As I researched for my Women’s Studies final project, I discovered an article that discussed something called “vegaphobia.” Matthew Cole and Karen Morgan’s article “Vegaphobia: derogatory discourses of veganism and the reproduction of specieism in UK national newspapers” discussed the negative ways in which vegans and veganism is portrayed in English newspapers and the implications of that negative perception. Cole and Morgan first define veganism as the “opposition to violent and exploitative human-nonhuman relations,” or in other words, rejection of the exploitative and harmful use of animals and animal products by people (135). They then connect animal cruelty—what veganism rallies against—to “specieism…a form of prejudice against nonhuman animals” (135). Cole and Morgan assert that specieism is akin to racism and sexism in that it discriminates against and takes advantage of a group (nonhuman animals in this case). The connection between vegaphobia and specieism is made by Cole and Morgan’s thesis: “Just as anti-feminist discourse perpetuates and legitimates patriarchal social relations, so, we argue, does anti-vegan discourse perpetuate and legitimate specieist social relations” (135).
Cole and Morgan argue that “veganism is understood by most vegans…as an aspect of anti-specieist practice,” so when veganism is vilified or marginalized, specieism is reinforced (135). The authors discuss the way veganism is institutionalized as deviance when discourses constantly reaffirm stereotypes and when “the dominant practices of meat-eating are used to set the discursive parameters” of society’s perceptions (136). Cole and Morgan defined negative articles relating to veganism as “those which deployed one or more derogatory discourses, usually featuring one, or a combination, from a routinized set of anti-vegan stereotypes” such as “ridiculing veganism; characterizing veganism as asceticism; describing veganism as difficult or impossible to sustain; describing veganism as a fad; characterizing vegans as oversensitive; and characterizing vegans as hostile” (139); these negative discourses of veganism ultimately reduce vegans and veganism to a marginal, trivial status, and negate the importance of the lifestyle/diet and its anti-animal cruelty basis, which perpetuates specieism, or violence and discrimination against nonhuman animals. Cole and Morgan point out that in all the newspaper discourses they researched, “the absence of animal rights philosophy as a basis for veganism [was] a consistent theme,” thus allowing the negative discourse of ridiculing veganism to occur (140). If veganism appears “self-evidently ridiculous” and petty, the importance of the lifestyle choice is lost, trivialized, and not taken seriously. Characterizing veganism as asceticism, or extreme self-denial or abstinence from food, “clears veganism of any associations with pleasurable eating experiences,” thus the notion that vegan food is tasteless and disgusting perpetuates. Which, by the way, is totally untrue—vegan food products have come a long way since they were first produced, and are now just as tasty as “regular-people food.” There’s a reason why the last two winners of Cupcake Wars have been vegan bakers with their vegan cupcakes….
Other negative discourses of veganism Cole and Morgan discovered were the practices of describing veganism as impossible to sustain, or as a fad. Describing veganism as impossible to sustain, they argue, “reassures omnivorous readers that veganism is doomed to failure, and that they should not feel guilty for not attempting it,” therefore vegan food and diet is made “other” (143). ‘The food is so hard to find, or too difficult to make, anyway, so why bother trying to eat vegan?’ To describe veganism as a fad, as a temporary occurrence, is to discredit veganism and vegans as hypocritical. ‘It is only a matter of time before vegans can no longer resist eating meat, and if they do eat meat after vehemently speaking out against meat, then that makes vegans hypocrites; at least I’m not a hypocrite, I say I like meat and I eat meat.’ Cole and Morgan associate the trivialization of veganism by attributing it to faddism with women in that “faddism is frequently associated with women’s subculture as a trivialization strategy” (144). The authors also associate women with the characterization of vegans as oversensitive; here sexism is combined with sentiment, making the argument that women are more inclined to empathize and feel compassionately towards animals because of a “shared experience of (patriarchal) oppression” (145). The “gendered stereotypes of women as ‘over-emotional’ or irrational” is connected to vegans perceived as “sentimental ‘animal lover[s]’ unable to cope with the harsh realities of nature,” thus again trivializing vegans and veganism (145).
Cole and Morgan conclude that negative discourses of vegans and veganism serve to not only marginalize or trivialize it, but to allow meat-eaters to “avoid confronting the ethics of exploiting, imprisoning, and killing” animals, as well as to allow the negative discourses to normalize the exploitation of animals (149). As a whole, I agree with Cole and Morgan’s conclusions about the negative discourses’ affect on the perception of vegans and veganism, however I think the argument that characterizing it as impossible to sustain may have some weaknesses. I know my own experience trying to go vegan was confusing, frustrating, and ultimately unsuccessful. I felt as though I did not know enough to even begin, and I found it difficult to find foods I could eat. Every time I read a label, I would see some ingredient that was an animal by-product, or one that might be an animal by-product. It seems as though if you are not intimately familiar with all the forms of animal products, then you are not adequately equipped to choose the right foods and make the best choices that align with one’s anti-animal cruelty/exploitation beliefs. I was always in fear that I would make a mistake in feeling confident I had a product that had caused no harm to an animal or that had no animal products in it, but what if I was just unaware of it? Perhaps it is not correct to characterize veganism as impossible to sustain, but those who say it is difficult to sustain may have a point.
Works Cited
Cole, Matthew and Karen Morgan. “Vegaphobic: derogatory discourses of veganism and the reproduction of specieism in UK national newspapers.” The British Journal of Sociology 62:1 (2011): 134-153. PsycINFO. Web. 5 Dec 2011.
