This is Dr. Wren for The Vegan Report. Today's
episode we'll be discussing the controversial
perhaps topic of feminism and is it necessary
for effective vegan outreach. I will be arguing
that yes, it is not only essential but it has
been fundamental to effective animal advocacy
and vegan outreach from the very beginning of
professional activism in the 19th century. If
you'd like to learn more about me and the work
that I do, before we get started, I'll direct
you to coreyleen .com. And there you can find
all of my research available to view and download
free of charge. You can also find my YouTube
channel at coreyleen. And I'm also on Instagram
at coreyleen. And I have a newsletter and you
can sign up for that if you go to my website.
I am a senior lecturer of sociology at the University
of Kent in Canterbury, England, and I'm the co
-director of the Center for the Study of Social
and Political Movements. And I received my PhD
in sociology with Colorado State University in
2016. I'm past chair of the Animals and Society
section of the American Sociological Association.
And I was in the past a chair for that same section.
I'm also the co -founder of the International
Association. of vegan sociologists. I've published
four books, five books, jeez, one's coming up.
I've published four books so far on effective
animal outreach and that is A Rational Approach
to Animal Rights published by Palgrave in 2016,
Peace Now protests, Animal Rights in the Age
of Nonprofits that was published with the University
of Michigan Press 2019, Animals in Irish Society
published with SUNY Press 2021, Vegan Witchcraft,
Contemporary Magical Practice, and Multi -Species
Social Change, which is published by Rootledge
this year, and forthcoming that should be released,
gosh, if not in 2026 and definitely in 2027.
I'm about to hand in the final draft for that,
which is what, while we're talking about feminism
today, the topic is vegan feminism. The book
is called Vegan Feminism, History, Theory, Activism,
and that will be coming with Bloomsbury Epidemic.
So that's me in a nutshell. I'm really well published
in these topics and I've been doing vegan feminism
for 10 plus years and as part of my research
for this forthcoming book I've really delved
into what I would consider three major waves
of vegan feminism since the 19th century. Now
many people when they think of vegan advocacy,
they think of it as something that is gender
neutral, even race neutral or class neutral,
ethnicity neutral. But actually, that's just
not the way our society works. I can tell you
as a sociologist that we're always viewing our
social world through the lens of gender, race,
and oftentimes class as well. So it really isn't
doing us any favors if we try to pretend that
gender doesn't matter. So I'm going to be talking
today about my expertise as a sociologist and
also someone who focuses on social movement theory.
But I should also direct you to the wild and
wonderful world of vegan social psychology. And
they've been doing quite a lot of research that
actually supports there is evidence that in people's
minds, they do connect their attitudes about
gender, race, and so on with their attitudes
toward animals. So in the past 10 plus years,
we now have evidence to support what vegan feminist
theory has been arguing all along, that yes,
gender does matter. So let me start by explaining
what vegan feminism is and where it comes from,
what its history is. So vegan feminism is basically
making the argument that we can't fully understand
veganism or advocate for other animals or promote
veganism without having a critique of gender.
So the idea with feminism, if we can even break
it down further, feminism is not about hating
men, bashing men, isolating from men. Feminism
is all about the idea that gender should not
matter when we are distributing resources, and
gender should not matter as far as someone's
quality of life and their life chances. However,
we do live in a very gender unequal society.
We do live in an andro -centric society, which
means male -centered. And just as a quick example
of that, if you look at most legislative seats
in the world, globally, it's about 80 % of those
go to men. In the United States, where I'm from,
we still have not had a female president, and
we probably won't for a very long time. Most
of the people who are in important judicial seats,
they are also men. Law historically has been
designed around the male point of view and to
protect male interests, et cetera, et cetera,
et cetera. So we don't live in a post -feminist
society where gender doesn't matter anymore because
somehow feminism has solved all of our problems
too. Contrary, we still have quite a lot of institutionalized
sexism. And gender still is a key determinant
in someone's life chances and their quality of
life and resources they'll have access to. We
have a lot of disparity over career aspects,
for instance, what kind of jobs are open to you,
kind of opportunities are open to you. And also,
we have major disparities in pay. So we still
have a big gender pay gap, which gets even worse,
by the way, when you bring in race, class, et
cetera. So the idea then with feminism is that
we should not live in a society where that is
the case. It should be a society where everyone
is free to express their gender identity however
they want and in some cases some feminists would
also say maybe get rid of gender altogether and
let people just be people. But it's not about
putting men down or waging a war against men.
That's not the case. So when we look at being
in feminism, it's a similar situation. We should
not have a case where masculinity and patriarchy
is shaping our relationship with other animals
or our diets, plant -based or not plant -based,
but it's simply not the case. It is very much
so true that gender does shape our relationship
with animals and our diets. So for instance,
we know that men are more likely to be consuming
animal products and far more animal products
than women. So part of men's Gender expression
is through domination. So that's really about
masculine and masculine T. Traditionally has
been understood that it's about domination and
so it's a very conflict -based gender Patriarchy
is a very conflict -based social arrangement.
So one way that you can express your masculinity
is by putting down others and sort of making
yourself king of the mountain, however you want
to phrase that. And so putting down animals,
consuming animals, dominating animals is one
way to do that. So that's why we see men are
more likely to eat meat and lots of meat. That's
also why we're more likely to see men engaged
in slaughterhouse work or vivisection laboratories,
et cetera, et cetera. Whereas for women, because
femininity has been defined as expressing submissiveness,
Well, then you can understand then how women
are more allowed to align with fellow animals
because animals being one of the weakest social
groups as far as access to power and resources
and social status. It makes sense then for women
to align with other animals because they too
have very low social statuses in a patriarchal
society. It's also okay for women to be vegetarian
or vegan. for the most part because again that
is aligning with social expectations of what
femininity is and how it's supposed to be expressed.
So it's no secret or it's no surprise rather
that we see more women being vegan or vegetarian
and more men who are not only eating a lot of
animal products but resistant to veganism and
vegetarianism because it undermines their very
masculinity. So we have that. That's the basic
element of vegan feminism. And also, if you look
at the work of eco -feminists in the 1970s, 80s,
and 90s, they will also say, well, let's take
that a step further. And it's about our relationship
with nature more broadly. So non -human animals
oftentimes getting lumped into nature. Well,
the idea that nature is feminized, something
to conquer, something to exploit, resource to
own, to be traded, bartered, to fight wars over.
Nature itself then is part of that feminized
space. And so Marty Keele, for instance, a leading
vegan eco -feminist, and also Greta Gar is another
good example. They've made the argument that
as we in the West have started to objectify nature
and feminize nature, then it's no surprise that
the status of nature and the well -being of nature
and non -human animals who are associated with
that have plummeted. And then of course we can
also take this to a global scale and see how
this is also wrapped up with colonization and
global inequality. So we really then from a vegan
feminist perspective need to understand how theoretically
we're using a gender lens to understand our material
and our social world. And if we don't pay attention
to that, we're not as activists really fully
understanding the true mechanism of, in this
case for this podcast, speciesism. So that's
the gist, and this is something that is not necessarily
new. This is something that has been around for
several decades, maybe even centuries. So I would
place this really into three ways. It sort of
follows the animal rights movement, the waves
of the animal rights movement, but also the waves
of the feminist movement. In the 1800s, some
of the very first activists for animals were
women. We also had many men who were involved
in that, but unfortunately, because patriarchy
has really shaped the animal rights movement,
a lot of that history has been lost to us. So
we saw in the 1970s and 80s, for instance, an
active discouraging of remembering women and
their contributions and associating the public's
mind with, or associating veganism and animal
rights in the public's mind with women. So there's
a reason why a lot of us don't know this history.
It was sort of actively, if not outspokenly,
but it was actively sort of pushed to the background.
an effort for the hope was by these men was that
animals would be taken animal rights movement
would be taken more seriously if we kind of forget
that women had anything to do with the movement.
So just had to put that in there. But anyway
in the 19th century there were a lot of women
who were involved with this. So the anti vivisection
campaign of the 1800s which really started in
the 1860s and gained momentum in the 1880s 90s
and 1900s. women were behind quite a lot of that.
It wasn't just women, of course, men were also
involved, but because so many women who were
standing up against this new horror, this new
institution of vivisection, very quickly became
gendered in the public mind. So you have to remember
at this time most women were not allowed to enter
into medical facilities, they weren't allowed
to become doctors, they weren't allowed to be
professionally trained because for the past 200
years women who had originally been the knowledge
keepers, the community healers who understand
herbs and folk medicines, that has been actively
squashed out, midwives actively squashed out
and then not long after in the 1800s outright
banned. Then they were prevented from entering
into medical official medical treatment as training
rather. So this was an active effort to demean
women and to rob women of their important community
power and knowledge. So it wasn't a surprise
then, you start to see men in vivisection who
were using this, by the way. Some of it was out
of interest, curiosity. A lot of it actually
had to do with they just wanted to further their
careers. Because going into the medical establishment
was usually only available to the wealthy, but
for those who could get in, it was a way to navigate
the very rigid class system of the Victorian
era. And so men really gravitated toward this.
Women were not really allowed to participate.
And a lot of feminists actually got involved
in anti -bibisectionist work, and this is one
of the reasons why it became sort of codified
in the public mind that this was a women's movement.
But actually, these feminists were not just,
you know... doing women's suffrage and then trying
to advocate for animals. They were doing a lot
of other causes. They were very, very intersectional
in their interests. They were fighting for Irish
liberation, Indian liberation. They were fighting
for the welfare of the poor. They were fighting
for better conditions and working class slums
and England and America and elsewhere. They were
doing all kinds of... Abolitionists, quite a
lot of them are also abolitionists. So it just
kind of happened that there's a lot of reasons
which I don't have time to get into. You can
find out more in my book. But the idea is that
they sort of got latched onto the animal rights
movement even though feminists were doing a lot
of work across the board. So then we moved into
the world wars and during that time was a bit
of an ambiance period where everyone was focusing
on the war front. This doesn't mean that there
was complete dearth of animal advocacy. There
were women doing some work like advocating for
war horses who were being wounded. And a lot
of them were then being used for vivisection
for war technology. So they were trying to advocate
and help those animals. There was promotion of
pacifism, being critical of a violent war society
in of itself, et cetera, et cetera. But then
by the time we move into the middle of the 20th
century, the women are now regathering their
strength. A lot of the organizations from the
Victorian period are continuing on into this
20th century. And new ones are being formed as
needed because now we have a whole new landscape
of speciesism. So they're doing a lot of amazing
work. But unfortunately, as I said, this is also
the rise of the male philosophers. But this is
very important. I want to emphasize this is one
of the things that vegan feminism aims to do
is not just to say, well, we need to take a gendered
perspective of the reality of the situation.
We also vegan feminism is arguing. We need to
deconstruct this patriarchal colonization of
animal advocacy, because in fact some of the
earliest philosophical works that were being
produced in the 1960s were not by Peter Singer,
but by the likes of Bridget Brophy or Ruth Harrison,
and also the Godloviches. So, Roz Godlovich,
who wrote one of the very first animal rights
philosophical pieces, and then went on to co
-author a book with several other philosophers,
including Peter Singer. And now Peter Singer
gets all the credit for it, but actually there
were women doing this work at the same time as
him and before him. So as we then move into the
late 20th century, it's very, very clear that
this is still a women's movement. And we have,
by the turn of the new millennium, we have four
out of five activists who are women. So regardless,
we have all these efforts for women to be stamped
out of the movement. Nonetheless, here we are,
we remain. And we still have this sort of stubbornness
about the role of women in the animal rights
movement. It's as though this is somehow going
to detract from animals. And vegan feminism would
actually argue, at least I would argue, that
by emphasizing that women are somehow selfish
or egotistical by focusing on feminism, that's
actually drawing on age -old stereotypes, sexist,
misogynist in some cases, stereotypes, where
women have historically been expected to put
others first and to take take a step back and
stay in the margins and that doesn't do anyone
any favors because really it's invisibilizing
one of the greatest strengths that the animal
rights movement has and that's women's work women's
efforts women's creativity so vegan feminism
then is arguing what would happen what would
we gain if we actually recognized women's contributions,
validated them, celebrated them, and stopped
filling up our animal rights hall of fame with
men and stopped only reading books by men and
only reading cookbooks by women, perhaps on the
other side of that. What if we started to recognize
and celebrate women's contributions? What could
we achieve at that point? To that end, we also
need to start thinking a bit more critically
about the gender binary itself or about trans
and non -binary folks. I'm so sorry to report
that at the time of this recording, there's still
quite a lot of division about the acceptance
of the LGBTQ plus community. For instance, there
was a belief they were a non -binary Taiwanese
American person. They published a blog, The Vegan
Society, near the end of 2025. And the vitriol
that they received was so extreme the vegan society
sadly had to shut down comments. And the nature
of the comments who were in opposition was simply
boils down to you're making it about yourself,
you're taking away attention from the animals.
But this is the deal, like animal rights and
veganism has never been more popular. But one
of the reasons that's becoming popular is because
it's getting delodged from this archaic idea
of who can be a vegan and who can be an animal
activist. This idea that you have to be a middle
-class white person in the West in order to be
a legitimate, if you will, vegan activist, that
needs to go. And now, recognizing not just the
diversity in sexuality, but also in gender and
nationality, all that's going to be very important.
So that's where vegan feminism is asking us to
push back, is to start challenging that which
we take for granted. And this is me as a sociologist
speaking as well, someone who specializes in
social movement theory. One of the main problems
with the animal rights movement is we have this
idea, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. But what
that really translates to is we have a fear of
self -reflection. This idea of it's tradition,
it's been that way, it's always been that way.
We always read Animal Liberation by Peter Singer
and we always promote men. We always put men
at the front when we're speaking to media. And
that's just the way it's always been. That's
just the reality of it. Well, that's just simply
bad science and bad advocacy. We need to be flexible.
We need to be reflexive. And if we can't start
to have that sort of movement around us, we are
a movement dead in the water. So I'll leave it
at that for today. That is me signing out. That
is vegan feminism in a nutshell. It's illustrious
history and why it is relevant for effective
decision making and tactical inspiration and
hopefully if the book comes out you'll be inspired
to read a little bit further. So thank you for
listening and I appreciate your interest and
support.