living in the gap
Feminism and vegetarianism have so much in common in the ways they are misunderstood.
Feminism is often viewed as a fight against men. It isn’t. It’s a struggle to change the direction of how most human societies have naturally evolved. We’re animals who have flourished in numbers by successfully breeding. And the breeding instinct has clearly been very strong, along with the lack of alternative outcome to fulfilling mainstream heterosexual sexual desires. So women in most human societies were usually fully occupied in a cycle of breeding, nurturing and child-rearing from a very early age, and till a relatively early death. Men tended to assume the roles of protector, provider and leader. There was nothing ‘wrong’ with this – there was little scope for alternative.
Vegetarianism is often viewed as a fight against meat-eaters. It isn’t. It’s a struggle to change the direction of how most of our societies have naturally evolved. We’re animals who have flourished by eating other animals. And the base urge, cultural ingraining and pleasure principle are all clearly strong. So animals in most societies are lost in a cycle of ‘use’ by humans, resulting in the appalling large-scale disposable attitude to sentient lives we currently experience.
We know, thanks to birth control, wars, technological advances and a vast body of research into endless variables, that there’s no logical reason to treat women differently from men in human society. Women can make decisions, women can vote, women can invent, women can manage, women can lead.
We also know, thanks to observation and scientific research, that animals feel pain, stress and attachment not unlike what we call ‘love’. We know the industry that provides the flesh of dead animals for the fancy of our taste buds puts strain on our planet. We know we can fulfill all our nutritional needs more efficiently without creating sentient beings to live stressful lives that end in stressful deaths. There’s no logical reason to eat meat.
We live in the gap. We have the information easily to hand, yet there is still incredible sexism in the world, and there is an incredibly complacent attitude to the lives of our animal friends.
But don’t feel down-hearted, don’t despair about the rate of change. Our species continues to grow and evolve, and we can have faith that as social animals with empathy as a key characteristic, these awful features of our current society will soon be a curious history lesson. (Of course, given the length of time it takes for such massive cultural change, ‘soon’ can’t be expected for a few generations yet …)
If vegetarianism and feminism are meant to “change the direction of how most human societies have naturally evolved” aren’t you fighting both naturalism and evolution? I don’t understand.
You seem to have faith at the end of your article that we will evolve into more compassionate and considerate creatures, but evolution as you’ve pointed out is not your friend. It’s retarded what you define as progress.
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I feel evolution is the friend of the compassionate society. In order to live in larger communities, we have to reduce our violent responses. Our empathy for our own community enlarges to include more people- with a world trading system, the community is the whole world. This empathy expansion does not apply to everyone, but to more and more of us.
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How would one fight evolution? That would be tricky! 🙂
I’m simply stating where we are and why, pointing in the direction I see things going and why, and trying to be patient by putting it in context.
“You seem to have faith at the end of your article that we will evolve into more compassionate and considerate creatures”
Sorry I wasn’t clearer. We are empathetic creatures, it’s in our make up. The more we know about each other, the information we learn about others, the more compassionate we become towards them.
“It’s retarded what you define as progress.”
Oh yes, you didn’t understand the post at all. Apologies for my lack of clear thinking. It is what it is. We’re moving in a good direction, but trouble is around us.
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I am a little bit cynical that this change will happen soon. A change of attitude is needed and this can only come from outside, as in through education and discussion like we are having here
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I think most people know all this on some level, but making changes in how we actually live takes several generations. It has to seep slowly through.
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I hope you are correct
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I suppose a sandwich joke is out of the question, huh?
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I saw a you tube video on the slaughter of pigs the other day.Gave me frakking nightmares for two days. I was physically ill and it brought me to the brink of tears of disgust and rage.
( I won’t even link it as it is really is too distressing)
Even now I struggle to get certain images out of my head.
I can’t even look at bacon in the fridge without my stomach doing somersaults.
We allow ourselves to be hoodwinked into believing there is such a term as ”humane”.
I just can’t believe it took me so long.
But then again, there are many forms of indoctrination, are there not?
I don’t feel in any way holier than thou but sad and extremely frustrated at not being able to communicate what the meat eaters in my immediate family are actually perpetrating without causing serious rows.
Leading by example is a good start, but at the moment it seems like water off a duck’s back.
I wish I knew how to tackle this issue, I really do.
If you have any suggestions, feel free.
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A quote from the post, “That Time I got Sucked Into A Debate on Facebook With A Bunch Of Idiots,” by misanthropymisunderstood
“…the industrial revolution has created a hell on earth for most living creatures who are in any way suitable for human consumption or use. We eat them, we skin them, we milk them, we grind them, we literally process them like they are inanimate objects to make more inanimate objects. This is the middle ages as far as animals are concerned. We have filled our world with the suffering of innocents and masterfully shielded ourselves from their screams, so as not to let them lay heavy on our conscience.”
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I read somewhere that if slaughterhouses were like glasshouses everyone would soon become vegetarian.
But you are correct – we just witch off, and one can, in certain ways, compare this woth religious indoctrination.
If you want to see the video look on Tiffany’s blog.
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I can’t. I know what you’re talking about, I have seen similar video’s, and it ruins me. The images still haunt me. It’s one of the reason why I have such admiration for the folks at PETA. I simply couldn’t do that work.
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Me neither. I honesty think it would break me.
But change is easy, it really is.
Since I stopped eating meat, I do not miss it one iota.
I just look at my dogs and cats and think: I couldn’t eat you, so why did I ever think I could eat cow, chicken or pig?
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I couldn’t watch the videos either. I bought an egg sandwich for lunch the other day and for some reason got the image of all the male chicks on a conveyor belt to death by gassing. I’m ready to cut eggs of mass produced origin out my diet. But could I say no to cake?
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Gas, or grinding. Apparently most are simply grinded alive.
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”Switch off”,
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“I don’t feel in any way holier than thou but sad and extremely frustrated at not being able to communicate what the meat eaters in my immediate family are actually perpetrating without causing serious rows.”
Totally understand this. I’m in the same position. Maybe we all peak in rage and frustration some time after consciously accepting the slaughter of animals is unnecessary and cruel. I’m calm about it now, and have even bought my daughter dead cow for her sandwiches when she asks for it. She’ll make up her own mind which parent’s choice she wants to follow when she’s old enough, but I can’t make that decision for her now.
We can only provide people with the facts and let them make their own decisions. I do find ‘comfort’ in the fact that logic is on our side and that all cultural changes take time. Habits, and especially rewarding habits, are hard to kill. Meat does taste good and we can trick ourselves into thinking our body needs it.
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Reblogged this on The Recovering Know It All and commented:
Great post on change of society from what we’ve evolved for the continued existence of our species in the past that no longer is either necessary or helpful to other ways that are more compassionate and empathetic, yet still as conducive or more conducive to our continuance now.
I appreciate the thought that went into the post and never really considered the possible connection to feminism and vegetarian living. I’ll be thinking more today. Thank you. -KIA
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Thanks, glad someone read it and got what I was trying to say! I often wonder how much we all skim and comment without getting what the post is saying.
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Gave me much food for thought. I’m veg since jan.
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I wonder what the correlation between active/conscious atheism and vegetarianism is. I’m beginning to suspect it’s strong. It’s like once we apply logic to one area of life and reject the cultural norm, we’re more likely to carefully consider other cultural norms we accept without question.
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