jenna

(a.k.a. If I Could Change Anything, This Would Be It. … well, Some Of It.)

With the passing of feminist scholar and transmisogynist hate monger Mary Daly, a number of feminist blogs have been singing the praises of her life and her legacy. Few of these female-positive spaces – which profess to work towards empowering women and eliminating oppression – have bothered to mention that Daly, an “ethical vegetarian” and one-time board member of Feminists for Animal Rights, espoused the complete elimination of transgender individuals, calling them “Frankensteinian.” Feminist and vegetarian scholar Carol J. Adams, a much-respected activist in both the feminist and animal rights communities and a former student of Daly’s, sung her praises in a recent blog entry. In the comments of this blog, Adams states that “there were times when we disagreed with her; but what was wonderful is how she opened up the space to have such lively disagreements.” Meanwhile, a comment asking Adams and her readers to acknowledge the very real legacy of harm and intolerance left by Daly, was promptly deleted .

(In a private e-mail to me, Carol stated that she deleted the comment because she wanted to keep her blog entry as simply a memorial to the influence that Mary Daly had on her life, but this felt to me like more of the same denial that Daly ever did anything wrong, more of the legacy of trans-exclusive feminism that has created such a threatening world for gender non-conforming individuals.)

As someone who calls herself both feminist and vegan, or simply as someone working toward a more just world, I find that the correlation between the oppressions based on gender and species is striking. Of course, hierarchies based on inherent characteristics (viewing women as inferior to men, for example, or animals inferior to humans) are hugely problematic in the first place, but nowhere does the intersection between gender and species seem so strong as in the dairy industry. Non-human animals enslaved on dairy farms face oppression and exploitation not only because they are animals, but because they are female. Milk is a product of pregnancy; in order to continue to produce milk, a cow or goat or sheep must be continually impregnated, usually by force and use of a tool referred to as a “rape rack.” This does not mean, however, that the animals get to enjoy a large family and the love of their children; instead, offspring are taken away from the mother hours or days after birth. These infants are often slaughtered immediately or, in the case of calves, raised as veal. In this way, the exploitation of the female reproductive system feeds directly into the system of meat production, the elimination of which vegans and vegetarians are working toward.

Furthermore, the demand for bird eggs results in not only the demand for (female) hens with reproductive systems, but it also cumulates in the slaughter of millions of male chicks who are unnecessary for egg production. (Male chicks do not grow quickly enough to be “profitably” reared for meat, and they are biologically unable to produce eggs. Therefore, they are killed immediately.) Again, these hens would not be trapped on egg farms if they weren’t female, and these male chicks would not be created simply to be killed within hours of birth if humans did not demand the products of female hen reproduction.

It would seem that every feminist, fighting for the rights of women and an end to gender-based oppression, would have a stake in choosing not to eat the products of the dairy industry. Sadly, this is not the case.

And just as I am disheartened by feminists and “ecofeminists” who choose to eat or wear animals and animal excretions, I find it disappointing, not to mention dangerous, when feminist-identified individuals purposefully ignore and deny the struggles of gender non-conforming and/or transgender people. If we are speaking out against women being oppressed because of their gender and gender identity, it seems natural to also speak out on behalf of transgender individuals, who also face systematic oppression because of their gender identities. As long as feminists and vegans are declaring that trans men must have transitioned because they found life “too difficult” as a woman and trans women decried as “wolves in sheep’s clothing,” we are perpetuating a system that discriminates (and kills) based on the way a person experiences his/her/hir gender.

And as long as any of those systems exists – as long as people are experiencing oppression because of their gender, race, class, species, ability, sexual orientation, or any inherent characteristic – we have not achieved a vegan world.

A formerly vegan friend recently revealed to me that she has begun incorporating “local” and “sustainable” dairy products into her diet in an effort to eat more responsibly, at least in terms of her impact on the earth. This person is now consciously seeking only foods — with the exception of those stolen or recovered from a dumpster — that have originated within a small geographical area. Influenced heavily by Lierre Keith’s recent book, The Vegetarian Myth, this friend argues that veganism as a mainstream movement and, specifically, a way of eating, has turned into one of over-processed, over-packaged “replacement” foods that may actually harm the planet (in the language of topsoil erosion, water and fossil fuel resource depletion, and non-organic agriculture) more than is done by eating locally-raised animal flesh and excretions.

I definitely do not disagree with her dissatisfaction with the current state of vegan affairs. Veganism, to me, sometimes feels like so many grains of sand slipping through my fingers as classism, racism, sexism, heterosexism, and other forms of privilege run rampant, unchecked, through activist efforts. I, too, worry about the use of genetically-modified soybeans in faux-meats, reliance on foods transported thousands of miles, and the extinction of orangutans because Earth Balance is harvesting non-renewable palm oil from their habitats. The modern-day vegan movement, hardly reflective of the Vegan Society’s original definition as a stand against exploitation, has allowed the Philip-Morris company (the animal testing, tobacco-growing giant behind the BOCA brand) to produce vegetarian foods that vegans rave about and permits groups ostensibly working toward animal welfare to celebrate and partner with people who otherwise commit racist, sexist, and other oppressive acts when not speaking “on behalf” of animals.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should state that I haven’t read Keith’s book, and while I would like to at some point, it hasn’t yet made its way onto my reading list. In the introduction available on her site, she states that her intention is to ask readers to look beyond just the animals on their plates and consider what else might have been sacrificed along the way to get that food to your mouth: animals killed in the agricultural process, river beds gone dry, topsoil “turned to ghosts.” It’s an interesting and important question to ask, and not one to be dismissed out of hand.

But I’m still not convinced that abandoning veganism is the way to go.

This friend of mine has declared that her desire to eat only locally is so strong that she plans to move to California and live and work on a farm, from which she will procure all of her food. While this is a very romantic and admirable notion, the fact remains that dropping everything and moving to places where the sun shines year round and myriad crops can grow is not desirable or possible for everyone. As long as we live on a planet with seven billion people, some of them will be living in areas where food is less accessible than others; unless several billion of those people plan to kill themselves for the greater good, some measure of transportation is going to be required to feed all of us. Declaring that everyone should (there’s that pesky “should” word again!) only eat food grown in their backyards feels just as privileged as the “replacement food veganism” that some locavores are purporting to challenge with their new dietary choices. Issues of privilege aside, this New York Times article from 2007 also questions some of the assumptions that local food is always “greener” than other types of food.

(On an aside, I think some mention must be made of the implicit privilege involved in dumpster diving. Royce at the Vegans of Color blog highlights some serious problems that he faced as a dumpster-diving person of color; plus, issues of accessibility, availability, and reliability also plague anyone who tries to make dumpster diving a main source of sustenance.)

Not to mention that “humane” or “sustainable” animal agriculture doesn’t happen in a vacuum. While the animals shown to visitors to a local farm may be treated “well” (though can you really be doing right by an animal by stealing her milk and forcing her to live as a tool of production?), what about their offspring who were created to keep milk flowing and then taken away from the mothers shortly after birth? What happens to the animals on this farm once their production levels decrease and they no longer become profitable for the farmers? What about the basic tenement of not using another being without her consent on which veganism was founded?

If we’re working toward a vegan world, we of course want there to be a world left over when we get there, which is why issues of sustainability and environmental responsibility are crucial to our work. But, in my opinion, a world built on oppression is not an acceptable outcome. I do think it is possible to make better food choices and STILL be vegan; for example, we can assess the foods we would like to purchase and see if an organic food wouldn’t be better than a conventional food, or if a fairly-traded food would be better than one without fair-trade certification, or if maybe a food doesn’t even belong in our cupboards because of the issues of transportation or labor or sustainability involved. Of course, this extensive line of thinking and questioning isn’t always possible for every person, every time, but neither we nor the world are perfect. I believe that continuing to advocate for veganism while continually improving our food choices (the personal is political!) is a better solution than eating eggs. (And just as we can critique local-only diets as being harmful and privileged, I think it is important to keep harmful, privileged rhetoric out of the vegan dialog as well.)

We recently updated the “Vegan on a Budget” portion of the LOVE website, which offers some really great meal ideas for vegans who may be looking to eat more cheaply, locally, or sustainably. I am proud of the offerings on this page; many of the recipes beautifully illustrate that veganism isn’t always about trying to replicate animal flesh or importing ingredients from around the globe. We welcome your comments, suggestions, and recipes; please use the general inquiries contact form or leave comments below!

today, my partner and i walked out of the musical ”avenue Q” at intermission, and we never looked back. as a full-fledged theater nerd, this is not something i have ever done before; typically, i cry at the theater because i am so moved by a singer’s voice or by a cast’s performance. this time, i found myself crying because the absolute steamrolling of identities by the show’s script left me feeling so uncomfortable and so downtrodden that i couldn’t think of anything else to do. (granted, i was having a terrible day, and i may have held it together on an afternoon when myriad things hadn’t already gone wrong; i doubt strongly, however, that i wouldn’t have still been offended and upset.)

i recognize that there is a possibility that the script was written with that smug, tongue-in-cheek, sarcastic style that leaves the author room to say, “but i was CLEARLY joking!” if he is called out on the ridiculousness and offensiveness of the words (see also: hipster racism). i also acknowledge that i walked out before the show was over, and perhaps there is a redeeming moment in the second act in which all of the characters renounce the words and actions that occurred before the intermission (but i doubt it). but if that’s the case, what about the folks who walked out with me at halftime? what if the damage had already been done?

in a theater in one of the wealthiest states in the country, surrounded by some of the most privileged people in the world, i listened to the laughter of the mostly-white audience at the jokes coming at the expense of people of color, gay people, and women, and i just felt like we were all taking one enormous step backwards from being able to respect or empathize with the oppressed groups taking a verbal beating by the show.

some of the lyrics encourage listeners to tell racist jokes because everyone secretly enjoys them; one character suggests that it’s ok to pass little racist judgments like “wishing the mexican busboy would learn to speak goddamn english” as long we’re not making BIG racist judgments like hiring or hate crimes (oh, wait, we’re still doing both of those, too!); the one black-identified character declares that “bigotry isn’t exclusively white!”; the scripted accent of one asian-identified female character is the butt of several jokes throughout the play.

“tongue-in-cheek” or not, this is dangerous.

and i found myself thinking also of a norton anti-virus software commercial i’d seen recently {link here; trigger warning}. a naked, dead, mutilated chicken is “pitted” in a “battle” against four male humans. at the :20 mark, the narrator says something along the lines of, “the chicken doesn’t have feelings one way or another” — and i remember being stunned by those lines, because it has been proven that, yes, chickens DO have “feelings:” they have just as much interest in living free lives — in not appearing naked, dead, and mutilated on television or on our plates without their consent — as anyone else. i could just imagine the hundreds of thousands of people who might catch this on TV and consciously or subconsciously receive this reminder that animals don’t have feelings and can be manipulated in any way we so choose.

it’s also important to keep in mind which groups are creating these lyrics and commercials. i guarantee you a chicken didn’t storyboard that norton commercial, and i doubt either of the creators of “avenue Q” ever actually was an individual of limited english proficiency working for significantly less than a living wage in the food service industry.

any time i encounter something like this, i just cringe (or cry) at what an enormous step backwards this feels like. people who might have been in the process of committing to an animal-free, vegan diet may find themselves wondering why they’re doing so, if yet another commercial reinforces the popular notion that non-human animals are not sentient beings (not to mention all of the advertisements that straight-up portray them as food). people who may have been making an effort to be more aware of the identities and the oppression of people around them may be shamed by the lyrics of “avenue Q” (and the seeming agreement of everyone in the theater) into being more careless about their behavior.

as anyone working against the dominant forces of the world can attest, i’ve been told that i’m too critical, that i’m humorless, that i take everything too seriously — but today, i think i’ve finally stopped feeling ashamed of analyzing the world in this way. i am simply reinvigorated to keep fighting, keep speaking out and standing my ground, until the world begins to operate in a way that doesn’t require so much critical analysis and so many tears.

people are understandably angry and offended by a recent PETA billboard in jacksonville, florida that compared overweight women to whales and demanded that they ”lose the blubber” by going vegetarian. the billboard has since been removed (albeit replaced with a snarky, equally fat-shaming one that leads me to believe that PETA’s staff feels they’ve done nothing wrong and won’t have me waiting by the phone for an apology) but the hurt remains — and the ridiculousness continues. PETA president ingrid newkirk sounded off to the huffington post, essentially rolling her eyes at all the “prudes” and “reactionaries” who rightfully pointed out that this billboard is hateful and hurtful and has no place in animal activism.

newkirk’s article is a gem. she makes comments such as, “the majority of fat people need to have some discipline” and “being fat means being a bad role model to our children.” i wish i was making this up, but i’m not sure i could even come up with something so cruel. i’ve blogged before about how i find it so important to respect the identities and backgrounds of our fellow activists and indeed our fellow humans, and it’s so interesting to me that newkirk continues to defend this campaign despite how incredibly problematic it is. it appears that she — an incredibly privileged, able-bodied, thin, white, heterosexual woman — is unable to acknowledge and respect the lives of people who don’t fall into those privileged categories. that people still call her an ally to animals is problematic. that she is [still] considered a “leader” of the animal rights movement is unfortunate. that she can sleep at night after having made statements like the ones she made to the huffpo is unforgivable.

ida at the vegan ideal has a really thorough analysis of this whole fiasco, but my favorite part is this:

Usually, no matter how oppressive PETA’s campaigns get, nearly everyone I talk to who still supports PETA will at some point always recite a version of the phrase: “But PETA does some good.” This is the “get out of jail free” card most commonly used by PETA supporters to dismiss harsh criticism and seek concurrence and unanimity. But the reality is there is no amount of ostensible “good” that can justify perpetuating oppression.

veganism is a stand against exploitation, oppression, and subjugation of living beings, including humans. we can’t liberate one group at the expense of another. we can’t throw people under the bus to abstractly “save animals.” there are so many compelling reasons to adopt a vegan diet and live a vegan life that don’t involve degrading other people for the way they look or whom they love or what they believe or where they live. as my friend andrea wrote, “[Go vegan] to improve your health and the planet’s. Do it to improve and save animals’ lives. Don’t do it because PETA bullied you into it.”

i recently devoured the book Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles Of Incarcerated Women, and it started me thinking about the use of prisons in the united states and the effectiveness of incarceration in deterring crime. it would seem that other folks have cages on their mind as well: royce at vegans of color put up a post about incarcerating people of color for animal cruelty, and there was recently some lengthy debate about the inclusion of hate crime laws in different ENDA [employment non-discrimination act] legislation floating around the country. both discuss the abuse of the current (in)justice system — putting people of color and trans people, respectively, behind bars in greater numbers than white and cisgender people — and the failure of the threat of prison to prevent crime.

as vegans advocating for the end of the imprisonment of non-human animals, i can’t fathom how we can simultaneously support a system that puts human animals in cages — especially those humans who are systematically marginalized, silenced, and oppressed. the SRLP, referenced above, also expresses some concern that the inherent power and hierarchy in the criminal justice system will never allow for a level playing field, and those laws put in place to protect marginalized groups through the use of incarceration (i.e. hate crime legislation) may end up putting more of us behind bars. if the laws are going to be enforced unequally based on race, class, gender, etc. then i, as a vegan, cannot support them.

a few things turned my stomach about the article referenced in the vegans of color post above. in addition to the reporter completely dehumanizing cheyenne cherry, the young, black woman who killed a cat by putting her in the oven (royce rightly notes that billions of people do this very thing every day to a chicken, and yet none of them will find themselves arraigned and sentenced to a year in jail), discussion of a demonstration outside of the courthouse includes quotes from participants calling cherry “ugly” and “a monster.” (and don’t even bother reading the comments below the article from readers; some of the vitriol there is more than i can handle.) i wonder how many of those demonstrators wore animals to the courthouse, went home to consume animals, or purchase products that were tested on (and resulted in the murder of) animals? breeze also notes, in the comments, that mike huckabee’s (white, male) son allegedly hanged a dog in 1998 but was never prosecuted, either due to his race, his father’s influence, bias/reluctance by the local enforcement, or all of the above.

i remember when the michael vick dog-fighting case occurred, gary francione seemed to be the lone voice attempting to humanize vick and bring some perspective to the crime. other individuals and media outlets were quick to brutalize, pathologize, and otherwise create a monster out of michael vick, as if the idea of animal abuse was completely unfathomable and absent from the rest of the world. of course, i find dog-fighting, murdering cats, abuse or violence against any animal or human completely atrocious, but i’m not sure that throwing michael vick or cheyenne cherry in jail is going to prevent any future violence against animals. in fact, it is committing an act of violence against human animals. the united states incarcerates more of its population than any other country (one in 100 adults are in jail in the united states, as of 2008); crime rates, however, are rising. statistics go on to further suggest that 45 percent of people once incarcerated will commit crimes upon their release.

incarceration is not working to prevent future crimes from being committed, and it is oppressing people of color, women, and/or gender non-conforming individuals. so what is the answer? it seems like education, drug rehabilitation, counseling, and striking at the societal roots of racism/sexism/classism/heterosexism/speciesism would go a lot further in preventing crime than putting people in cages (where further violence is perpetuated through abuse by inmates, guards, and the system itself). after all, aren’t we as vegans working toward the elimination of those cages, regardless of who is contained within their walls?

i recently participated in a discussion about the unlikely partnerships between animal advocacy corporations and individuals, groups, or corporations who do not focus on animal advocacy work but have chosen to support a particular animal-related issue through press releases, advertisements, or products.

many of these partnerships have been in the news as of late, and each one has certainly given me pause. we have the humane society of the united states pairing up with rush limbaugh to increase awareness about animal cruelty; never mind that in the same breath, limbaugh might be telling women to “put some ice on it” and get over it following a beating by their husbands or partners. we have PETA commending KFC — and referring to their products as “favorites”! — for its inclusion of one vegetarian option in one country in which it does business and the use of a different killing method for the chickens it slaughters. the author of this PETA blog conveniently neglects to mention that KFC is a company founded on the torture, murder, and sale of animals to humans.

advocates of these sorts of arrangement stress that it’s vitally important to get the anti-cruelty message into the ears of as many people as possible. one employee of a large animal welfare corporation told me that the animals can’t be bothered with our high standards for who speaks out for them. we should be grateful for any show support of animal protection we can get — even if it’s from people who otherwise oppress animals or humans.

but what about the potential for losing other voices who are completely horrified, offended, or triggered by the work that these fair weather animal allies are doing when not pairing up with HSUS, PETA, etc? if a handful of republican supporters are persuaded by rush limbaugh’s anti-cruelty message, what if another handful of domestic abuse survivors, and/or LGBT individuals, and/or women are completely turned off by the pro-animal organization’s alliance with an anti-human advocate?

how often have we heard that hitler was a vegetarian? in my experience, most vegans and vegetarians immediately attempt to distance themselves from that association (or even disprove the notion altogether, which, according to the internet, is not true); i’d venture to guess that few of us would reply with, “well, we don’t really consider the other things that hitler stood for, we’re just thrilled to have one more vegetarian among the herd.” a person’s whole body of work — especially when they are being touted as a spokesperson for a particular cause or message — has to be taken into consideration.

falling far short of the vegan ideal, in my opinion those partnerships actually hurt animals and animal advocates. when it is posited that animal abuse is actually more important than the abuse of humans or the denial of human rights — when those issues aren’t even considered when forming these awkward alliances — we are doing ourselves and the animals a great disservice. yes, i prefer that we conduct a litmus test on ourselves and the world around us, and i choose to push toward a vegan world — one in which no one is oppressed.

oh. and for a great post on why i might reconsider my use of the term “ally” from now on, check this blog out.

i am sorry for the blog-writing hiatus as of late; sometimes life takes us away from our computer screens, and as much as i hate to neglect the LOVE we’ve built here, i had to wait for the storm to settle a bit before i could cobble my thoughts together into something resembling a post.

thankfully, it hasn’t all been chaos and upheaval over here. some of my absence has been because of some great social justice events and conferences that have been happening in my neck of the woods. each time i attend one of these events, however, i am momentarily stunned by the fact that they are serving meat and dairy products. it would seem that the organizers of an event to benefit a feminist organization or to raise money to support LGBT youth mentoring programs would have an obvious interest in not piling the bodies of other oppressed beings onto the plates of the attendees, but time and time again i find that this is not the case.

it’s obviously important to convey our thoughts on these issues to the people and organizations putting together these events, but i often hit a brick wall in my attempts. in my experience, event organizers are so harried with the thousands of details that go into planning an event or conference that this “seemingly minor” concern from one or two people doesn’t warrant a solution. it can be really challenging — especially if you’re not a visible member of the community you’re approaching — to express the relationship between human and animal oppression and the importance of not participating in any of it in an e-mail that’s short enough to be guaranteed to be read.

i think that’s why i have had so much trouble with letter-writing campaigns or leafleting at churches/conferences/pride parades in the past. i find it incredibly uncomfortable to approach a group of which i am not a visible member or an active participant and purport to tell them how to run their events or lives. steven has talked about the use of the word “should” and how that can (intentionally or unintentionally) flaunt unchecked privilege — and i am struggling to find a balance between speaking up for the animals who are murdered by the billions and respecting the individual experiences and rights of the people to whom i’m speaking.

so do i have any suggestions or solutions? the one that stands out to me is to ensure that we’re standing in solidarity with everyone working on behalf of oppressed groups. there’s no point in hosting the oppression olympics — anyone facing any oppression on any scale deserves to have her voice heard and deserves to have that persecution ended. (at an LGBT event last night, a speaker talking about the importance of LGBT education said that she wished her daughter could learn about gay leaders and the gay rights movement the same way that students learn about black leaders and the civil rights movement “during black history month, in february, or whichever month that is.” really? you’re expressing the importance of gay history while being completely flippant about the struggles of black people to have their history recognized in the same way?)

this doesn’t mean that we have to attend every protest or participate in every legislative call-in session that comes down the pike, but yes, we can be aware and considerate of all of the struggles that are happening simultaneously with the one(s) we call “our own.” get informed! get educated about the history of oppression and how people’s lives are being affected by oppression today. go to the library, take a course at your community college, attend lectures and community events hosted by social justice groups that maybe you’ve never interacted with before. there are myriad commonalities between the different groups working to end oppression. i would love to see us pool our resources and use our energy to work together. all struggles are one struggle, my friends. what is your role in the fight?

As I start to see everything through an anti-oppression lens, I find myself recognizing more and more that this is a challenging and exhausting view of the world to have adopted. In seeing our struggle as more than just ending suffering or creating more animal-free menu items, we have also had to recognize the myriad problems of classism, racism, sexism, ableism, heterosexism, speciesism, et. al. that exist. Even more difficult is trying to vocalize the connections between all of these struggles to a majority who don’t recognize the struggle at all or a minority who work so hard already to change the world in their own way.

I have been trying to think about where to draw lines and how to keep ourselves going strong in the face of so much oppression and ignorance. Obviously, in order to continue to put it out there and bring about a vegan world, we must — as people, as activists, as friends, as lovers — keep in mind our own levels of happiness and health when spending so much of our energy working on these exhausting, emotional issues.

Fellow collective member Victor and I have been discussing the heavy disappointment and exhaustion we feel when trying to approach other people with these relatively new ideas and challenging viewpoints. Often, we feel that we hit a brick wall in our conversations in which the content is lost to semantics and nitpicking. We have been told that if we had just said something a little differently, or if we stop being so idealistic, or if we were just a little more reasonable, our words might have rung true. Getting nowhere with these conversations can feel very hopeless and alienating. Obviously, ending oppression and illustrating the intersectionality of these issues is my life’s mission, but for how long will this be sustainable if it feels like the entire world is tuning us out?

How much educating can the oppressed be expected to do for the oppressors?
How many different ways can we share information? How many times can we be expected to rework our arguments and just keep trying when our voices are silenced?

Do any of you have any thoughts or experiences on how best to communicate these ideas and actions without feeling like you’re shouting into a black hole?

With so much discussion of criticism on the blog lately, I have been thinking about the “free pass” that some individuals and organizations seek to obtain for their (unintentially or intentionally) oppressive work.  A recent post on The Vegan Ideal highlights this concept: a “humorous” video called “Cooking with Trannies” received extensive criticism (from both Dani and commenters on their and other blogs) for its derogatory use of the word “tranny.”  In response, people were quick to wave the “But it was scripted by a trans man!” flag, as if a member of an oppressed group could not possibly take an action that would oppress other members of the same group.

This reminded me of an interview I read last year with Ingrid Newkirk of PETA.  The interviewer mentioned the extensive criticism of PETA’s use of female nudity in its media and outreach work, and Newkirk responded, “it’s rubbish because the organization is run by a woman” as if because she wasn’t personally offended or oppressed by the actions, no one else identifying as a female could possibly be offended.

I think it’s incredibly important to recognize and respect the different backgrounds from which we all come as activists.  Too often, I have found that we’re asked to present a unified front at the expense of our own experiences; “for the good of the animals,” we’re told, we have to ignore other issues or steamroll our own discomfort with an idea or action.  I absolutely love the tagline on the Vegans of Color blog: “because we don’t have the luxury of being single-issue.”  I appreciate those bloggers’ willingness to view the world — and take actions accordingly — through a lens that attempts to be conscious of the individual experiences of both the people who are doing the talking and the people to whom they are talking.  I am trying to let that principle guide all that I do.

I also find the “but I’m a _____” defense to be particularly important when discussing animal oppression.  Proponents of animal exploitation will never be able to say, “But I’m a steer, and I am totally fine with being sent to slaughter,” which should make it all that much more obvious to the world that we DON’T know what is “best” for these animals.  Since we are never able to obtain their consent, it is never appopriate for human animals to use other animals for our own purposes.  Because, frankly, the idea that animals would gladly, smilingly march to their deaths (trigger warning) is appalling and ridiculous.

After many vegan years of decrying only the suffering of animals and languishing in my single-issue bubble, I was lucky enough to have picked up a copy of “The Dreaded Comparison” by Marjorie Spiegel and began the gears turning about the intersectionality of a variety of different struggles against oppression.  It seems obvious to me, now, that the consumption of animals stems from the same source of the consumption of women’s bodies and identities; the similarities between the “othering” of people of color, queer people, and animals permits the systematic abuse and murder of these beings across the board.  All struggles are one struggle, but I didn’t always think that way.  It wasn’t until someone reached out to me — in my case, an author, and later my incredible LOVE co-founders — that the synapses started firing and the bridges were built.

This past weekend, at an organizer’s meeting for an upcoming east coast feminism conference, I was reminded that there are still many bridges to be built and many eyes to be opened.  One of my co-organizers brusquely declared that vegetarianism was “not her thing” and that she didn’t really see the link between being a feminist (as she so proudly branded herself) and being a vegetarian.  I gently tried to guide her down the road less traveled — pointing out the power and oppression in the relationships between man/woman and human/non-human; connecting reproductive justice for human women with the abuse of dairy cows and chickens in the name of human consumption of products of their reproductive systems; the “less-than-human” portrayal of women of color in the media and how that hierarchy serves to keep both those women and the animals in submission — but was met with a brick wall of resistance.

I was reminded also of how this single-issue focus is often pushed in the agendas of mainstream political and social justice organizations.  In my time as an employee of one such animal welfare corporation, I was often encouraged not to engage people on topics other than animal welfare while doing outreach, in an effort to not seem too far outside of the mainstream.  The vegan world I envision, however, does not incorporate the elimination of only one type of oppression, but instead the elimination of them ALL; I am not about to sell my people up the river to the benefit of my other people.   Zoe Weil writes in a 2005 Satya article about being appalled by activists who consume a plant-based diet but do not extend their support to other movements.  I’ve felt this same sort of disbelief in rooms full of all sorts of different types of activists, and have consequently made it my goal to cross-pollinate these ideas amongst different groups who may not yet have been considering the connectedness of it all.

I am not suggesting that everyone needs to devote their every waking moment to fighting every fight, but I -am- saying that it’s not too much to ask of people to be conscious of all of the struggles happening around the globe.  They are inextricably linked, and they all deserve our awareness.  I hardly think that this constitutes “asking too much” or being too far removed from the average person to be relateable — just as I don’t agree with a prevalent, popular opinion that asking people to adopt a vegan lifestyle is “too much.”

I wonder if any other collective members have experienced anything similar?  Do you have any suggestions for effective communication styles or tactical approaches to introducing the issues of other movements to the movement which you feel most connected?  Is there a “right” way to promote intersectionality and the idea that all struggles are one struggle?