Ultimately, common excuses like “there are bigger problems in the world” or “human lives are worth more to me than animal lives” are not the real reasons people consume animal products. A person may truly hold those opinions and beliefs, but they’re not actually what motivates them to consume something that isn’t vegan over something that is.

Why is it hard to go vegan for so many people, really?

When you peel back all the layers, the answer is as simple as four little words:

• Taste
• Habit
• Convenience
• Tradition

Let’s examine each of them.

Taste

Yes. Meat, dairy, and eggs taste good.

Now that we’ve gotten that obvious statement out of the way, we’re free to look at other things that taste good too.

That’s because so many of the flavors we enjoy actually come from ingredients that are naturally vegan. Herbs and spices — the building blocks of any good dish — are plants. Lots of the sauces, dressings, and marinades we regularly use are already vegan or can easily be made vegan. Various cooking techniques like grilling or smoking instill their own flavors into foods and are totally vegan.

Sure, some vegan foods aren’t very good at all, but the same can be said about some non-vegan foods as well. Delicious vegan foods do exist. It’s simply a matter of having fun exploring and learning what tastes good to you and what doesn’t.

But what if I don’t like the taste of vegetables or other plant foods?

I’ve got good news for you: You can train and develop your palate to crave different flavors.

I know it seems impossible right now because you’ve gone so long liking what you’ve been liking, but you actually have a lot more control over what your body craves than you may think.

Just like people can develop an acquired taste for wine, beer, scotch whiskey, dark chocolate, and coffee, you can develop a taste for vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, legumes, and lots of other vegan foods.

In this way, going vegan doesn’t limit a person’s choice of flavors — it actually expands them.

Habit

Humans are creatures of habit.

Studies show that approximately 40% of our daily activities are habitual.

Yes, our brains are powerful, but lazy. The human brain loves cutting corners. That’s because it’s trying to be efficient, but it doesn’t always succeed in doing so.

We learn a way to do something that works and we keep doing things that way because it’s harder to learn a new (potentially more beneficial) way to do things than it is to keep doing things the way we’re already familiar with.

And so, habits are formed. And, just like the gradual wearing down of a path, the more we do them, the more ingrained those habits become.

This is every bit as true for our diet and lifestyle habits as it is for any other habits we may have. In fact, the foods we eat are dictated more by habit than anything else. We have our familiar watering-holes, favorite restaurants, regular grocery shopping list, favorite recipes, and more.

Thankfully, we can change these things if we want to. We can form new habits that replace the old habits. We can find new watering-holes, new favorite restaurants, create a new regular grocery shopping list, and so on.

All it takes is the willingness to change and to take on that task one day at a time.

Let’s say I hypothetically chose to go vegan. How hard would it be to break my current habits?

Habits can be tough to break, and a lifelong habit can be much tougher.

The good news is it takes about 21 days to create a new habit or to kick an old one, though it can take anywhere between 2 months to a year for that new habit to feel completely automatic.

Breaking the deeply ingrained habit of eating animal products means relearning how to cook, how to shop, and in many ways, how to interact with the world — things you’ve already spent your entire life up to this point learning about your non-vegan diet (whether you realized it or not).

You’ll have to learn the same things all over again, except vegan this time.

It’s going to feel like a crash course. It’s going to feel overwhelming. You’re going to feel like quitting and you’re going to mess up — and that’s okay. Those feelings fade away more and more with time. Soon enough, you’ll have newer, better habits that will feel every bit as natural to you as the ones you spent your entire life developing before you chose to go vegan.

There are also plenty of resources to help new vegans or anyone who’s curious about reducing their reliance on animal products.

Convenience

I won’t lie to you and say that being vegan is more convenient than simply not caring at all about what you eat, wear, etc.

In the short term, not caring about something will always be more convenient than caring about something, regardless what that something is.

That being said, it has never been more convenient to be vegan than it is right this very moment, and it’s only getting more convenient each year.

Vegan foods are literally in every grocery store produce section (hooray for fruits and veggies) and vegan meat, dairy, and egg products are constantly being added to grocery stores and restaurant menus at an increasing rate.

You also get better at skimming ingredient lists to the point where it takes only a few seconds to determine whether something is vegan (thanks to your newly acquired vegan powers), and once you learn which products are vegan, it becomes just as easy to shop for them as it is has been to shop for non-vegan products.

But being vegan is expensive, isn’t it? That’s not very convenient.

Veganism can certainly be expensive. But veganism can be cheap too.

Look at it like this:

You’re going to pay a premium for a high quality steak in the same way you’re going to pay a premium for high quality organic produce or vegan meats.

Similarly, you’re going to pay next to nothing when shopping on the McDonald’s dollar menu in the same way you’re going to pay next to nothing when shopping in bulk for beans, lentils, rice, and more.

The difference is that being a cheap vegan is much healthier than being a cheap non-vegan, which conveniently means fewer medical bills down the road. How convenient is that?

Tradition

Traditions are important. They ground us in the memories of our family and connect us to the history of our culture.

Traditions are often based around the telling and remembering of stories, which humans have been doing since long before recorded history. They’re not only a vital part of our evolution as a species, they also play an important part in shaping our identity as individuals.

We need to follow traditions strictly, because that’s how traditions work, right?

Chances are, the traditions you may follow have already been altered throughout history anyway.

The original Thanksgiving feast may not have included turkey, cranberry sauce, or pumpkin pie at all.

Studying the history of the origins of Christmas reveals that the now Christian holiday likely started as a pagan holiday which was hijacked in a sense, in an effort to bring pagans to the church by adopting and absorbing the traditions of the pagan Saturnalia festival. The Christmas tree hadn’t even become a thing until 1,600 years after Jesus walked the earth (or um… water).

Some traditions weren’t so jolly. Foot binding was a painful ancient Chinese tradition that stretched back almost a thousand years and only stopped in the 1930s.

The point is, traditions are historically much more fluid and flexible than we have been taught to believe. Some traditions even stop completely as society grows and evolves to become more civil and ethical toward its various members.

But what if I enjoy celebrating my traditions?

Don’t worry. No one is telling you to stop celebrating your heritage or to stop honoring your past. That would be wrong on a variety of levels.

But because traditions are fluid, you can actually make new traditions, and your new traditions can be ethical traditions.

For instance, some orthodox Jews celebrate their New Year (called Yom Kippur) by performing Kapparot, an ancient ritual in which a rabbi says a prayer while waving a chicken over a person’s head. This is supposed to transfer that person’s sins from the previous year onto the chicken, who is then sacrificed, supposedly enabling the person receiving the prayer to enter the new year with a clean slate. A newer, more ethical tradition that many Jews now use is donating money to charitable causes as a way to cleanse their sins from the prior year.

Traditions can and do change for the better. The key is to stay true to the spirit of the tradition.

We don’t have to do things exactly the way previous generations did. In fact, improving our society requires us to do things differently. But we can still observe traditions by focusing on the meaning behind those traditions.

Let’s make a new tradition of compassion for all humans and animals.

The post The 4 Things Stopping You From Going Vegan appeared first on Vegan Rabbit.

Or so we say.

But there is a big difference between saying something and doing something. You see, your mind has the incredible power turn reality into fantasy, because inside your mind is a marvel of the human psyche called compartmentalization. Compartmentalization can be beneficial but it can also be detrimental to ourselves and others. It can be a brilliant psychological defense mechanism created by our brains so we might avoid something called cognitive dissonance, defined as “the discomfort and anxiety caused by a person having conflicting values, cognitions, emotions, beliefs etc. within themselves”.

When we compartmentalize conflicting beliefs, our brains are attempting to construct a rational framework under which our irrational and incongruent beliefs can exist harmoniously.

Humans have a deep desire to believe the best about themselves. We like to think of ourselves as good, smart, kind people. We like to be right. However, whether we are actually right is inconsequential, because believing we are right is more important to us than actually being right.

This is true even of people history remembers as bigots, tyrants, and murderers. Though it’s undeniable that horrible atrocities have occurred thoughout history, in the minds of the people executing these horrible deeds, their actions were just, good, and right. For example, white racists in the southern states of the U.S. in the 1950’s didn’t believe their treatment of non-whites was morally reprehensible. They rationalized their illogical and flawed beliefs by citing all kinds of irrational “reasons” to justify their racism from intelligence to attractiveness to the law of nature to the law of god and anything in between.

When racists are confronted with the reality that there is no reason their race is better than any other race and that treating members of other races differently is unjust, their twisted minds rationalize their immoral and negative beliefs in a way that makes them appear moral and positive so they can still feel that their problematic beliefs and actions are good and right. Can you think of any other historical oppressions and the rationalizations used by those in power? Okay, what does any of this have to do with animals? To illustrate how this relates to animal rights we have to acknowledge how we compartmentalize groups of animals. There are the animals we love (pets), the animals we admire and seek to preserve (wildlife), and the animals we choose to ignore (food/fashion/etc.). Melanie Joy talks about this in her book Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows: An Introduction to Carnism. We separate animals into these groups to avoid having to recognize that our actions and professed beliefs of kindness and compassion are out of sync with one another.

Humans actively search for ways to explain the absurdities of life because we can’t bear the thought of living in a world devoid of purpose. If the world has no purpose, maybe we don’t have a purpose either. That’s a pretty scary thought for most people. So we give purposes to various things in our lives from the people we know (friends, family, enemies), to the activities we do (work, fun), to the animals who share this planet with us (friend, food). But because we are the ones giving purposes to everything and everyone around us, the purpose is almost always one that relates to how it affects us and neglects to acknowledge everyone else’s right to define their own purpose.

Just as a racist would rationalize that the “purpose” of non-whites is their utility to whites, or a misogynist would rationalize that the “purpose” of women is their utility to men, speciesists rationalize that the “purpose” of non-human species is their utility to the human species. Speciesism is just as real as any of a wide variety of oppressive beliefs including racism, sexism, heterosexism, and classism. It’s a very ego-centric way of viewing the world and if we were to eliminate it, we would see many of the world’s most pervasive problems disappear completely.

Just as racism is the belief that your race is superior to all other races because you are a member of that race, speciesism is the belief that your species is superior to all other species because you are a member of that species.

Treating someone cruelly who has done nothing to deserve such treatment other than being born of a different species (or race, or gender, or sexual orientation, or class, etc.) is absurd to say the very least, so we rationalize these attitudes in a way that preserves our self image as a good and logical person. We tell ourselves that if using animals for human purposes was wrong, there would be laws against it or massive public outcry.

But we forget that it was only within the last hundred or so years that groups of people who have been systematically oppressed for millennia are finally starting to receive the respect they deserve, and we still have a long way to go until things are equal. Laws can be changed and improved-upon; they are not written in stone.

Furthermore, we forget that for most of history, challenging things like racism, sexism, and heterosexism was seen as extreme and irrational behavior, much like how challenging speciesism is seen today. We know that harming others is wrong because we empathize and recognize that we would not want to be harmed in such a way ourselves.  This is the essence of the Ethic of Reciprocity, a.k.a. The Golden Rule: “Treat others how you would like others to treat you.” Almost every religion has some variation of it, yet how can we explain all the wars and crimes committed in the name of religion?

Furthermore, almost every religion has laws regarding whether harming animals is permitted at all, and if so, the manner in which it must be done to be considered “humane” and “ethical”. This is because it is a generally subconsciously recognized, though seldom acknowledged fact that harming a living, feeling creature, especially when it is absolutely unnecessary, is unethical. Keeping this in mind, there are two important things to note:

1. Though speciesism continues to be a permeating and normalized force in modern society, consider that many religious texts were written in a time when racism, sexism, and heterosexism were not viewed in the same way they are today. In fact, there are many verses of texts from various religions detailing how to discipline human slaves, how to beat your wives, how to sell your daughters, and how to kill non-believers, just to name a few.
2. The religious laws that explain how to “ethically” and “humanely” slaughter animals are all operating under the incorrect assumption that the consumption of animal products is necessary for survival (and though one can make the argument that the Inuits of the Arctic or the Zulu of the African bush rely on meat for survival, for the vast majority of people reading this post from a computer screen, this argument simply doesn’t apply). Furthermore, this flawed logic reasons that ethics are contingent on convenience or cultural traditions.

One quick note on unethical cultural practices: I feel it’s prudent to note that while it’s important to respect and preserve the wide variety of cultures that exist around the world, any aspect of a culture that is harmful to anyone who can feel pain should not be tolerated, human or non-human. I see very few people jumping to defend female genital mutilation, child marriages, or child prostitution. Some of these cultural traditions have existed for thousands of years, but because we recognize they are undoubtedly harmful and unethical, we speak out against them. We don’t make excuses for them or try to reason that condemning one harmful aspect of a culture is the same as condemning the culture as a whole.

It is also worth noting that it is much easier to condemn an aspect of a culture we are not a member of than it is to condemn an aspect that is found in our own culture, such as the exploitation and consumption of animals. This is something worth thinking over if you happen to be someone who is against the genital mutilation of human females (for example), but then doesn’t give a second thought to the genital mutilation of male pigs who are castrated without anesthetic as part of the hog industry’s standard animal husbandry practices.

How many of you support cruelty to animals?

If you were to address a group of people with the question “How many of you support cruelty to animals?”, what results would you find?  Almost certainly you would not see a single hand go up and would instead receive looks of confusion and disgust while people murmur to each other “What kind of question is that? Only a horrible person would wantonly be cruel to animals!”. Even if by chance there happened to be someone there who acknowledged that they harm animals on a daily basis (such as a person who gets “free to a good home” animals off craigslist.com and then tortures and murders them — yes, this actually happens), they would be very unlikely to raise their hand because most of us recognize that harming others is not something people typically brag about in society.

What these people would invest no thought in is their role in the deaths of billions of animals around the world every year for food, fashion, experimentation and entertainment. Their perceived involvement in the deaths of the billions of animals executed each year is severely diminished by:

1. The staggering number of animals who are harmed by these industries
2. The staggering number of people responsible for this harm by funding these industries

We convince ourselves that our vote for our favorite (or least hated) political figure counts for something, but refuse to believe that we are directly causing environmental devastation with every bottle of water we purchase and subsequently send to somewhere like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (a floating mass the size of a continent in the Pacific Ocean literally made of non-biodegradable microscopic plastic garbage). We prefer to think our chances of winning the lottery are much greater than our chances of being diagnosed with cancer, though real-world statistics prove otherwise. Even though we are aware of our own mortality, it’s looming inevitability rarely enters our thoughts.

We have to do this because if we don’t we would be so consumed with worry and anxiety we wouldn’t even be able to attend to our basic needs for survival. Why worry about things we have no control over? This forces us to focus on things we can change rather than things we cannot, which keeps us productive and better able to use our limited energy efficiently and effectively. We have evolved this way and for the most part, it has served us well.

The problem is, our brains aren’t evolving nearly as quickly as our society. Though many are the same, the problems facing society today are exponentially larger and more complex than the problems faced by society even a few thousand years ago. A thousand years may be a long time, but it’s a drop in the bucket in the grand scheme of evolutionary history.

Furthermore, in the span of a few thousand years the human population on this planet has skyrocketed from a few hundred million to several billion. So when you learn that almost seven billion people around the world (including you, your friends, and your family) are responsible for the deaths of over fifty billion animals every single year, we shut down. How are we supposed to wrap our minds around numbers that large? — We can’t.

“One death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic.” ~ Joseph Stalin

You can try your hardest to convince yourself you’re just an innocent bystander by claiming “I just don’t want to get involved”, but the truth is whether you like it or not, you already are involved. By simply living in society you are involved. And you are responsible. If you’ve ever been confronted with evidence that you are not the same person in reality as the person you envision yourself to be — when a deep-seated belief that you view as being integral to your character as a person (such as “I am a good person” or “I am compassionate toward others”) is challenged — what was your first reaction?

More than likely, your first instinct was to jump to denial, rather than self-reflection. We know these things about ourselves; they are subconscious mantras we replay in our minds each day. How dare anyone presume to know us better than we know ourselves! They clearly have no idea what they’re talking about. So what do we do when confronted with the truth that we are in fact playing a crucial role in the perpetuation of suffering on a mass scale?

Outright denial:

• “I’m an animal lover.  I would never hurt an animal. Just because I eat meat and other animal products doesn’t mean I’m hurting animals.” (The murdered pig in your ham sandwich begs to differ.)
• “Animals can’t really feel pain.” / “Animals can’t understand what’s happening to them anyway.” (Actually, they can.  Still not convinced?  Watch this.)
• “Conditions for animals are not as bad as people claim.  Those undercover investigations are just isolated incidents that are manufactured by crazy animal rights extremists.” (How many “isolated incidents” does it take for us to recognize that a problem is actually widespread? Furthermore, why do you suppose states like Iowa and Utah have enacted controversial Ag-Gag laws to make it illegal to film in places that exploit animals? If they have nothing to hide, why are they so afraid of people filming their supposed humane treatment of animals?)
• “I hardly ever eat any animal products — I’m practically vegan anyway!” (It’s hard to know exactly how many animal products you consume until you make a conscious effort to eliminate them from your diet. There are hidden animal products in things you consume on a daily basis that you have no idea are actually animal products. It’s amazing how many people don’t know that whey and casein come from milk, or that gelatin is the rendered bones, hooves, and ligaments of slaughtered animals. These are things most people don’t know about because they have no reason to know — it’s just not on their radar. Furthermore, this goes beyond food. What about leather, fur, silk, wool, down, pearls, etc.? What about cosmetics and household cleaners that are tested on animals? What about rodeos, horse races, dog races, cockfighting, dog fighting, the circus, and aquatic parks like Sea World? Animals are exploited and oppressed for more than just food.)

Shifting the blame/focus:

• “I’m not physically killing animals myself.  I just buy it from the store.  They do it.” (The person wielding the knife is paid on your dollar.  That’s like hiring a hit-man and saying the murder was his idea.)
• “You kill plants so who are you to lecture me on ethics?” (Read this.)
• “Maybe I’ll care more about animals once we fix all the problems affecting humans first.” (You mean to say you believe humans are the most cognitively advanced species on Earth, yet we still haven’t figured out how to do more than one thing at a time?)
• “I’m only one person out of millions.  Changing my lifestyle won’t change a damned thing anyway so why even bother?” (So by that logic, if fewer people decided to drive while drunk the number of hit-and-run fatalities wouldn’t drop even slightly? At the very least, this is a matter of personal integrity. You should want to do the right thing because you would not want to personally be involved with something you claim to be against.)
• “I did the vegan thing for X years/months/weeks/days and I felt really lethargic/sick/hungry/unhealthy so it doesn’t work for everyone.” (Read this.)

Romanticizing problematic choices:

• “I get enjoyment from eating animal products. It makes me feel good.” (First, using the argument of “violence is morally acceptable for the sake of my own pleasure” echoes the same logic used by bullies as benign as internet trolls to bullies as vicious as rapists and murderers. Second, there are many vegan foods that are very enjoyable. Many things you already eat are vegan or could easily be made vegan with simple substitutions: chips with salsa and guacamole, cereal with non-dairy milk, various pasta dishes, fruits, veggies, etc.)

Just a few examples of delicious VEGAN food I’ve eaten:

What we need to do, if we are truly the intelligent species we so fervently claim to be, is to look ourselves in the mirror and really see the person who stares back at us. Have we been wearing a mask so long that even we have started believing it’s our own face? Beliefs, morals and ideals should be more than just conversation topics or fluff to make us feel and appear as though we’re doing good in the world.

And the moment you convince yourself you’re doing enough is the moment you allow that mask back onto your face to hide the arrogant complacency beneath.

Instead of reacting to our realization of conflicting beliefs with denial and rationalization, shouldn’t we be taking responsibility for our actions and changing our actions accordingly? Talking about how good a person you are doesn’t change anything. You have to live it. You have to be it. You have to constantly improve upon it. Because when that mask starts slipping and you begin to see the person you really are under there — the person whose actions are in direct opposition of their words — how are you going to react?

The post I Hope This Post Makes You Uncomfortable appeared first on Vegan Rabbit.

Last Friday night, a young man named Elliot Rodger went on a killing spree in the UCSB Isla Vista community of Santa Barbara, California. He succeeded in killing six people and injuring thirteen more. His motivation, according to him, was that women didn’t have sex with him. Not only did they not have sex with him, but instead, they chose to have sex with other, “less-deserving” men. He felt entitled to their bodies and felt righteous in punishing them for denying him what he felt he was owed.

Since Elliot Rodger’s shooting/stabbing spree, women from around the world are sharing their stories. You can find many concise accounts on Twitter under the #YesAllWomen hashtag. A few examples are below:

Because every single woman I know has a story about a man feeling entitled to access to her body. Every. Single. One. #YesAllWomen

— Emily (@emilyhughes) May 24, 2014

“I have a boyfriend” is the easiest way to get a man to leave you alone. Because he respects another man more than you. #yesallwomen

— Rylah (@JBRylah) May 25, 2014

#YesAllWomen because when a girl is harassed or even groped by a stranger in public, we’re told to “take it as a compliment”

— Amy Bottrill (@bottrill) May 25, 2014

Because men don’t text eachother that they got home safe. #YesAllWomen

— Addie Wagenknecht (@wheresaddie) May 26, 2014

The personal accounts of rape and sexual harassment paint a vivid picture of the misogynistic world we inhabit, but what truly exposes this truth is the reaction from many (but not all) men who view this as a personal attack against the entire male population. “Men’s rights activists” have taken to social media to stand up for their sex, claiming the feminist agenda is to purge the earth of all male inhabitants and accusing women of misandry, simply for speaking out about the oppression they have experienced and observed in their own lives.

Not surprisingly, mainstream media, men, and even some women are rushing to Elliot Rodger’s defense, saying he was just a mentally disturbed young man who only wanted something most people can identify with: to be given a chance to love and be loved — that he was someone who should be pitied, rather than despised for his act of premeditated mass murder. The innocent people whose lives were ended because of his twisted vendetta against women and the men who have “access” to them are largely forgotten and are instead banished to the category of collateral damage in the battle of the nice guy versus the world. This perfectly illustrates exactly what dissenters attempt to deny: that misogyny is such an insidious force in society that it goes unnoticed and is even itself used as “proof” of its non-existence.

Some examples of the anti-feminist backlash:

A similar hashtag, #NotAllMen, has become popular to both distract from and call attention to misogyny in society, depending on who it is used by. A comprehensive explanation of this can be found here.

The tragic incident last Friday felt all the more personal to me because I used to go to Isla Vista quite often to attend parties on the weekends and am familiar with the places these murders occurred. For all the above reasons, I feel the desire to elaborate on a couple of very memorable accounts of misogyny I have experienced while spending time in this same community. Part of what I will disclose in this post is something I have never spoken of since the day I saw it. I feel it’s time I finally get this out in the open.

In the brief time I was in college, I became friends with a guy in one of my classes who we’ll call Jake. He was a big, tall, bald, burly guy who was eager to please and always cracking jokes. He had friends who went to UCSB so we would go there together on weekends because at the time I didn’t have a car. Over the course of a couple months we all became familiar with each other and regularly partied together on Del Playa Drive (DP), which is a street any college kid could walk down on the weekends and find a party going on at pretty much every house. (It is also one of the streets on which Elliot Rodger opened fire on pedestrians.)

Jake would frequently do things to try to impress me which only wound up doing the exact opposite. One night, he drank an entire handle of Smirnoff vodka by himself. He spent the next day puking in the gutter. But that same night, while he was drunk, leaning on a wall in the hallway at some house party we were crashing, he tried to kiss me.

I took a step back and told him, “Look, Jake. You’re really drunk and anyway I’m not into you like that. I just want to be friends.” He laughed in his drunken stupor and tried again.

Again, I took a step back and told him it was never going to happen. Then he started begging and pleading with me and saying how I didn’t know what was good for me and if I’d only give him a chance I’d have to change my mind. I told him he was drunk and pissing me off and left the party.

The next day when I woke up I overheard him in the next room telling his friends, “I’m going to marry that girl. She doesn’t know it yet but just watch. If I play my cards right, she’ll come to her senses.”

I was speechless. I felt a mixture of disgust, anger, and pure shock. He wasn’t listening to me at all. It was as if only his feelings mattered and mine were utterly irrelevant, because supposedly he knew what I really wanted better than I did. Sure, he was drunk the night before, but I had looked him right in the eye and told him that I didn’t reciprocate his feelings.

I thought, “What is this, the ’50s? You don’t get brownie points for being persistent after I tell you I’m not interested. It doesn’t prove to me you’re a good guy who really cares about my feelings — all it proves is your complete disregard for my feelings.”

I walked out and said to him, in front of his friends, “I’m capable of making my own decisions, thanks.”

Later, when Jake was out getting pizza for all of us, one of his friends showed me a video on his phone I’ll never forget. Apparently, this type of thing happens “all the time,” but to me as an 18 year old who just started college, it was somewhat of a shock.

In the video, a young woman my age was laying down on her back and appeared to be very, very drunk. So drunk she could barely open her eyes or lift her head. She moved her lips a little and made some indistinguishable noises like she was trying to talk to someone out of frame but it was impossible to decipher what it was she was trying to say because she kept slurring her words and trailing off. I don’t even think she knew where she was. Someone out of frame asked her what her name was at one point and she couldn’t even articulate that. Then hands appeared in the frame and lifted up her tank top. Then her bra.

There must have been around four or five guys taking turns raping her. She didn’t fight back, but it was rape. She didn’t say “no,” but it was rape. She didn’t do anything to stop it because she couldn’t even keep her eyes open. She didn’t even remember her own name. And regardless of her choice to get drunk — it was never her choice to get raped.

For the most part, she was totally unconscious, but every now and then her eyes would roll back from inside her skull and she’d look around the room bewildered and then fall back into unconsciousness. I couldn’t watch any more. The whole time my “friends” were laughing about how much of a “slut” she was and how “stupid” she was to allow herself to be in that situation. They blamed her for what her attackers were doing to her. They thought that experience would “teach her a lesson” so she would “know better next time.”

I was dumbfounded and asked them if they knew who the guys in the video were. I think one of them did. I told them they should report it and one of them said they already did. To this day I don’t know why I believed them and didn’t continue to ask questions or do anything about it. Maybe it was because I was young and didn’t know how to react to seeing something like that. Maybe I selfishly didn’t want to get involved. Maybe I didn’t want to believe what I had just seen was real. Maybe it was a subconscious kind of self-preservation. I don’t know why I didn’t ask any more questions or do something about it. It eats at me.

They could tell I was bothered and tried to comfort me by telling me not to be so freaked out and that things like that happen all the time, even at parties I had been to. They tried to normalize it for me in an attempt to put me at ease. They couldn’t understand why I was so shocked and why I wasn’t laughing along with the rest of them. They assured me that I wasn’t a “stupid slut” and that they would protect me so I had nothing to worry about.

That was supposed to be comforting.

Needless to say, I had to get out of there. It was around 8:00 at night and I had to take a ride back to Los Angeles with Jake. On our way back he told me we were taking the long way back and he drove up a narrow, winding road to the top of a mountain. There were stars everywhere. Nothing in the sky was obscured by city lights. Everything else was dark. I didn’t know this wasn’t actually the long way back, and naively thought we were still headed to Los Angeles. We talked about normal stupid things college kids talk about. Music, movies, philosophical musings, etc. Normal stuff. Then he pulled over and said he had to take a leak. He got out of the car and I waited inside.

When he got back inside he didn’t start the car immediately. He just sat there staring at the wheel long enough to make things awkward.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“Why don’t you want to kiss me?” he asked after a brief pause. “I’m a nice guy. I keep you safe at parties. I open doors for you –”

I laughed. “Jake, we already went over this. I only see you as a friend. I’m sorry, but that’s just how I feel.”

He kept looking at the steering wheel a little more and then leaned over to try to kiss me. I backed up toward the passenger window. “Stop,” I said firmly. “Let’s go back.”

Without pause, he shifted out of his seat — and mind you, he’s a big, tall, burly guy — and put his body on top of mine to try to kiss me again. Before I could think, I shouted, “Stop it!” and pushed him away from me so hard that his head hit and cracked his car’s windshield. To this day I have no idea how I was able to summon the strength to do that because he was easily three times my size. He winced in pain and rubbed his head and I ordered him to “take me home NOW,” which, thankfully, he did. I think he was just shocked. We didn’t talk the rest of the trip back.

He dropped me off at home and I never contacted him again. He called me for years after that night and would leave me voicemails asking if I had a boyfriend and what I was up to.

It was like he was still convinced that he was going to marry me some day and all he had to do was wait it out and wear my defenses down to prove that he really loved me.

These experiences are just a few examples of the misogyny I’ve personally experienced and witnessed. But it happens every day to varying degrees. And I am only one example.

I’m not saying all men are rapists and murderers. I’m not saying all men are walking around consciously detesting women. I’m not saying men aren’t ever themselves victims of sexual violence (though usually at the hands of other men). I’m not saying men are wrong for feeling lonely.

I’m also not saying that women don’t in some strange ways benefit from an objectifying, patriarchal society. For example, if I got a ticket every time I’ve been pulled over, I’d be thousands of dollars in debt. But this should be further reason for us to change the status quo, not an excuse for men to play the victim. And this slight benefit is a pittance compared to the male privilege which permeates society.

Misogyny and male privilege is ingrained in society in the words we use, the movies we watch, the music we listen to, the clothes we wear, the history we learn, and the stories we tell. For far too long women have been silenced. Our voices have been drowned out; our stories have been largely stricken from history; and our perspective has been completely ignored.

When the role of men is almost always the protagonist and the role of women is almost always the love interest or sexual conquest, that is misogyny in action. When we place greater importance on the male perspective than the female perspective, that is misogyny in action. When we brainwash young girls from birth to believe that she only matters if a boy validates her or that her opinion is only taken into consideration if she is considered attractive by the opposite sex, that is misogyny in action. When we brainwash young boys from birth to believe that being male means being strong and being female means being weak, that is misogyny in action. And when Elliot Rodger went on a killing spree at UCSB because he wanted to teach a lesson to the people he blamed for getting between him and the pleasure he felt he was so entitled to, that is most definitely misogyny in action.

And whether you like it or not; whether you recognize it or not, if you’re a man, you benefit from male privilege.

True, not all men feel entitled to male privilege, but all men benefit from it.

And the sooner we as a society recognize it, the sooner we can confront it and change it.

Unfortunately, Elliot Rodger was not the first or last misogynist to hurt others out of a sense of entitlement. He was raised to have these views by living in a patriarchal society that regards women as objects to be “had.” Ultimately, he is only a symptom of a much larger societal disease. One that left untreated, will continue to have disastrous consequences for us all.

Read his 140-page manifesto.

The post Yes, All Women Feel the Effects of Misogyny appeared first on Vegan Rabbit.

The thing is, this wasn’t an animal sanctuary and these chickens were not viewed as individual beings with their own right to govern their own bodies — to be the autonomous creatures they were born to be. Instead, I was at a backyard egg producer. They even named the birds and had “favorites”, got to know each chickens distinct personality and behavior.

All might seem peachy keen on the outside, but when you dig a little deeper, the truth becomes more and more apparent and increasingly impossible to ignore.

I’ll start from the beginning of the chickens journey from the hatchery to the backyard egg producer’s home. Keep in mind, this is a typical example of the life of a backyard chicken and is in no way isolated to this one particular backyard egg producer.

The chickens are purchased from a hatchery which is usually located out of state (in this case, from Illinois). A box containing eggs (however many the person orders) is sent to their address (in this case, California). A disclaimer is packed with the box which informs the customer (the backyard egg producer) that only half of the eggs will hatch because not all of the eggs will survive transport. So there is already half of the chickens, dead for no reason at all. Of those chickens who are fortunate or misfortunate (depending on how you look at it) to hatch, half of those chickens will be roosters (males). Because males don’t lay eggs, they are either discarded right away or they are allowed to grow large enough to be slaughtered and eaten. So only about 25% of those original eggs will be female, egg-producing hens.

Those hens are allowed to live a seemingly nice life where they are allowed to attend to their basic needs such as dust bathing, preening, pecking at the earth, and other chicken activities. They are permitted to do these things only until their production declines or stops completely. Many of these breeds of chicken have been bred for so many years and artificially selected to lay more and more eggs to such an extent that their reproductive system shuts down after a few short years and they become known as “internal layers”. This is just one of many medical issues hens get between 2-5 years of age, regardless of how “happy” a life they had in their early years. Keep in mind, when properly cared for even chickens with medical issues can live 15-20 years. But because this is a backyard egg producer we are talking about, a hen who won’t lay is a hole in their pocket. In the words of this particular egg producer, “They eat my food but don’t give me anything back so they have to go.” They said this meaning they have to be killed.

How do they do this? An inverted traffic cone out back holds the chickens upside down with their head sticking out the bottom. The cone keeps their wings from flapping as they would naturally struggle to save themselves from death, as anyone would. Chickens aren’t interested in dying, and they aren’t stupid. They know what death and suffering is when it’s dealt to them. The egg producer “lovingly” bends the chickens neck back and slices it open with a sharp knife, letting the chicken slowly bleed to death. You can find youtube videos of “humane chicken slaughter” which show this method of slaughter frequently used by backyard butchers. You will see the chickens writhe in pain and frantically kick their legs. You will see them try to flap their wings in a vain attempt to escape. You will hear the guttural noises emanating from their throats as they try to cry out in agony. There is no such thing as humane slaughter. Even in places like these.

So the cycle goes every couple years. Another box, more dead chickens in eggs, more dead roosters, and soon enough, more dead hens. All in the name of greed, gluttony, food addictions, willful ignorance, selfishness, and a complete disregard for the rights and feelings of each creature to own their own life and to be free from exploitation.

Thankfully, they let me have three of their older chickens (just a few years old). Two hens and one rooster. The hens were no longer producing eggs and the rooster was getting “old” so they wanted to make room for the “new” ones. So instead of being turned into chicken soup, these chickens are able to live out the rest of their lives in a safe place. All three chickens have new homes. The two hens are living out their lives in an animal sanctuary with the resources to tend to their reproductive medical needs. The rooster is living with another vegan animal rights activist on two acres of land. He should have a flock of hens joining him (rescues) very soon. And to think these beautiful beings would have been someone’s meal. They are so much more than that.

If you aren’t already vegan, know that you have it in you to change if you want it badly enough. Align your actions with your beliefs. If you don’t believe you are a cruel person, but you are still participating in a system which is inherently cruel (even in the most “humane” places), ask yourself “Am I okay with being ethically inconsistent?” If actions speak louder than words, ask yourself, “What do my actions toward animals say about me as a person?” If you consider yourself a rational person and yet you find incongruence between your beliefs of compassion toward others and your actions of causing harm to others (by paying for someone to be killed), wouldn’t the logical and rational next step be to stop causing harm to others? All of the vegans in the world are living proof that this option is absolutely possible and I don’t know a single vegan who would deny someone help with transitioning to a vegan lifestyle.

The world is changing. Can you keep up?

More info on backyard eggs and “humane” meat.

The post “Humane” Meat, Local Free-Range Eggs, and Backyard Chickens appeared first on Vegan Rabbit.

To my dearest Shfanfi,

You were the most precious soul I have ever had the pleasure and honor of calling a friend. Thank you so much for letting me into your world for these past nine years; for trusting me completely and for being the truest friend I have ever known. I have never known so deep or profound a connection with another living soul as I have known with you.

You were the one who showed me my purpose in life: to fight for the rights of all animals. I would not be where I am today had you never come into my life. I am forever in your debt and you are forever in my heart.

I’m no poet and I know this simple poem is far from perfect, but it’s from my heart and I wrote it in your memory.

Epitaph to My Best Friend, A Rabbit
From the moment I met you, we shared a bond,
a bond I can’t explain.
And through the years you were the one,
who helped me through my pain.
In my arms you slept soundly,
and never left my side.
And when I’d cry you’d lick my tears,
until my tears were dried.

I’ve never known another soul,
with whom I’ve shared so much.
And what I’d give, what I’d sacrifice,
for just one more touch.
Now you’re gone but I’ll always remember,
your loyal amity.
My only hope is that I gave you,
all you gave to me.

Goodnight, my perfect little prince. You live on in my memories.

Click to view slideshow.

The post Epitaph to My Best Friend, A Rabbit appeared first on Vegan Rabbit.