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Speciesism Quotes

Browse 75 quotes about Speciesism.

Speciesism Quotes

“I have often wondered how empathetic women have the courage to repeatedly expose themselves to trauma—entering animal labs, factory farms, and slaughterhouses to witness and record insidious treatment of nonhuman animals—while maintaining a semblance of emotional and psychological equilibrium. Authors in this anthology provide an answer: empathic people face misery head-on, not only to bring about much-needed change but as a means of coping. In a world where unconscionable violence and pervasive injustices are the norm, they have come to see activism as the lesser of two miseries. These women have found that their only hope for peace of mind is to walk straight into that pervasive misery and work for change”

ChangeSocial JusticeInjusticeActivismWomen EmpowermentAnimal LiberationAnimal EthicsSpeciesismActivists
Book:Sister Species: Women, Animals and Social Justice
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“Many social justice activists--many feminists--continue to work against one form of oppression while feeding the flames of another, without noticing that the blow torch behind the flames must be tuned off before we can have any hope of putting out the resultant fires.”

FeminismRacismSocial JusticeFeministActivismOppressionIntersectionalitySpeciesismFeministsMyopic
Book:Sister Species: Women, Animals and Social Justice
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“The U.S. system of justice contains laws whereby nonhuman animals have no legal standing, but are defined as “property,” as wives and enslaved Africans once were. Other animals (including mice, rats, and birds) are excluded from the legal definition of “animal” in the U.S., thereby denying these individuals whatever slight protection might be provided by U.S. animal welfare laws, and allowing science to use these sentient beings in any way researchers see fit, without fear of legal sanction. Other speciesist laws prevent animal advocates from using free speech on behalf of hunted animals, while protecting right-to-life advocates who speak out on behalf of fetuses. Institutionalized support for the systematic oppression of nonhuman animals is also evident in the recent Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, as well as in the mainstream media, both of which – unbelievably – label animal advocates as “terrorists.”

LawPropertyActivismTerroristLiberationAnimal RightsFetusSpeciesismProperty Law
Book:Sister Species: Women, Animals and Social Justice
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“Because the oppression of nonhuman individuals is normative, it is largely invisible, and most of us are complicit in one way or another. While social justice activists now widely recognize that the poor, elderly, and non-white racialized minorities are harmed by patriarchy, few are willing to similarly recognize the harm of patriarchal dualisms and hierarchy on nonhuman animals – even ecofeminist theorists. Very few social justice activists have even a rudimentary understanding of speciesism, or of the harmful exploitation that stems from such marginalization and cruel domination of nonhuman animals.”

Social JusticeActivismOppressionAnimal RightsPatriarchyDominationAnimal LiberationIntersectionalitySpeciesismMarginalization
Book:Sister Species: Women, Animals and Social Justice
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“Acknowledging and protecting nonhuman individuals places limits on human power, and will put an end to a host of ill-gotten gains – just as emancipation curtailed white power and put an end to the ill-gotten gains of Caucasian-Americans. Consequently, animal activists who push for change are often met with derision and indifference by those who wish to continue their accustomed diet, those who do not want to rethink their leather shoes, toiletries, or treasured forms of entertainment. Feminists and civil rights protesters who asked others to change for the sake of justice – to give up their ill-gotten gains – were and are met with similar insults and raucous rejections.”

ChangeJusticeSocial JusticePrivilegeActivismAnimal RightsAnimal LiberationIntersectionalitySpeciesism
Book:Sister Species: Women, Animals and Social Justice
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“It is increasingly difficult for social justice activists to advocate – with a clear conscience – for women, the poor, or immigrants while eating other animals or consuming the nursing milk of cattle. Animal activists are exposing the links that connect the oppression of nonhuman animals with human oppression.”

JusticeSocial JusticeActivismOppressionAnimal LiberationIntersectionalitySpeciesismAnimal Activits
Book:Sister Species: Women, Animals and Social Justice
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“working on behalf of social justice – working on behalf of nonhuman animals – requires immersion in the horrors of oppression. For the women who have submitted essays for this anthology, immersion in the ugliness of injustice, in the hope of change, seems preferable to turning away. . . . ... There is a reward for courage and determination in the face of helplessness and trauma: By walking into extreme misery in the hope of exposing injustice and bringing change, these women have moved from helplessness and despair to empowered activism.”

WomenCourageDeterminationBraveryInjusticeTraumaActivismIntersectionalitySpeciesismSocial Justice Warrior
Book:Sister Species: Women, Animals and Social Justice
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“There is an ugly, unmentioned truth behind a feminist’s tendency to associate women with men, rather than with similarly exploited pigs or cattle: Those who purposefully distance women from other female animals hope to liberate female humans while leaving nonhuman animals in the category of exploitable “other." But it is reprehensible for individuals who are seeking release from oppression to purposefully leave others in the dungeons of exploitation—even to condemn others to such exploitation—in the process of working to extricate themselves. In any event, this selfish approach has not worked, and the reason for this seems somewhat obvious: As long as we foster power-over—whether over pigs or turkeys or women—most human females will remain under the control of men, along with pigs and cows and chickens (who will generally remain yet lower on the rungs of power). In seeking to stand above nonhuman females, women help to maintain a hierarchy through which they are held below men. As long as we support a hierarchy, as long as we support a system which grants some individuals power over other individuals, men will dominate over women. Hierarchies entail power-over, and the power of one individual over another inevitably supports oppression.”

PowerFeministActivismOppressionExploitationPatriarchyHierarchyAnimal LiberationOtherSpeciesism
Book:Speaking Up for Animals: An Anthology of Women's Voices
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“Not only do we harbor patriarchal indifference to uniquely female suffering, but additionally, most of us are ignorant of the horrible cruelty inherent in factory farming. It is easy to buy a bucket of chicken or a carton of vanilla yogurt without even knowing about the females whose sad lives lie behind these unnecessary products. It is easy to forget that mozzarella and cream come from a mother’s munificence—mothers who would have desperately preferred to tend their young, and to live out their lives with a measure of freedom and comfort—or not to be born at all. Most consumers are unaware of the ongoing, intense suffering and billions of premature deaths that lurk behind mayonnaise and cream, cold cuts and egg sandwiches. Even with the onset of contemporary animal advocacy, and the unavoidability of at least some knowledge of what goes on in slaughterhouses and on factory farms, most of us choose to look away—even feminists. Collectively, feminists remain largely unaware of the well-documented links between the exploitation of women and girls, and the exploitation of cows, sows, and hens.”

WomenFeminismActivismEggsMothersPatriarchyDairyIntersectionalityFactory FarmingSpeciesism
Book:Speaking Up for Animals: An Anthology of Women's Voices
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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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“Such is the breathtaking speciesism of our Christian-inspired attitudes, the abortion of a single human zygote can arouse more moral solicitude and righteous indignation than the vivasection of any number of intelligent adult chimpanzees! The only reason we can be comfortable with such a double standard is that the intermediates between humans and chimps are all dead.”

HumansReasonChristianNumbersAttitudeMoralComfortableStandardsAdultsIntelligentInspiredAbortionRighteousIndignationDouble StandardChimpanzeesBreathtakingSpeciesismSolicitudeRighteous Indignation
Author:Richard Dawkins
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“It has been an obsession of human beings to create a hierarchy that places the human species on top and lumps all the "other animals" together beneath us. The resulting "speciesism" allows us to look upon animals as less deserving of all manner of rights and considerations than humans. To support this lower status, humans have argued that animals act instinctually; don't have souls; don't feel physical pain like we do; and lack self-consciousness, cognitive intelligence, emotional feelings, morality, and ethics.”

FeelsHumansLooksHas BeensSoulSelfFeelingsPainTogetherHuman BeingsAnimalConsciousnessSupportRightsEmotionalMoralityEthicsSpeciesObsessionLook UpConsiderationHierarchyDeservingCognitiveLumpsSelf ConsciousnessHuman SpeciesPhysical PainSpeciesismMorality And Ethics
Author:Sharon Gannon
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“Sometimes I think that the only effective and productive method of destroying speciesism would be for each uncaring human to be forced to live the life of a cow on a feedlot, or a monkey in a laboratory, or an elephant in the circus, or a bull in a rodeo, or a mink on a fur farm. Then people would be awakened from their soporific states and finally understand the horrors that are inflicted on the animal kingdom by the vilest species to ever roam this planet: the human animal!”

PeopleThinkingHumansSometimesStatesWould BeAnimalPlanetsHorrorMethodSpeciesKingdomsLive LifeProductiveFarmsDestroyingCowsMonkeysElephantsBullsCircusLaboratoryAwakenedFurHuman AnimalSpeciesismAnimal KingdomRodeoUncaringMink
Author:Gary Yourofsky
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“Racists violate the principle of equality by giving greater weight to the interests of members of their own race when there is a clash between their interests and the interests of those of another race. Sexists violate the principle of equality by favoring the interests of their own sex. Similarly, speciesists allow the interests of their own species to override the greater interests of members of other species. The pattern is identical in each case.”

GivingSexInterestAnimalRacePrinciplesCasesGreaterMembersWeightSpeciesPatternsLiberationRacistIdenticalClashAnimal LiberationSpeciesism
Author:Peter Singer
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“Speciesism is a failure to empathize with those outside one's group. In general, speciesists simply disregard the myriad nonhumans whom humans intentionally hurt and kill. Who cares if millions of mice and rats are vivisected? They're 'only rodents'. What does it matter if billions of chickens live in misery until they die in pain and fear? They're 'just chickens'. They aren't human, so they don't count. Victimizers lack empathy for their victims, but absence of empathy doesn't justify victimization, whether the victims are human or nonhuman.”

IfsHumansDoeMatterCarePainDiesHurtMillionsGroupsEmpathyVictimMiseryAbsenceBillionsJustifyChickensMiceRatsWho CaresDisregardDoes It MatterVictimizationSpeciesismRodentsIntentionally Hurt
Author:Joan Dunayer
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“People say that being a vegan creates a social problem in that others may react negatively. But isnt that the case if you take a principled position on any issue, whether its racism, sexism, heterosexism, violence as a general matter—or speciesism? The key is to educate others about *why* you take the position.”

PeopleIfsMayMatterProblemSocialCasesIssuesViolencePositionKeysRacismSexismVeganEducateSocial ProblemsPrincipledSpeciesism
Author:Gary L. Francione
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