Veg Trends and Gender Differences

There is a common assumption that women are more likely to be vegetarian or vegan, but is that really true? Let’s take a look at the data…

A 2010 random Gallup poll of 1029 adults found that American men are more tolerant of animal abuse and exploitation than women, in general. Take a look:

“The sharpest differences between men and women on these issues are not found on abortion or other reproductive matters, but on three issues that involve the ethical treatment of animals. Majorities of men, but less than half of women, consider the use of animal fur for clothing, and medical testing on animals to be morally acceptable. Also, there is a 24-point gap between men and women in their belief that cloning animals is acceptable.”
(emphasis added, source: http://www.gallup.com/poll/137357/four-moral-issues-sharply-divide-americans.aspx )

If that’s the case then it seems that women might be more likely to be veg*n than men. But take a look at this study done by Harris Interactive of 1010 American adults:

“Seventeen percent of Americans stated they ‘don’t eat meat, fish, seafood, or poultry at many of my meals (but less than half the time),’ and 16 percent don’t eat these foods at more than half of their meals (but not all the time). Thus, one-third (33 percent) of the country is eating vegetarian meals a significant amount of the time. That’s in addition to vegetarians!
[...]
Approximately 5 percent of the country say that they never eat meat, fish, seafood, or poultry, which makes them vegetarian. Approximately half of these vegetarians are also vegan; that is, they also don’t eat dairy or eggs. Note that we had respondents select ‘I never eat meat, fish, seafood, or poultry’ or ‘I never eat meat, fish, seafood, poultry, dairy, or eggs.’ Because we use the word ‘never’ and give the definition rather than having respondents self-define, our numbers may be lower than other polls. We also did not ask about honey, which would most likely give a lower figure for the number of vegans.
[...]
There is a misconception that more women than men are vegetarian, but it appears that the split may be pretty even. A larger difference shows up when looking at who is eating vegetarian meals one day per week or at many meals.”
(emphasis added, study link is here: http://www.vrg.org/journal/vj2011issue4/vj2011issue4poll.php )

So, it’s about even. There are likely equal numbers of male vegans as there are female vegans with no significant gender difference. And that seems to be true from my personal experience. I know lots of vegetarians and vegans and the gender split is about equal.

Vegans… read on…

However, from the standpoint of veg activism we might want to focus more on one gender than the other. The data from the Harris study suggests that nonvegetarian women eat more vegetarian meals than nonvegetarian men OR that nonvegetarian women think they eat more vegetarian meals than nonvegetarian men, and so these women may be a good audience for a vegan message.

Does that mean vegan adocates ought to spend more time encouraging women to go veg because they represent the “lower-hanging fruit” and will increase our total numbers of veg*ns more quickly? Or does that mean advocates should work harder at convincing men to choose plant-based diets because they face the most obstacles and need our support more?

There’s a group called the Humane Research Council that collects data about animal issues and makes suggestions for activists so that we can be most effective. Their website is here: http://www.humaneresearch.org/ A study done by the Council in 2007 (3200 adults) to determine the most effective strategies to reduce farmed animal suffering and death found that “Females are the majority of all key meat reduction segments“. That study is online at http://www.humanespot.org/system/files/HRC_Veg_Study_2007.pdf (You will need a HRC account in order to access the data yourself).

But that’s not the end of the story. HRC actually suggests tailoring the veg message depending on the audience. They do not suggest reaching out only to women, rather they suggest that some reasons for veg*nism (animal welfare, health, or the environment) are more compelling to certain segments of the population than other reasons. So we’re really back to square one: It’s best to take an individualized approach to animal advocacy depending on the specific situation.

Crossposted at Vegan Soapbox: http://www.vegansoapbox.com/veganism-and-gender/

Case Study: Feministe Blog & Crush Video Discussion

My mother-in-law sent me a link about crush videos, small animal snuff films fetishized for sexual pleasure. I forwarded the link to Jill at Feministe, hoping the legal issues and pornography aspect would pique her interests (she's a feminist lawyer, after all). Sure enough, she posted about it.

I refrained from commenting much, given that my reputation (amongst meat-eaters) is in the toilet and people (who like to eat dead animals) tend to disregard what I have to say. So I left only one comment. Luckily, others picked up the slack and made the connections. For example:

preying mantis wrote: "On top of that, the few cases where the producers have been found, investigated, and reported on involved the women in the videos having been coerced into it, so you have that on top of the animal cruelty."

Alderson Warm-Fork says, " if your issue is the slow crushing of small animals - when egg-laying hens reproduce, half their young are male. these males are ‘useless’ for profit. thus, less than a day old, they are disposed of, often by ‘crushing’. "

Jessica says, "Where consent cannot be obtained, a fetish should not be indulged. Simple as that. An animal cannot consent to this and to do it anyway is a kind of rape/murder. These are snuff films, no doubt about it."

puerdixit hit the nail on the head with THE BEST (in my opinion) analysis of all:

"I’m certainly against humans harming other beings for pleasure–sexual, gustatory, aesthetic or other. However, as a queer person, I’m unnerved by sex panics. I personally don’t see crush porn as ethically far from leather fetish (as much as I appreciate leatherqueers as part of my culture) or, heck, even the whole 'fuck-me boots' thing when those boots are made of dead animals. So I’m intrigued by how people think and talk about crush fetish, and what these responses say about larger attitudes towards non-humans, sexuality, and gender."

My conclusions:

• People are often shocked and angered by cruel uses of animals that do not result in their own personal pleasure. The more someone can 'other' the animal abuser, the easier it is for them to condemn the cruelty. But unfortunately, the more 'different' the cruelty, the easier it is for them to overlook their own complicity in similar forms of animal cruelty.
  
• Opening up a discussion of animal cruelty, in circles of people concerned about justice, will often result in at least some discussion about the cruelty inherent in factory farming. For that reason alone, it's worthwhile to attempt to ignite these kinds of discussions in these kinds of groups.
• In discussions of pornography, the notion of consent is virtually always present. It's crucial in feminist theory and also crucial in animal rights theory. Animals can not and do not consent to much of what humans do to them. Thus, when the door is opened to discussions of animals, consent becomes a topic. Animal righters ought to learn how to talk about consent to people who don't want to consider animal's interests.
• Animal cruelty associated with sex (crushing) or violence (dog-fighting, bull-fighting) seems to be more interesting to media producers (of all kinds, bloggers included) than the more routine forms of animal cruelty, like factory farming. Because of this, these kinds of animal cruelty discussions can be gateways to discussions of other forms of animal cruelty. But those discussions must be shaped carefully by animal advocates, otherwise, they will devolve into hatred of the 'othered'.

(crossposted at ElaineVigneault.com)