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Loading...To be a Feminist is to be a Vegan
Written with M. Butterflies Katz
“After repeated cycles of forced impregnations, painful births, relentless milkings, and crushing bereavements, their spirit gives, their bodies wither, their milk dries up. At the age when, in nature, a female cow would barely enter adulthood, the life of a dairy cow is over. When her milk ‘production’ declines, she and her other ‘spent’ herd mates are trucked off to slaughter. Some are pregnant. All are still lactating. As they are shoved towards death, they drip milk onto the killing floor… All dairy operations, including Organic, exist solely by doing to millions of defenseless females the worst thing anyone can do to a mother. Dairy consumers support this practice with their purchases.”
“Milk Comes from a Grieving Mother” ~ leaflet by Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary
When visiting the non-vegan home of a self-proclaimed feminist, she offered me cow’s milk with my tea. That’s when I made the profound connection that it’s impossible to truly be a feminist while consuming dairy (or any animal products), as the entire animal industry is built on the exploitation of the female reproductive system. This must be recognized as a feminist issue because it is analogous to the feminist movement’s struggle for women to have control of their own bodies.
Animals of both sexes suffer under institutionalized exploitation. However, the female of the species often experiences more prolonged abuse, including an ongoing cycle of forceful artificial insemination (mechanical or manual rape), physical abuse of her mammary glands, and invariably being separated from her young; all of these are emotionally brutal experiences for the female members of any species.
(Male animals are also sexually abused; not only through the industry practice of castration, but also by being used as semen ‘donors’. There are photos online showing bulls in contraptions being forced to supply the ‘artificial insemination’ industry. All of this is a part of dairy consumption. It’s pretty perverted; as is all animal use – when you think about it candidly.)
Read more: animal rights, artificial insemination, feminism, vegan
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Recent Comments from Causes
WOW !!! don't know where the rest of my message went. WE HAVE ALL SEEN THE CUTESY PICTURES OF DOGS…
Thanks for sharing!
DALE O. - HUH ?? - WHATEVER...
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529 comments
+ add your ownThe industrial farming system is horrible. The rest is a stretch.
Eating animals makes me a part of the food web, and gives me a place in the natural cycle of life on Earth. When I raise chickens in the yard and slaughter them and eat them, there is no rape going on.
Don't go around calling everything rape. The word will lose its power and meaning.
Thank you so much for writing this. I wish I could have everyone who tells me that they are vegetarian, but could never become a vegan, I love cheese too much.
Once you make the connection as to what is happening, it is impossible to go back to dairy(eggs and meat too).
Thanks again. I will be sharing this with everyone I know.
Wow, thank you for this perspective. Makes me even more committed to moving towards being completely vegan.
Wow?! Could not one settle on common ground? Name calling! Labeling oneself or another. This is like being in the informed dark ages.
There are two distinctive teachers in this world. There those who are always trying to convince themselves that their illusions are reality [the false teacher]. There are those who teach others that their realities are illusions [the true teacher]. The false teachers are everywhere to be found. The true teachers speak to true listeners for they are true teachers too.
Can we not Love one another with silent respect-show our Love in a melodic chorus with our commonality?
Just when you think that you have heard just about everything...something else rises up out of the misty primordial grey areas of fiction to astound me...equating feminism with veganism? Patently ridiculous with no basis in reality. Maybe far too many cups of hibiscus tea with the resulting side effects addling the brain cells? Then there was: "Animal husbandry is for sickos who like bestiality; not for decent human beings." Or the insinuation of rape...Eating too much nutmeg at one go?
Raising dairy animals organically where no calf is taken from their mother or other cruel factory farm practices has been going on for centuries. Next we will be told that using honey is enslaving the bees and the moon is made out of green cheese.
As far as violence goes we rip out carrots from Mother Earth and cut up beets every day. Of course the argument goes that plants have no nerve endings and are not sentient...humans tend to believe if it is in our image...those most like ourselves are solely worthy of empathy. Plants are a part of biological life and who are we to say their lives are meaningless. Rock pate anyone? At least it's inorganic but we can't live on it.
THANK YOU
pei (whatever), I peeked at your profile.........says you speak English only? Well, you don't speak it very truthfully and certainly seem to lack the ability to comprehend what you've read. Milk is not rape...........check out what rape actually is, and try doing just 10 minutes of research on any site other than PETA's. Cows will give milk for months, even years after having been pregnant, and most cows are not kept pregnant in any other than factory farmed dairies. They are also not RAPED. I highly suggest you to watch A-I being done and then explain to me how that 1500-lb. cow could be raped by any human holding a tiny pipette of bull semen. If she ain't willing, gal, she ain't gonna' be inseminated and if she ain't in season, she ain't gonna' become pregnant. If she's in season, she'll be inseminated any way she can.
Thanx for this awesome article. Indeed, Carol Adams got into this perspective. You can't be a feminist if you only bother about the mistreatment of human females.
Meat is definitely Murder, yet Milk is Rape.
Beth: Char that crack about intiminating women, was a dumb-ass thing to say, and insulting to the rest of the women here.
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Nope, it wasn't. I've hung out at forums dominated by men - trucking forums, gaming forums - and those guys are not known for being polite to broken records like Dan. There are men here, but MOST of them are civil. The women are civil. Believe me, Diane is civil. Now, I can hold my own in a melee on a male-dominated board and still be civil, but my civility has an edge. But if you want personal attacks, salty language, and downright ugliness, you don't find it here. When you do, the perp is swiftly dispatched.
Apologist? LOL. Then what do you think Dan is? Oh, well, yeah. He's an evangelist, I guess. The thing is, in order to convert people to religion, you pretty much need a) fear, and b) a perceived reward that is greater than the pleasure taken in the old way of life. I don't think veganism offers either in great abundance.
Now, MOST people are appalled by CAFOs, and want their animal products raised humanely. So let's move in that direction as a bloc - omnivores, vegetarians and vegans. We might be able to work together for that common goal. But I assure you, the omnis, and even most vegetarians are NOT going to suddenly give up their diets for veganism, and it is an unattainable goal. Much better to work toward a better world than an unattainable utopia.
Articles like this really don't help the vegan cause.
I'm not vegan, or vegetarian, but I can see the reasoning behind people's decisions to eat less/no animal products. It's not my decision, but that doesn't mean I can't understand it.
However, when I get someone preaching at me nonsensically and moralistically like this, I realize that some (not all!!) vegans are making their choices simply in order to place themselves on an "I'm holier than thou" platform, and then trying to convince others to join them ("you, too, can be superior!!!"). This same writer wrote an article a while back trying to make the argument that you can't be an animal advocate unless you're vegan. Both articles - poorly written and poorly argued nonsense. A high school debating team could do better.
Then again, you can't argue with drunks or evangelists.
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