Sexist. Racist. Vegan.

Sexism and racism within the vegan movement are increasingly publicized and criticized - and with good reason! I know you've probably read some account, written by a white vegan, that compares the treatment of animals to Jewish peoples, Black Americans or Canadians, or people living in non-industrialized, non-Western or Westernized places͓. Mainstream veganism is often centered on whiteness and the 'vegan community' is largely occupied by white folks who live in gentrified areas, and whose general attitude towards anti-racist sentiments is dismissive, at best, and racist, at worst.

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Anti-feminist sentiment has also been recognized as a staple in the feminist movement – with organizations like PETA using images of scantily clad women, or women with their bodies written on to indicate cuts of meat, to ‘sell’ the idea of vegetarianism, veganism, and animal rights.There are also increasing numbers of vegan youtubers (like Vegan Gains, Freelee, and DurianRider) who get most of their views and likes for criticizing (mostly) women's bodies (not to mention Vegan Gains' tirade against Islam, and his crapping all over people who choose chemotherapy as a cancer treatment, rather than veganism. Freelee was right on board too...because they're clearly oncologists...right? Guess what! Vegans get cancer too! Sorry....I got a little off track).

I have spoken about this before, but I'll mention it again. When I went vegan everyone around me who was already vegan went on about how it was going to make me so healthy, how it was going to clear my skin, get me fit...etc. But going vegan actually triggered chronic acne rosacea, which I am dealing with to this day. Every time some vegan activist starts criticizing a non-vegan's body or skin, I admit I get a little hurt, because I do not fit their mold of what a vegan looks like. This is the case with so many young women in the vegan movement who are not thin. People like Freelee crap all over non-vegans who are 'overweight' and claim that going vegan will solve everything. So when a chubby girl goes vegan and doesn't drop the weight, how do you think that makes her feel?

Recently I've been increasingly confronting my own values, beliefs, and protest methods as I become more aware of issues faced by marginalized people, and more aware of the negative impact that certain animal advocacy methods can have on vegans and non-vegans alike.

Audre Lorde wrote this great essay called the Hierarchy of Oppression, in which she calls into question the notion that at any point she can see something from a single position - as a woman, as black, as a lesbian - and she finds that she cannot, because regardless of the topic at hand - black oppression, women's equity, homophobia - she is always all three.

Within the lesbian community I am Black, and within the Black community I am a lesbian.  Any attack against Black people is a lesbian and gay issue, because I and thousands of other Black women are part of the lesbian community. Any attack against lesbians and gays is a Black issue, because thousands of lesbians and gay men are Black.  There is no hierarchy of oppression. 

So many people I've spoken to in the vegan community, though they disagree with some of the methods used by folks like Vegan Gains, see the service they are providing as useful to the vegan movement. These hyper-macho, sexist, racist, folks appeal to a portion of the population who are unlikely to come to veganism due to the stereotype of the wimpy, feminine vegan man. So, to get them to stop eating animals hyper-macho vegans tell you that going vegan will make you better at sex! It will give you clear skin! It will make you thin (if you're a woman) or jacked (if you're a man)! And then they insult all these people that the hyper-macho non-vegan feels comfortable insulting - fat women, feminine men, followers of Islam...

How is it useful to empower a bunch of racist sexists to stop eating animals, when they continue to direct hate towards humans? There is no hierarchy of injustice, as Lorde tells us. And this applies to the vegan movement as well. Veganism is a gender issues, a race issue, a sex issues, a LGBTQA+ issue. If your methods further disenfranchise or harm an already marginalized group of people, then you are not doing the world any good. 

Happy Tuesday, everyone.

J

What makes a woman?

*I want to preface this by saying that I do not claim to speak for all women, whether cis or trans or otherwise. This is a reflection on recent debates, discussions, and arguments that have taken place in academia and in the western world at large of late. The thoughts here are not fully formulated, particularly with regard the problem of science/biology as marker for legitimacy.*


Gina Rippon, a neuroscientist, among numerous other thinkers, scientists, doctors, and researchers, make the argument that the male and the female brain are indistinguishable.

https://debuk.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/female-brain-male-brain.jpg

Yeah, believe it or not, this image is not accurate! 

While some research suggests that women may be less suited to spatial reasoning tasks, and men less suited to hearing high pitched noises, and multitasking, there is a growing body of evidence that suggests that these are learned and enculturated traits, not innate ones. Those of you who know me, know that I wrote my MA thesis on the problem of public washroom access for nonbinary folks - and the problems with the gender binary as understood by feminists more generally - and a lot of that work drew on Judith Butler, and before her, Simone de Beauvoir, both of whom argue that women are not born women, but rather become women --- though notably Butler's work is much more nuanced.

At the same time, there are some new radical accounts by trans activists and writers who write about being born in the wrong body - the claim being that one is, in fact, born a woman... that one is born with a certain brain, a certain personality, that is inherently 'woman'. And I see this as entirely valid as well. A few years ago there was a conference that Judith Butler attended where a trans woman stoof in front of a room full of feminists and gave a performance of a spoken word poem, at the end of which she exclaimed "fuck you, Judith Butler" (see Transforming Community Conference). This sentiment often stems from the interpretation of Butler's performativity, which is often misread as performance. Gender performance makes gender expression look like drag. Gender performativity, on the other hand, is more complex, and has to do with the sociality of gender as it is developed, solidified, negotiated, and so forth in our social and political contexts. Problematically, though, Butler's work and words have been used by trans-exclusionary radical feminists over the last decade or so to make arguments that exclude trans women from feminist politics, and which refuse to acknowledge the experiences of trans women as legitimate. This has been the impetus for the increase in biological arguments for being born a woman on both sides of the spectrum, with the trans-exclusionary folks arguing that if you are born with a vagina you are a woman and therefore can legitimately make claims to women's spaces and experiences, and on the other side some trans activists have made the claim that trans women are born women as a result of being born in the wrong body - that there is some biological, neurological differences that make them inherently women.

I think both of these arguments are harmful, and are skirting the key issue, which is that the gender binary is problematic to its core and demands of us that we fit, neatly, securely, within its narrow boundaries. It demands that we choose sides. And, given gender's historical relationship to sex in the western world, it demands that we make claims to our identities that are grounded in science, traditional notions of rationality, and biologicality. In doing what the binary demands, in making the arguments "I'm born a woman because I have a vagina" or "I'm born a woman because I have a female brain" we are playing into the trap, inadvertently reaffirming the thing which have for centuries kept us servile. It is deeply problematic that we must revert to biology for legitimacy. As so many feminists, people of colour, LGB, trans, and queer folks have been crying out for ages when (primarily white male activists or scholars seek to prove the existence of injustices, wrong-doings, etc. using science and statistics) "why can't you just trust my experience?!  Why must you prove these injustices?! Why is what I say not enough?!"

I was not born a woman. My vagina made the world treat me in a certain way, which likely had an impact on the behaviour I exhibit. And there are likely biological reasons that I cry more often than I yell, but the world decided that I was a woman, not me. It looks at me, my long hair, my breasts, my emotional demeanor, my clothing choices, my academic interests, and it says to me "that's what a a woman does".  As Beauvoir argued half of a century ago, the title of woman has frequently been used to keep those born with certain traits (physical and otherwise) within a confined box of expected actions, attitudes, and behaviours. As Butler argued half a century later, the binary itself - male/female, girl/boy, man/woman, is prescriptive more than it is descriptive. It tells not only women, but all of us, that in order to be legitimate we must not only behave in a certain way, but have certain body parts that line up with those prescribed behaviours.

There is nothing wrong with someone making a claim to womanhood on the grounds of their born identity, nor is there are  problem with making a claim to womanhood on the grounds of physical traits, nor is there a a problem with someone making a claim to womanhood on the grounds of discomfort/detachment/frustration with the gender prescribed upon them by birth. There seems to be, though, a problem with the use of biology as the determinant for legitimacy. You are a legitimate woman if you feel like a woman. Full stop. It doesn't matter what got you to that place - whether you were born that way, whether culture made you that way, whatever. You are legitimate. All women are legitimate. Trans women are legitimate women. All humans are legitimate. And someone having access to womanhood does not diminish your legitimacy as a woman. Inclusion or exclusion from feminist politics, or womanhood more generally, on the grounds of biological differences is counterproductive to the project I hope we all see as legitimate - calling into question, and tearing down, the patriarchal structures of the majority of the Western world which paint women, non-binary, LGBT, queer, and other non-conforming folks as other, as less-than, as not enough.

Some excuses not to vote (read: I was wrong)

I used to have a pin on my backpack that read: SHUT UP AND VOTE. When I was an undergraduate student at Nipissing University, pursuing my BA in Political Science, I started the habit of writing letters to the editor of our local newspaper, the North Bay Nugget (don't laugh) about political things that caught my attention. One year, I wrote this letter. I'm sharing it with you now, because I have increasingly become critical of a perspective that I once shared with a large proportion of the politically active community - the idea that there is no excuse to not vote.

Here is a direct quote from my letter:

"I timed myself this year, just to prove to a fellow student how silly he was for saying it was a waste of time. Including travel time by bus it took me 15 minutes and 16 seconds.

The average adult Canadian watches 28.8 hours of television a week. Which seems like a bigger waste of time to you?"

Man, what a cocky jerk, right? (especially coming from someone who definitely watches more than 28.8 hours of television a week) 

There are many legitimate reasons why one may not vote, and I am regretful of the shaming tone of the above letter. So, here is my apology.  I am sorry that I shamed non-voters. I am also regretful for my stance on the Occupy movement, which I now recognize as a laudable, and politically legitimate movement with a socio-political agenda that I strongly support. 

In response to that jerk who wrote the letter 6 years ago (I call her 'Old Cranky Jo'), here are some reasons that not voting totally makes sense: 

1. While legally employers are required to give employees time to vote, asking for time off from your job to vote may lead to unfavourable backlash. Some people are also self-employed and for the good of their business, and to protect their livelihood, may not be able to take the time to vote within the limited timeline on voting day. 
2. Voting stations are often inaccessible to people without vehicles or money for public transit.
3. Those with mental, physical, and/or emotional 'dis'abilities may not be able, at any given time, to leave their home, let alone go to a voting station, stand/sit in a line for an extended period of time, and/or comprehend the voting process, how to vote, who they are voting for, etc. 
4. Engagement in the democratic process may be difficult for those whose lives are dominated by other concerns - like health issues, familial or relationship obligations, childcare, employment, emergency overseas trips, and so much more.
5. Some people may be politically motivated to abstain from voting. I've met some pretty rad anarchistic people recently who make a decent argument for non-engagement in a corrupt system as a political statement, and as an attempt to make themselves ungovernable. (I'm not on the same page, but I get where they are coming from)
6. Education and access to information (or lack thereof) may result in disinterest and disengagement that is not willful. Don't think that this is accidental. Why do you think governments don't really seem to care when there are low voter turn-outs? The system which discourages your participation resulted in their power!
7. There are plenty of people who feel as though not a single politician represents their views and values. It is notable that our public figures tend to be wealthy, white, male, English-speaking, of Western European descent, and at least slightly right leaning.

So, when I wrote that letter 6 years ago, I had not fully considered the implications of what I was saying. I was young, uneducated, and less critical than I am today. 

Thanks for hearing me out, folks.

Happy Monday, from a woman who makes mistakes, but is always learning! 

-J