat sacrifices, it has adopted the use of dairy products in religious ceremonies— which is no less cruel. Cow’s milk, ghee, and yogurt are routinely used in temple ceremonies in copious quantities.[2] Because of the slaughter ban, dairy farmers who would normally sell “spent” dairy cows to slaughter are forced to set them free to roam because they cannot afford to feed them. These cows wander onto busy streets and fields where they suffer abuse. One of the most insidious and uniquely Indian form of abuse is “acid attacks,” where stray cows are severely burned in an attempt to protect crops.
In the Western animal rights community, we hold up Indian vegetarianism as a beacon of hope for animal protection. However, when we look beneath the surface, it appears that Hindu “ahimsa” is actually a humane hoax, because it was originally intended to marginalize human communities; that it continues to do so under the cow slaughter ban; and that, ultimately, it does not really protect animals. “Ahimsa,” like “cage-free eggs” or “happy meat,” is just another humane-washing term, intended to distract us from the underlying violence against sentient beings, humans and other animals alike. We do not do the animal rights movement any favors by continuing to adhere to this hypocrisy. The people oppressed by the professed “ahimsa” number in the hundreds of millions, and they are only too aware of the duplicity. They hold in contempt the bogus value ahimsa, which claims to protect animals at their expense.
As the animal rights movement continues to claim “ahimsa” as its slogan, the people who have been oppressed by it increasingly see the movement as hollow, superficial, and misguided. As freedom fighter Bhagat Singh as has said, we need to look behind the reason why Hindus worship nonhuman animals, but won’t let a fellow human sit next to them. As Dr. Ambedkar has said, we need to understand why Hindus have fed ants sugar while they deny Dalits drinking water. Ultimately, the animal rights movement needs the support of all humans, not just the privileged ones; and it is not going to get it with humane-washing terms that are used to alienate and degrade humans.
[1] See also Jotiba Phule’s 1885 book “Gulamgiri” (Slavery) for a similar account.
[2] * Dr Kancha Ilaiah has termed these wasteful practices “anti-surplus generation mechanisms” – a way to prevent accumulation of surplus keeping the oppressed masses hungry and engaged in perpetual food production.
Rama Ganesan lived in Chennai until the age of 10, when she emigrated to the UK with her family. She then moved to the US in her twenties with her spouse. She received her BA from University of Oxford, a PhD from the University of Wales, and an MBA from the University of Arizona. She has two grown children, a dog and two cat companions. After reading “Eating Animals” by Jonathan Safran Foer, Rama began to explore the philosophy of animal rights and veganism. Over time this developed into an interest in the common roots of oppression of both humans and animals. She can be found on Instagram and Medium.
When I saw that the ocean was literally on fire in July 2021, besides experiencing a wave of panic because – the ocean was literally on fire – I was seeing a lot of discussions about what good are individual acts of accountability (such as recycling etc), when we have these giant corporations who cause this horrific level of destruction. That activists who care about the earth, need to focus mostly if not solely on corporate accountability. That the emphasis on individual actions places more of the responsibility and blame on the shoulders of the individual than the corporation.
[Video description: Part of the ocean is on fire and there are several people that are trying to put it out via what looks like boats with hoses on it. The footage is being captured via a helicopter which you can hear in the background. The next thing we see is from the helicopter again, this time a closer look at the fire itself. It is weird to see a body of water on fire.]
And to a certain extent, this is true. The powers that be will often promote individual acts while they approve new pipelines.
Related: Pipelines? Fracking? This is Fracking 101
Personally, I see individual acts of solidarity for the earth, as empowerment. So often we need to petition the powers that be to do the right thing, and keep protesting till they cave to public pressure and/or lack of profit (as we should). But with individual acts, we don’t need permission. We have the power to create change in that moment and that is powerful – especially when done on a collective level. That being said, are single acts like recycling enough? No. I think because we are at this level of destruction, we need as many tactics as possible.
That said, let’s discuss one tactic in particular that some people have this instant negative reaction to. It’s one of the largest contributors to climate change. Science has been saying this for years, and yet when the topic comes up? There is often these strong emotions that arise. What is it? Refraining from supporting animal agriculture aka: veganism or plant based. So, let’s break it down & unpack some of the most common reactions. No judgment. The topic of food is complicated, emotional, it’s tradition, it’s cultural and sometimes even religious, so it makes sense that it can bring up strong feelings for people. But if we can address and unpack the root of these feelings, it’ll be easier to embrace a plant based lifestyle (as much as one can) and that’s one more tactic in our tool box.
In the end, animal agriculture is one of the largest contributors to climate change and so we really can’t afford to let these feelings get in the way of saving the planet.
Feel free to skip the questions that aren’t applicable to you.
Wait a minute, so you’re vegan?
Yup.
Photo source: vegan food and living.com
So aren’t you just imposing your beliefs on people?
While I am vegan for various reasons, what I am talking about here is not a matter of belief. It is a matter of science & facts.
Related: Chili On Wheels was started by Michelle Carerra and provides vegan meals (and more) to those in need.
Yeah, but how are burgers etc. harming the earth?
It’s not just about cow farts, though that is part of the problem, as US Methane emissions from livestock and natural gas (fracking) are nearly equal.
It’s a matter of land. Animal agriculture is responsible for up to 91% of Amazon destruction.
It’s a matter of water usage. Agriculture is responsible for 80-90% of US water consumption. 56% of that goes towards growing crops for the livestock.
It even contributes to world hunger. 82% of starving children live in countries where the majority of crops are fed to animals, and the animal product is then sold to and eaten by western countries.
There is so much more to say on this, and I don’t want to inundate you with statistics as I know that can be overwhelming. If you like, you can read more. The point is that it’s absolutely devastating to the environment.
Yeah, but don’t humans need to consume animals for proper nutrition?
According to science, humans are not obligatory carnivores, meaning that we don’t need animals for proper nutrition. We can get enough via plant based sources.
Photo source: insider.com
There is often this myth that if you don’t eat meat, then you’ll become weak, but there are so many professional athletes and bodybuilders who are vegan. And if they can perform at this professional level, then us average people will do just fine.
How much protein do we need?
According to a Harvard health blog (and what seems to be the consensus), “To determine your daily protein intake, you can multiply your weight in pounds by 0.36“ That said, if you go on fitness websites, they will often have protein intake calculators that you can use to get a number that is more specific to your level of activity. For an example, I once knew a vegan who ran marathons, so he consumed more protein (and calories) than I did.
Because of my health / disability, I can not go fully vegan, but when I say that, vegans call me a liar. Some of them give me unsolicited advice, saying that a vegan diet could “cure” me. As a result, the topic of veganism brings up bad feelings.
Unfortunately, I hear this far too often. I don’t know why some vegans think they’re this instant specialist that is qualified to give advice to all people. Or why some think that a healthy vegan diet is this cure all, as it’s not. I eat a fairly whole food vegan diet, my spine still requires that I get around via a motorized wheelchair. There is nothing wrong with that. I am disabled and proud. I need my rights and access, not a cure – and certainly not unsolicited health advice.
I think part of the reason some vegans don’t believe people, is that sometimes people say things like “I could never live without dairy cheese” (as an example) but they could. They just don’t want to, which is different from someone who legitimately can’t for medical reasons. So it leads to some vegan activists to be skeptical, but they are forgetting that not everyone is able bodied and needs do vary. In the end, if someone says I can’t do this thing for medical reasons, I believe them because I’m not a doctor and it sucks to not be believed.
Photo source: PETA
My advice is to do what you can. Not everyone can contribute at the same level of intensity, but everyone has something to contribute.
This is also true for people who live in food deserts and don’t have the same access to some vegan foods that others do. Or those who live in areas where dairy/meat is cheaper than the plant based alternative and you’re on a tight budget etc.
So you’re saying because I eat meat (etc.), I’m a bad person?!
No. Unless you were born into a vegan family, you grew up eating meat and/or dairy. My family is Jewish so it was considered a treat to go to the local deli and get a sandwich that literally had a pound of meat in it, that was given to me as a child. I was told as a kid that cows need humans to milk them or they will explode (which I kind of laugh at now, because that’s just now how it works. They’re mammals. They only produce milk when they have a baby to feed.) The point is, it’s all very normalized so, I get it. There’s a lot of misinformation that we are told as kids about animal agriculture, but like a lot of things we were taught as kids, that just weren’t right, as we get older and hopefully wiser, we can choose to level up. This is part of our responsibility, especially since this isn’t just about us and a sandwich, this is about the planet and thus about us all.
I once met a vegan who made derogatory comments (towards myself and/or people I care about / have solidarity with) and now I associate a plant based lifestyle with that behavior.
I hear you. I’ve certainly met my share of vegans who were blatantly and un-apologetically ignorant. I’ve also met people in the anti-war movement and people in the environmental activist movement etc. who were also like that. In any case, it’s not okay.
I think it’s extra complicated though with veganism because it is such an emotional topic to begin with. But in the end, I think it’s important to separate the person(s) from the cause, meaning that just because I meet someone who is a prick and/or ignorant etc. it doesn’t make fighting climate change or war a bad idea. It doesn’t make veganism a bad idea either.
Also keep in mind that while some vegans (or vegan-ish people) get into Animal Rights and take it to the streets, this is not a requirement. You can just go about your life and be as plant based as you can and that’s fine.
But food is part of my culture, it’s tradition and/or in some cases, part of sacred rituals in my religion
As far as tradition and culture goes, there are a lot of people like Sweet Potato Soul who are taking traditional meals and making them vegan, so that might be one route.
But at the end of the day, that’s something that you need to figure out how you want to navigate. And if there are some things that are sacred and can’t be made vegan, then try to be vegan in other ways
A lot of people find Meatless Monday to be a great way to dip their toe in the water. It’s also a great resource for recipes.
Speaking of recipes, there is also an abundance of vegan meal and snack ideas online that are available for free. In addition to Sweet Potato Soul, and Vegan Bodega Cat, I also enjoy: The Unhealthy Vegan (who makes decadent but easy vegan food), Candice from The Edgy Veg , No Egg Craig , Tabitha Brown and Lisa from The Viet Vegan.
Photo source: the viet vegan .com
So, that’s it. I know there is a lot going on right now in the world, but I do hope that when you can, you will really think about this and add this tactic to what you are already doing. It doesn’t have to be this huge instant change. Start by eating one plant based meal and go from there. Thank you for your time and I shall “see you” in the fight.
Michele Kaplan is a queer (read: bisexual), geek-proud, intersectional activist on wheels (read: motorized wheelchair), who tries to strike a balance between activism, creativity and self care, while trying to change the world.
After much ridicule and resistance, veganism seems to be reaching a tipping point in popularity, cultural assimilation, and institutional accommodation in the West. Indeed, the 2021 Veganuary event pulled a record 600,000 registrants, while hundreds of stores and restaurants eagerly provided new products and specials to facilitate the trend. A year prior, veganism was even recognized as a protected belief in the United Kingdom.
Yet, with any successful political movement comes the predictable countermovement tasked with troubling mobilization efforts and preserving the status quo. For the vegan movement, its opposition takes many forms. This has included newly formed laws designed to protect the secrecy of animal agriculture (Martin 2015, Simon 2013), recharacterize vegan activists as terrorists (Wright 2015), redefine common food terminology and labeling to exclude plant-based options (such as “mayo,” “milk,” and “burger”) (Kleeman 2020), and cast doubt on vegan healthfulness with state-funded marketing campaigns (Nibert 2003). Opposition also materializes in the cultural realm with vegans routinely mocked, marginalized (Cole and Morgan 2011), and feminized (Adams 2000; Gambert and Linné 2018).
It is veganism’s feminine association that has become its greatest point of vulnerability in a society that is, according to some feminist sociologists (Dines 2010), increasingly pornified, commodified, and antagonistic toward all things feminine. This begs the question: how can the popularity of veganism be reconciled within a patriarchal marketplace?
I suggest that veganism is regularly described by advertisers in fetishistic terms, likely as a means to resonate with audiences that have been increasingly cued by pornographic and androcentric scripts of consumption. In this way, it is reduced to a hedonistic, capitalist-friendly practice of pleasurable consumption that is very much in line with existing unequal social relations. Drawing on vegan feminist theory, I argue that the veganism—a political position that fundamentally challenges narratives of domination—poses a threat to patriarchal social relations. Subsequently, veganism is depoliticized by patriarchal practices of sexual objectification and capitalistic practices of commodity fetishism. Sexualization, I conclude, transforms veganism from a mode of resistance into a mode of complicity.
This talk, presented at the British Sociological Association’s Food Study Group Conference, is available to view here.
Works Cited
Adams, C. 2000. The Sexual Politics of Meat. London: Continuum.
Cole, M. and K. Morgan. 2011. “Veganphobia: Derogatory Discourses of Veganism and the Reproduction of Speciesism in UK National Newspapers.” The British Journal of Sociology 62 (1): 134-153.
Dines, G. 2010. Pornland: How Porn has Hijacked Our Sexuality. Boston: Beacon.
Gambert, I. and T. Linné. 2018. “From Rice Eaters to Soy Boys: Race, Gender, and Tropes of ‘Plant Food Masculinity’.” Animal Studies Journal 7 (2): 129-179.
Kleeman, J. 2020. Sex Robots & Vegan Meat. London: Picador.
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.
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The term ‘sustainability’ has been critiqued as being performative and devoid of meaning. Sustainability at its core is understood as the drive towards maintaining ecological balance. It is a word that inspires strategies that are greener and considers the consequences and potential impact of extractive industries and depletion of natural resources on future generations. However, sustainability as a term has been misused, manipulated, and commodified. As vegan organizations grapple with critiques of colonialism and white supremacy, it is imperative to do the work to decolonize this movement and imagine a just vegan sustainability framework. In this piece, I offer recommendations on how to decolonize sustainability and fight for land justice, animal liberation, and food sovereignty in order to save the Earth and ourselves. It is time for a total overhaul of our food system itself.
Sustainability for Who?
This question of ‘sustainability for who’ is at the heart of this conversation. While affluent countries in the Global North emit the majority of emissions behind global climate change, countries in the global South not only face more consequences, but also are scapegoated in discussions of climate justice. If sustainability is operationalized as prolonging the current economic system and keeping things ‘business as usual,’ marginalized communities, both human and nonhuman, will continue to suffer.
In many ways, sustainability has been weaponized against the Global South and other communities that have been historically harmed by colonizing nations. The most obvious and insidious use of sustainability as a continued form of colonialism concerns population control. This discourse posits that the current amount of resources on the planet cannot sustain the current population and, therefore, countries with high birth rates should introduce population regulations. This discourse is saturated in white nationalism, is built on the continuing legacy of genocide and eugenics, and is integral to the contemporary ecofascist movement.
Usually this ‘family planning’ rhetoric is espoused by white environmentalists from the global North, such as Carter Dillard, Senior Policy Advisor to the Animal Legal Defense Fund who founded the family planning organization Having Kids, concerning rising population in the Global South. Dillard’s argument for a family planning modeled built with equity in mind posits that the most vulnerable population: children, specifically future children. As he argues, a human rights based approach “would protect [children] from being brought into the world beneath a particular threshold of well-being,” meaning that an unborn child would be more ethical, under this framework, than a poor child.
Dillard is aware that there is “a lot of history — around eugenics, foreign aid, welfare reform, etc. — [that] supports [the] argument…[that] focusing on population is actually a way of targeting the poor and people of color, rather than targeting the rich white men driving the fossil-fuel industries” but decides to instead focus on the to-be-born who he believes ethically should stay unborn. This continuation of colonial logics saturated in sustainability rhetoric illustrates that a new conception of sustainability is necessary to move forward towards a just future. I believe that integral to this conception of sustainability is an analysis of what historic harms have been done to previously colonized countries, how capitalism continued to propagate extractive industries in these nations, and how the Global North will hold itself accountable for this legacy of climate change.
Decolonizing Sustainability
What would a sustainable future that encompasses the needs and considerations of the Earth and nonhuman animals look like from a decolonial perspective? Any future-oriented vegan organization must be focused on acknowledging its pattern of centering white male voices from the Global North and espousing damaging colonial rhetoric. Doing this work—not to perform solidarity but to enact it – begins the slow process of building relationships with communities that the vegan movement has marginalized and tokenized.
While not a vegan organization, groups could learn a lot from Soul Fire Farm. Soul Fire Farm is a Black-led multi-racial sustainable farm that challenges injustice in the food system and it is also leading a reparations movement for Black farmers. Case studies like Soul Fire Farm offer examples of how to do food justice right:
Build community and partner with activists, networks, institutions, and indigenous tribes.
Create spaces to heal from generational trauma.
Offer solidarity-shares and distribute to your communities.
Tell stories and raise historically marginalized voices and histories.
Engage in radical self care and create a healthy work culture.
Participate in regenerative farming practices based on respect for non/humans.
Create workshops that equip marginalized folks with the tools to create their own movements.
Collaborate with and act in solidarity with indigenous communities.
Give your land back to Black-Indigenous farmers.
It is only through true, non-performative reparations that we can undo the harm of food apartheid together.
This work is necessary in order to grow regional partnerships with sister organizations and begin working towards sustainable farming, environmental stewardship models, and food justice. Consider language justice and indigenous land ownership throughout entire project, build a portfolio of insights from model organization’s programming, and consider the advice of land and farm elders. Always ask, “How will the work stay grounded in truth and reconciliation between black and indigenous people? How will these communities be provided access to power building opportunities? How can my organizations create autonomous spaces for these communities?”
Vegan Sustainability
This conversation concerning sustainability is tackled directly in the new film, “We Fly, We Crawl, We Swim” by the collective Just Wondering and has been celebrated in film showings across the world. Just Wondering creates animations that make posthumanist and critical animal studies theories digestible and understandable. Their videos also challenge the status quo and illustrate how normative power structures are inherently oppressive and marginalized people, nonhumans and the planet “We Fly” argues that environmental justice cannot be accomplished without challenging the current systems at fault for pollution—capitalism and its obsession with consumption and commodification. Just Wondering’s solution: creating a multispecies society that views the more-than-human world as kin and changes our economic system with their needs and consideration in mind.
A true sustainability—one that not only regulates harm but abolishes it—is predicated on the embracing of a multi-species liberation. Performing sustainability in order to continue extractive practices only reifies the structures that support this exploitation of people, non-human animals, and the environment. In order to build a multi-species solidarity future, it is imperative that we not only predicate social justice movements on environmental justice, but that we also reform our current economic system towards a more just commons-based society that includes the needs of non-human actors and actants. I view this framework as a ‘vegan sustainability’ and believe this is the sustainability we should work towards in the future.
Vegan sustainability is built upon the following tenants:
1) Animals and the environment are worthy of care and moral consideration.
2) Capitalism is the underlying current that is behind the current commodification and exploitation of people, nonhuman animals, and the environment.
3) Nonhuman population deserve recognition of their autonomy and should be viewed as political persons.
4) Harm has been wrecked on non-human and marginalized human communities and these population deserve accountability and reparations for this harm.
5) A just world and just future outside of our current system is possible and attainable.
Just Wondering’s main argument is one of idealism, not self-defeating pessimism. They posit that it is not only conceivable but achievable to imagine and create a society that is anti-capitalism, anti-specieisism, anti-white supremacy, and anticisheteronormativity. It is through this framework of vegan sustainability, an off-shoot of the revolutionary potential of vegan politics, that we can move towards an economic reformation outside of our contemporary systems of violence and towards total liberation.
