Veganism and a Call to Feminists plus commentary from my regular livestreams on Real Progressives
This is not a judgement. It’s trying to bring these issues to light and letting us consider what we are participating in and that is, the exploitation of motherhood, and of female reproductive systems.
Some might think the answer is to treat dairy cows “humanely” and that will solve the problem. But that would be to have missed the point because ALL animal use is abusive. There’s no such thing as non-abusive use of nonhuman animals, and even if there were, it would still be wrong.
The point nonspeciesist vegans try to make, and which I always make on each of my vegan livestreams and vlogs, is that it is not about treatment it is about USE. It’s not HOW we use animals that is the issue, but THAT we use them that is the problem.
I think it’s hard for those of us who are women but not vegan, to think that we are participating in the exploitation of motherhood, the abduction and killing of children, the forceable impregnation of cows and the various other horrific abuses that are mentioned in the essay. But sadly, that is the truth.
As women, the only reason we might reject the suggestion that we are not living up to feminist values, is because we think that nonhuman animals are “lesser” and that they are not moral persons because they are a different species. The truth is that their sentience gives them the status of moral persons, which simply means that they are not a “thing”. Most of us agree that animals morally matter. To exclude them from the moral community simply because they are not “like us” is as unfortunate and unjust as excluding women from the moral community because they are a different sex, or excluding a group of people from the moral community because they are a different race/ ethnicity, or excluding a group because they are gender diverse or they are a different sexual orientation and so forth.
Do you see what I mean?
A nonhuman does not have to be “like us” to morally matter. All they have to be is sentient. And if we ignore their sentience simply because they are a different species, then we are human supremacists and engaging in “might makes right”.
It’s something we need to consider. All that is mentioned in that essay is related to feminism. The only reason we would reject it, would be because we are speciesist. We don’t need to use animals products at all to survive. We can easily meet all our nutrition requirements from plants (and other non-animal sources), so all this horrific abuse and killing is all for a few moments of palate pleasure. It’s easy to be vegan. I invite you to check out my vegan resource and if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact me 🙂 Much love.
2,494 total views, 2 views today