A concerning trend i’m starting to notice with a lot of feminists online, is they’re starting to make the same mistakes of liberal feminism. they’re conflating feminism with other things like veganism. You can feel sympathy for the slaughtering of animals and abstain from eating them but it’s a big stretch to say veganism and feminism are alike. It’s no less absurd than vegans who claim veganism and civil rights are the same. It’s insulting.
It’s a noble cause and i admire the resolve and fortitude it takes to stand your ground in a world that oppose you. It’s commendable but veganism has nothing to do with feminism. At all. You can criticize it from the health angle (they feed them crap and shoot them with hormones) or class angle (it exploits immigrants and poor people) etc. however you can’t make it a feminist cause. For god’s sake we can barely save women we know need our help, you want us to save animals too? Feminism is solely about the liberation of women from male control and domination. That’s it. It intersects with class, race, religion, and sexual orientation and that’s about it. Things that women can be. Women are owed a movement that is ONLY about saving them and them alone and that’s what feminism is for.
feminists connecting feminism to veganism is not at all similar to liberal feminism advocating for groups like men. ecofeminism is a respected and established branch of feminism with its own theory and bright female thinkers spanning back decades, not a concerning online trend.
i don’t think that all feminists need to be vegan by any means (nor do most vegan feminists claim this), but to say they’re not interlinked is incredibly wishful thinking. we’ll never be able to fully dismantle patriarchy while racism, classism, capitalism, etc. are still rampant, and veganism is no different, whether we like it or not.
the exploitation which happens to female animals showcases exactly what males would also like to do to human females, and will continue to do to human females, as long as they can get away with it. it’s the exact same line of thinking based on the exploitation of female biology.
feminism and veganism are also interlinked issues when males in the meat industry are more likely to sexually assault and be domestically abusive towards women, more likely to have misogynistic attitudes and strict gender roles, and both exploit female biology. the ongoing climate crisis also disproportionately affects women and will continue to disproportionately affect millions of women. this is huge.
so this is actually a serious feminist issue. all women benefit from more vegans in the world and society having more favourable attitudes towards female animals. is it also surprising that vegans - a group largely consisting of women - are constantly mocked and trivialised and not seen as legitimate by the rest of society?
many feminists inability to see the links to veganism stems from defensiveness over their food choices or even the misogynistic smear campaign present against veganism - a female-led ideology - as opposed to actual intellectual analysis. feminists can understand that patriarchy permeates all aspects of society and interlinks with other systems of oppression, yet somehow believe that veganism is a completely separate area free of patriarchal control. this makes no sense.
feminists are able to advocate against other systems of oppression without being accused of watering down the movement, because it’s clear that women cannot be free while racism or late-stage capitalism exist. yet when feminists want to discuss veganism, they’re wrongly told that veganism somehow has nothing to do with female humans’ liberation and often compared to how liberal feminism advocates for men - which is a complete leap.
liberal feminism advocates for males because it’s a patriarchal and capitalistic movement co-opted by males. vegan feminists advocate for veganism because the sex-based oppression of female animals worsens the sex-based oppression of female humans.
