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The Connection Between Veganism & Feminism
I’m vegan for a number of reasons, the main one being that I don’t believe animals deserve to be held captive, tortured and/or killed anymore than I believe humans do. Animals are sentient beings who experience fear and feel pain just as real as any human. After all, humans are merely animals.
I feel that supporting animal rights is perfectly in line with my feminist beliefs for the following reasons.
How can I be against the exploitation and commodification of women if I support the exploitation and commodification of animals? Especially when it’s the females of the species who are most often tortured.
Female egg laying hens have their beaks seared off (even those labeled free range) and are put into tiny cages stacked on top of each other, forced to live in the waste of those above them. They are bred to lay many more eggs than are natural causing severe nutrient deficiencies, especially calcium.
Dairy cows are forcefully inseminated at a place that the factory farm workers have “playfully” nicknamed the “rape rack”. They give birth, only to have their baby taken away from them and the milk meant for those babies taken for human consumption. The baby animals will become future dairy cows if female or become veal if male. Female cows are then hooked up to machines which cause large and painful sores (mastitis) until her milk slows and the entire process is repeated.
When both chickens and cows are considered “used up”, meaning they’re too old to produce eggs or milk anymore, they’re killed. For these reason, among others, I believe that the animal industries are very much a patriarchal institution. I believe It’s all a part of our patriarchal society’s desire to control female reproduction.
I’ll be creating an Animal Rights category here where I’ll be going into this connection in more depth. If you would like to be notified of future articles, be sure to subscribe to the feed.
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Author: Persephone Pomegranate
Persephone Pomegranate is an introverted zinester living a reclusive life in the mountains. She is also a multi media artist, vegan, atheist and suffer from GAD (General Anxiety Disorder)
