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Famous Lisa Kemmerer Quotes

“For most women (as for most men) links between sexism and speciesism are not readily apparent. We have been conditioned not to see exploitation. For example, men generally have no idea how patriarchy affects women—unless they go out of their way to learn. The same is true for women with regard to cows and pigs and chickens and turkeys. Both women and nonhuman animals have traditionally been viewed as property—"things” to be owned and controlled by those in power. While the plight of women is linked with that of nonhuman animals through a single system of oppression, through their comparative powerlessness and invisibility, and through sexual exploitation, it is important to elucidate these similarities through concrete examples. Links between women and nonhuman animals are nowhere more apparent than through the vulnerabilities of mothers and their young, and the control of pregnancies and offspring; this particular form of oppression is nowhere more blatant than on factory farms.”

MotherhoodExploitationVeganismPowerlessnessInvisibilityIntersectionalitySpeciesismSexual ExploitationFactory Farms
Book:Speaking Up for Animals: An Anthology of Women's Voices
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“If one cares about the earth—if one respects nature—it is better to consume vegetables, fruits, nuts, and grains. If you care about the planet and wish to adopt an earth-friendly lifestyle, it is advisable to focus only secondarily on the car that you drive, or recycling, or turning off lights and turning down heat, and primarily on what you buy at the grocery store. What we eat has a much greater impact on the environment.”

EarthEnvironmentEthicsClimate ChangeVeganConsumingVeganismEmissionsRecyclingPlanet
Book:Animals and World Religions
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“Feminists lobby against sex wage discrepancies, gays fight homophobic laws, and the physically challenged demand greater access—each fighting for injustices that affect their lives, and/or the lives of their loved ones. Yet these dedicated activists usually fail to make even a slight change in their consumer choices for the sake of other much more egregiously oppressed and exploited individuals. While it is important to fight for one’s own liberation, it is counterproductive (not to mention selfish and small minded) to fight for one’s own liberation while willfully continuing to oppress others who are yet lower on the rungs of hierarchy.”

InjusticeConsumersWagesVeganismDisabledAnimal LiberationIntersectionalityActivistsFeministsGays And Lesbians
Book:Speaking Up for Animals: An Anthology of Women's Voices
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“While it is one thing to strive for a cause that fundamentally and primarily benefits you—your freedom and equality (or the freedom and equality of those you know and care about), or for your environment (on which you depend for survival)—it is quite another matter to struggle on behalf of a cause that does not benefit you directly.”

ActivismVeganismAnimal LiberationSpeciesismActivistsHuman Animal RelationshipsAnimal StudiesEthics And AnimalsSocial Justice Causes
Book:Speaking Up for Animals: An Anthology of Women's Voices
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“With regard to farmed animals, we are the ones who are in power. We are the ones who have the power to change our consumer habits. We are the ones who either put our money down for their lives, or boycott animal products.”

PowerSocial JusticeActivismVeganismAnimal LiberationBoycottFactory FarmingSpeciesismAnimal StudiesFarmed Animals
Book:Speaking Up for Animals: An Anthology of Women's Voices
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“Oppressions are linked. We cannot free human beings without freeing cows, sows, and hens along with women and men who are systematically oppressed by those in power. Rather than seek to fight our way up the patriarchal ladder, those working for social justice need to dismantle hierarchies, and cease to exploit all those who are less powerful—even if we must give up a few culinary favorites in the process . . . . Each of us decides, over the course of our daily lives, whether we will ignore the suffering of nonhuman animals . . . . We choose where our money goes, and in the process, we choose whether to boycott cruelty and support change, or melt ambiguously back into the masses.”

PowerSocial JusticeActivismOppressionVeganismAnimal LiberationIntersectionalityBoycottActivistsFarmed Animals
Book:Speaking Up for Animals: An Anthology of Women's Voices
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“While it is one thing to strive for a cause that fundamentally and primarily benefits you—your freedom and equality (or the freedom and equality of those you know and care about), or for your environment (on which you depend for survival)—it is quite another matter to struggle on behalf of a cause that does not benefit you directly. As social justice activists, we must remember how ardently we wish that those in power would help bring change. The oppressed wish that those in power could empathize enough to understand the wrongness of what is happening, and how much they would need and appreciate the active participation of those in power to bring about a measure of justice. With regard to farmed animals, we are the ones who are in power. We are the ones who have the power to change our consumer habits. We are the ones who either put our money down for their lives, or boycott animal products.”

PowerSocial JusticeActivismVeganVeganismIntersectionalityBoycottAnimal EthicsAnimal StudiesFarmed Animals
Book:Speaking Up for Animals: An Anthology of Women's Voices
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“Anymal liberationists who release fox or chinchillas from fur farms, free veal calves from chains in abysmal crates, destroy transport trucks that haul terrified turkeys and sheep to their premature deaths, burn slaughterhouses that dismember pigs and chickens, or destroy computers in research facilities are not dangerous terrorists. Anymal liberationists simply believe that life is precious, and that an industry designed to manipulate and destroy life for the sake of profits is ethically and spiritually unacceptable. They do not target the lives of random citizens—or the lives of any citizens. Anymal liberationists do not target life—they target industries (and profits) that flourish at the expense of life—and they attempt to rescue the exploited. Terrorists kill randomly; anymal liberationists have never killed anyone. Anymal liberationists exemplify what it is to live into the core teachings of every major religion concerning rightful relations between human beings and anymals.”

EthicsProfitActivismVeganismAnimal LiberationFactory FarmingAnymalsVealAnymal LiberationSlaughterhouse
Book:Animals and World Religions
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“Activists must not work against one another in their single-minded dedication to one specific cause. Those fighting to protect horses must not eat cattle. We do well to specialize, but we do not do well if we specialize without knowledge of interlocking oppressions—or without the application of that knowledge.”

Social JusticeActivismOppressionVeganismSpeciesismActivistsInterconnectionsSocial Justice CausesInterlocking
Book:Sister Species: Women, Animals and Social Justice
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“Those who seek greater justice in our world need to work toward a deeper understanding of oppressions. Activists need to develop the kind of understanding that will lead to a lifestyle—a way of being—that works against all oppressions.”

UnderstandingJusticeSocial JusticeActivismLifestyleOppressionAnimalsVeganismAnimal LiberationIntersectionality
Book:Sister Species: Women, Animals and Social Justice
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