Kate Louise Powell is a vegan feminist activist, organizer, and artist, although she foremostly describes herself as an artist interested in intersectionality and animal rights: “I was calling myself a feminist way before I was vegan, I came to that first.” The connection between the two, she recalls, “came quite naturally.” Vegan feminism for Powell is “fighting for what I believe in in a consistent, nonhypocritial way.”
The things that stood out to me from day one, because how visceral it is, is the repeated insemination, the exploitation of reproductive systems, the uses and draining of female animal bodies, and because I already considered myself a feminist I feel like I was just hit over the head with that element of it. […] How did I not see this before?
Coming to veganism as a feminist was not an easy process for Powell, as it brought with it a lot of trying emotions, namely frustration, sadness and anger. These emotions, she regrets, were often projected onto her unwitting family. “I was so hyperactive and explosively angry with it at the beginning that I really wasn’t that good at talking with anybody else about it,” she explains.
Women and other animals, she observes, undergo a litany of similar mechanisms of oppression. Her feminism keyed her to recognize “sexual violence, reproductive justice, objectification, and the mockery of victims” in systems of speciesism as well. The ideology of “might is right,” she explains, is also present in the human treatment of other animals. Yet, Powell’s vegan feminist theory acknowledges that the oppression of other animals is not only gendered, but also mediated by measures of time. The mass evisceration of newly hatched male chicks, for instance, allows them only a very short life and highly violent death. Meanwhile, female-bodied animals who are used in reproduction often undergo very prolonged, very repetitive forms of abuse.
Although these intersections are very real and important, she also cautions care when drawing connections:
Vegan feminism to me means nuance and thoughtfulness, because I feel as though when we talk about human women and other animals who are female, I feel like we can cross into some interesting territory about sex and gender. […] Vegan feminism needs to be very clear about what its saying and be open minded. […] When you’re comparing female animals to women you’re connecting the lines through the sex organs […] we just have to be careful that were not always correlating having a womb to being a woman.
Indeed, the association of female-bodiedness with cultural ideas of biologically-determined femininity, womanliness, and capacity for mothering, she warns, risks falling into “TERFy territory.”
Powell’s considered theory of vegan feminism permeates her artwork in surprising ways. She was commissioned to illustrate Carol Adams’ theory in support of the 35th anniversary release of The Sexual Politics of Meat, for instance. Her art also efforts to “see” those who are typically unseen. Pigeons, rats, “hunted” species, and slaughterhouse-bound victims on transportation trucks are key themes in her work. She is also very passionate about challenging categories of “pest” and “vermin,” with foxes being of particular interest.
To that end, she has also leveraged art to create nonhuman individualization as a means of resisting the abstractifying effect of mass speciesist exploitation. Some of her own photography from actions against slaughterhouses has been incorporated into her art, namely in her piece “250 Eyes,” which represents the approximate 250 animals killed for food every second. “Spending that much time with each animal,” examining and replicating the wide variety of emotions from exhaustion to intense fear, she explains, brings each individual into focus.
With such intense work, Powell is keenly aware of the potential for emotional burnout. Subsequently, she intentionally balances heavier pieces that convey animal suffering with work that “feels good because I get to actually just focus on much I love this animal and how amazing I think they are.” She adds that, if her work can be used toward helping animals, this, too, helps to counter the stress of immersing herself in work that exposes speciesism.
As a vegan feminist, Powell is also aware of the ways in which sexism has caused emotional exhaustion for the movement, namely in replicating problematic gender stereotypes and inequalities. Her previous work with vegan organizations has given her firsthand experience with the movement’s unfortunate prioritization of celebrity over the safety of female activists and audiences. This, Powell recognizes, is part of a larger patriarchal movement structure: “Power and agency is being transferred up to the top,” she explains, in favor of “strong male leaders.” This patriarchy, she adds, comingles with capitalism:
There is this certain handful of men who have become extremely popular because of branding animal rights […] it’s made it almost into a commodity. The idea of animal rights has become this thing that they’re selling. […] I don’t think we can have animal liberation and capitalism at the same time.
Powell is also concerned with the impact of fascism in the United States and elsewhere and its chilling effect on activism. This political climate, she fears, can also encourage the proliferation of toxic masculinity as a sort of defensive mechanism. Meanwhile, she observes, “people are being conditioned to be frightened of extremism,” and this has included animal rights given public misconceptions.
Reaching out to those suffering the most from global fascist tendencies, furthermore, has proved tricky. “Because the world is so terrifying right now,” for LGBTQ people, immigrants, and people cast as “the other,” Powell explains, “the pressure of that […] can make people feel as though there isn’t space to consider another group, as in nonhuman animals.”
When there’s so much going on, it’s hard to talk to groups of people who aren’t currently engaged with animal rights but they’re already going through so much.
Reflecting on their activist career so far, Powell has been most proud of her growth as a person. She notes that, as the years have passed, she has moved away from a more self-focused type of activism to one that is more collectively oriented. As for her artwork, she is interested in exploring futuristic themes that imagine new relationships with other animals: art that, in other words, encourages critical thinking. She also wants to pursue work that interrogates broader reasons for why speciesism transpires. These depictions, she hopes, will be less literal, less about individual atrocities, and more about the bigger, albeit, more abstract, picture of animal oppression.
Learn more about Kate Louise Powell on their website and follow them on Instagram. Their work can also be found on Etsy.
This interview was recorded on April 25, 2025.