By Jen Bravo, Guest Contributor

This post is the final in a series on the history of women in the animal protection movement and stories of the women striving today to make the world a better place for animals.

In part one of Clear Eyes, Full Hearts: Women in Animal Advocacy, we highlighted women who were instrumental in the fight to end vivisection in the late 1800s and very early 1900s. In part two, we explored just a few of the contributions women have made to the animal protection movement in the second half of the twentieth century and beyond. In the final part, we highlight some of the amazing women working to make the world a better place for animals today, and link to some recommended reading and online projects we think you’ll find interesting.

The animal protection movement has blossomed in recent decades into a robust, vibrant, multi-faceted movement. From animal rescue and rehabilitation, to vegan cuisine and outreach, to lobbying and advocacy, women are at the forefront of many of these efforts.

Many of the animal rescue organizations we know and love were founded by women—from Los Angeles to Tanzania, women are on the ground, working directly with animals.

Right here in my own backyard—quite literally—Christi Metropole is changing the world for stray cats. In 1999, she founded Stray Cat Alliance (SCA), which has since grown into a leading cat protection organization in Southern California. In 2016, SCA found homes for or fixed and released over 3,500 cats and kittens in Los Angeles through its Trap-Neuter-Return, foster, and adoption programs. Inspired by a single stray kitten nearly 20 years ago, Christi has created an organization that provides the resources she found lacking. She serves as a leader in the movement, working hard to create more humane policies for our feline friends.

In the nearby Angeles National Forest, Wildlife Waystation is home to approximately 400 rescued exotic animals, thanks to Martine Colette, who rescued her first exotic animal in 1965. She founded Wildlife Waystation in 1976 as a place to care for wild and exotic animals who had formally been kept as house pets, zoo residents, or biomedical research subjects. In 1995, Martine’s was the first sanctuary to take in chimpanzees from biomedical research facilities, and today Wildlife Waystation has the largest population of rescued chimpanzees in the Western United States.

Far from California, on the plains of Kenya and Tanzania, Leela Hazzah, and her organization Lion Guardians, are working to develop and implement long-term solutions to enable people and lions to peacefully coexist. Lion Guardians trains locals in evidence-based conservation methods that both protect lions and support local cultural heritage. A team of 80 guardians currently protects lions across 1.3 million acres of unprotected land in Kenya and Tanzania. Read more here about this amazing organization’s conservation efforts, success stories, and research.

Now, let’s shift gears from animal protection to everyone’s favorite topic…food!

It’s no secret that the vegan food movement has been picking up speed for years. I became vegan during the days of homemade soy bean patties and nutritional yeast—not that there’s anything wrong with that! But let’s face it, today’s vegans have it made. And many of the most outspoken vegan chefs and plant-based eating advocates are women. This is fantastic because, as readers of the Vegan Outreach blog already know, changing our diets is one of the most effective ways to help animals.

One of my favorite vegan chefs taking the world by storm is Jenné Claiborne, who blogs delicious recipes, shopping tips, and healthy eating advice at Sweet Potato Soul. Originally from Atlanta and now living in the Big Apple, Jenné has loved playing in the kitchen her whole life. Jenné went vegan to save animals from exploitation, but shares that eating vegan has also improved her life in many ways. If you have an Instagram account—and you should, as that’s where all the drool-worthy vegan food photos live—you can follow Jenné at @SweetPotatoSoul.

Another favorite chef of mine is Terry Hope Romero, whose cookbook Viva Vegan! is in heavy rotation at my house. Terry has taken traditional Latin foods and veganized them with an eye toward health and flavor. A few of our favorites include her vegan tamales, pupusas stuffed with black beans and plantains, and her Cuban black bean soup. You can follow her Instagram for pictures of delicious foodstuffs at @terryhope.

And last—for this post, anyway—but certainly not least, the woman who first inspired me to get into vegan cooking and outreach—Isa Chandra Moskowitz. Isa’s punk, no-nonsense style, and delicious recipes were manna from heaven for me back in the day. And Isa is still rocking it! She just came out with a new cookbook on vegan holiday cooking, while still managing to run her gorgeous vegan restaurant, Modern Love, in Omaha, NE.

I could talk about food all day, but there are a few other women animal advocates I’d like to highlight before wrapping up—women who are using the arts to help animals.

Many women are using their art to promote a message of love and kindness toward all animals. For example, Soo Yeon Jang, the founder of Meaningful Paws, uses her drawings and catchy designs to spread a message of love and veganism. I use her “Vegan is…” 24 oz wide-mouth Mason jar tumbler at work, and I have my eye on an adorable Cat Lover Tee.

Others are using the power of photography to highlight the plight of animals trapped in abusive systems, like Jo-Anne McArthur, who created the We Animals project, and whose photography was featured in Ghosts in Our Machine. And of course, women have made some of the best documentary films highlighting animal issues, including Gabriela Cowperthwaite, who directed and produced Blackfish, Marisa Miller Wolfson, writer and director ofVegucated, and Kate Brooks, a photojournalist whose film The Last Animals follows the amazing individuals working to save rhinos and elephants from extinction, premiered at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival in April.

If you’ve enjoyed learning about a few of the amazing women in animal advocacy—particularly those who are not often highlighted in the media—I would urge you to check out the Unbound Project. On the website, you can read the stories of women—past and present—on the front lines of animal advocacy work.

By Jen Bravo, Guest Contributor

This post is the second in a series on the history of women in the animal protection movement, gender and animal advocacy, and stories of the women striving today to make the world a better place for animals.

In part one of Clear Eyes, Full Hearts: Women in Animal Advocacy, we highlighted three women who were instrumental in the fight to end vivisection in the late 1800s and very early 1900s. In part two, we explore just a few of the contributions women have made to the animal protection movement in the second half of the twentieth century and beyond.

The Modern Philosophical Movement

The modern animal rights movement often traces its roots to the 1975 publication of Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation, and soon thereafter, Tom Regan’s The Case for Animal Rights in 1983. It’s frequently argued that these two works form the foundation of our modern understanding of animal rights.

But before those seminal works were others written by women, like Ruth Harrison’s Animal Machines (1964), which exposed the world to industrial animal agriculture and influenced Peter Singer to become a vegetarian. And there was also Brigid Brophy’s essay in The Sunday Times, “The Rights of Animals” (1965), in which she argued that “…the relationship of Homo sapiens to the other animals is one of unremitting exploitation.” Brigid was a feminist and pacifist who campaigned for vegetarianism and animal rights, was open about her bisexuality, and has been credited with triggering the creation of the modern animal rights movement in England.

Brigid believed in legitimate rights for animals, not just a reduction in suffering. She once said:

I don’t myself believe that, even when we fulfill our minimum obligations not to cause pain, we have the right to kill animals. I know I would not have the right to kill you, however painlessly, just because I liked your flavour, and I am not in a position to judge that your life is worth more to you than the animal’s to it.

Brigid’s 1965 essay was later collected in the 1971 anthology, Animals, Men, and Morals, along with works by other influential women, including Ruth Harrison, Muriel Dowding (the co-founder of Beauty Without Cruelty), Maureen Duffy, and Roslind Godlovitch.

Civil Rights and Animal Rights

Many civil rights leaders believed—and still believe—that all forms of prejudice and exploitation are linked, and therefore have argued in favor of animal protection as well as civil rights. Rosa Parks is believed to have been a vegetarian for much of her life. And Alice Walker, celebrated author of The Color Purple (1982), while only mostly vegetarian, wrote in her forward to Marjorie Spiegel’s book The Dreaded Comparison (1988) one of the most well-known quotes on animal rights:

The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women created for men.

Alice Walker went on to share, in a 2008 Vegetarian Times interview:

I find it difficult to feel responsible for the suffering of others. That’s why I find war so hard to bear. It’s the same with animals: I feel the less harm I do, the lighter my heart. I love a light heart. And when I know I’m causing suffering, I feel the heaviness of it. It’s a physical pain. So it’s self-interest that I don’t want to cause harm.

If I’m eating food I know was a creature in a cage, it brings up memories of segregation and the stories from my ancestors, of being in captivity and denied their personalities, their true beings. Animals were not made for us, or our use. They have their own use, which is just being who they are.

Similarly, political powerhouse and activist, Angela Davis, spoke out about being vegan at the University of California, Berkeley in 2012, at the 27th Annual Empowering Women of Color Conference. She argued that being vegan is a revolutionary act, part of a revolutionary perspective that challenges exploitation inherent in the status quo:

I usually don’t mention that I’m vegan, but that has evolved. I think it’s the right time to talk about it because it is a part of a revolutionary perspective—how can we not only discover more compassionate relations with human beings, but how can we develop compassionate relations with the other creatures with whom we share this planet, and that would mean challenging the whole capitalist industrial form of food production.

Just Scratching the Surface…

This blog post doesn’t even begin to touch on all the ways women have influenced animal protection in the twentieth century and beyond. It doesn’t touch on the women who founded animal protection organizations that have been critical to the growth of the movement, like Helen Jones, who founded the group that would become the International Society for Animal Rights (ISAR) in 1959, Shirley McGreal, who formed the International Primate Protection League (IPPL) in 1973, and Ingrid Newkirk, who co-founded People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) in 1980. It doesn’t touch on the women who ran vegetarian restaurants during the food revolution of the 1970s. It doesn’t touch on women in law, or women in politics, or all of the women who work tirelessly day after day rescuing animals from neglect and mistreatment.

In our third and final installment of this short series, we’ll share stories of some of these women striving today to make the world a better place for animals, and link to some recommended reading and online projects that we think you’ll find interesting.

By Lori Stultz, Communications Manager

What does architectural design and vegan baking and cooking have in common? If you’re professionally trained in either profession, the answer may be obvious. But for those of you who aren’t, it turns out there’s more overlap than what you may think!

Our good friend, Michael Duhon, has centered his life around both of these skill sets, and he’s very graciously taken the time to tell us how these two interests have played out in his day to day life the past couple of decades. Join me in welcoming Michael as we get to know him a little bit better!

Lori Stultz: Tell us a little bit about your background as an architect and how and when you started incorporating those skills into your cooking and baking?

Michael Duhon: Around the time I was in 5th grade, I heard what an architect was and I decided that’s what I wanted to be when I grew up. I used to take my mom’s white freezer paper to draw house plans. She never understood what I was doing other than I was using up all the paper!

After year three of my architectural studies, I decided to finish the last two years of university in interior architecture. This brought in a more focused study of finishes, textures, color, lighting, furnishings, etc., with a direct impact on how the space is perceived by the user.

I practiced in architectural firms for about 15 years, but the office life wasn’t nourishing me. In the 1990s I left and began culinary training with a focus on teaching. I assembled a compendium of culinary trainings, including macrobiotics, creative whole plant-based cooking and baking, and a classic chef training in Paris.

Lori: Were you cooking before you started transitioning to a plant-based lifestyle, or did you dive in after you made the switch?

Michael: I cooked and baked from an early age. The south Louisiana French Cajun culture is one where gender doesn’t dictate who cooks. Everyone cooks and everyone cooks a lot!

Lori: What did your journey to veganism look like?

Michael: During the early 1980s I was in my mid-20s, and that was the period of time when many gay men were dying from AIDS. Very little was known about treatment and even less about the life expectancy of this young group. Many of us formed interactive groups to share information. It became clear that a diet of whole, unrefined foods, along with a reduction in typical snack food and sugar, was important for maintaining good health.

Lori: What does your career look like now? Is it mostly food or non-food related? What does a typical day look like for you?

Michael: My professional life changed at the end of 2012. From 2001-2012 I was a cooking and baking instructor for a culinary institute. I taught 11 weeks a year in addition to designing and renovating residences. The institute has now transitioned to an online school, so my career shifted to mostly design and build. I love to teach though, so I just launched beginner and advanced vegan baking classes, through my website Artistry In Baking, which focuses on using whole, unrefined ingredients. A core value of mine is to create and teach baking and dessert with real food value as opposed to empty calories. The coursework is suitable for home cooks as well as professionals looking for in-depth vegan baking and dessert training.

For now, a typical day involves client meetings, design decisions, and carpentry and project management. And I bake at least once a week. However, with the launch of my new baking classes, I’ll be doing more cooking—both training students, and expanding course content.

Lori: Do you prefer cooking dinner parties for groups or teaching groups of students?

Michael: Although I’ve cooked for and taught large groups, I prefer the intimacy of cooking for and teaching small groups. I like direct interaction that isn’t always possible when cooking and baking with a large group.

Lori: What are your favorite meals to cook for you and your partner, Lawrence? What are your favorite desserts (to eat and to make)?

Michael: Some favorite dishes are paella, chili, tajines, and soups of any kind. I love making cakes and tarts, and I’ve been perfecting dense and fudgy vegan brownies. I haven’t had any complaints with the numerous test batches I’ve made!

Lori: What sort of vegan menu would you serve to meat-eating friends and family members to show them how good vegan food can be?

Michael: I’ve found that as long as the menu offers a variety of textures, flavors, and colors that most folks experience it as another good meal. A secret weapon though is having something perfectly deep fried.

Lori: Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us, Michael! It was great learning more about you and your unique architectural perspective on vegan cooking and baking!

If you’re interested in learning more about Michael and his business, check out his website!

By Lori Stultz, Communications Manager

Vegan Outreach is excited to announce our revamped 10-week email series, Vegan Serial!

This series has taken on a new name and a new look, but it’s as helpful as ever!

When you sign up you’ll receive 10 emails—one per week—each with a delicious and easy vegan recipe, a nutrition tip from a registered dietitian, Vegan Outreach Executive Director Jack Norris, and recommendations for our favorite vegan food products, like frozen pizza and versions of your favorite candy bars.

This is an excellent resource for anyone who’s just dipping their toes into the water of veg eating. The information is short and sweet, fun, and light-hearted.

Simply click this link, fill out the sign-up form, and you’re good to go! You’ll receive the first week’s email immediately.

By Alex Bury, VO Organizational Development Consultant

VO’s Paige and David Carter were recently asked to speak at Rebekah Children’s Services (RCS) in Gilroy, CA. RCS has been helping kids find homes, get treatment, and overcome obstacles for over 115 years.

Paige and David gave two presentations: first to the kids, and then a longer one for staff and guests. David talked about eating healthy, helping animals, his favorite vegan foods, and being vegan in the NFL and how he made the change.

It was really inspiring for the kids to meet not only a healthy role model, but also an actual NFL player! The kids, staff, and guests all had a lot of great questions, and they all left with signed copies of VO’s Compassionate Athlete booklet, with David’s picture on the cover.

Paige said that the positive response from the kids was more than enough to make the day great, but then it got even better! RCS made a vegan spaghetti lunch and everyone ate vegan that day. They even made vegan lemon-orange scones for dessert—they were delicious!

Special thanks to VO’s dear friend Kristie Middleton who made this all happen. And a very big thank you to the staff of Rebekah Children’s Services. You’re all doing amazing work and it was truly an honor to visit!

Photo note: RCS takes privacy very seriously, so we didn’t photograph the kids. However we do love these shots of David during his presentations!

By Paige Carter, VO Diversity and Community Expansion Specialist

As part of Vegan Outreach’s Community Expansion Program, David Carter and I have recently started doing vegan store tours in neighborhoods that are normally overlooked by the vegan community.

Our first store tour got off to a great start when our amazing volunteers showed up bright and early on the morning of Saturday, June 25 at a Ralphs grocery store in Los Angeles. After setting up the signage and the Vegan Outreach information station, volunteers Roxanne and Nicole helped me fill the Vega giveaway bags—graciously donated by Vega—with a shaker cup, a protein powder and bar, a plant-based eating guide, and a VO Compassionate Athlete booklet.

By 10:00 am, we were ready to go and our first tour group had arrived! Jessica Handy—one of our vegan registered dieticians—and I took the first group around.

We met a mother and daughter who had both recently gone vegan, and another mother and daughter who weren’t vegan but had seen the Vegan Store Tours poster outside the store and were interested in learning more. Together we walked through the store and listened as Jessica pointed out things like:

• Paying attention to price per pound.
• Cutting out the middleman by buying dry ingredients, like beans, and cooking them yourself.
• Finding cheap protein sources—beans and legumes—if vegan meats aren’t in your budget.

By 2:00 pm, the event had come to an end. Our three tour guides, David Scott, Matt Ruscigno, and Jessica Handy, had spent hours taking veg-curious people on tours.

And our fabulous volunteers—Roxanne, Yvonne, Nicole, Liz, Derek, and Janelle—had passed out all of our giveaways and handed out stacks of leaflets that changed countless lives for both animals and humans. This was hands down one of the best days of my life!

Walking around the Ralphs grocery store on the corner of Vermont and Adams in South Central Los Angeles, not too far from where both David and I grew up, I was overwhelmed with happiness. Photographing the day’s activities and seeing vegan budget tours happening simultaneously with Gardein and Kashi cooking demos and leafleting outside the store, I had to pinch myself. In a neighborhood normally overlooked by the vegan movement, all this magic was happening!

I want to give a long-distance shout-out to VO’s Vic Sjodin and Brenda Sanders! They were both on the East Coast during the planning and implementation of this event, but that didn’t stop them from answering tons of emails and questions, coordinating the event, the literature, the volunteers, and more.

VO has a strong team and it was fun to be part of it for this great event!

Make sure you’re signed up for the VO blog and the VO E-News because we’re planning more vegan store tours in other cities and we want to keep you posted!

By Jamila Alfred, VO Maryland/DC Events and Outreach Coordinator

As the first black outreach coordinator, hired to help with Vegan Outreach’s focus on diversity and inclusion, I was extremely excited, yet nervous, for my first college leafleting tour.

Much to my delight, I was assigned to leaflet at historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) across the Southeast. I knew I would be perfect for the job.

I graduated from an HBCU—Bowie State University—last spring. I understand the importance of attending educational institutions where you’re surrounded by people who want you to succeed, especially because of the color of your skin.

Although I was a commuter and didn’t participate in many social activities on campus, the sense of community in my learning environment definitely pushed me to excel. Now, I want to return the love I received from my people to others beyond my school.

When I graduated I promised myself I wouldn’t take a job until I found the career of my dreams—spreading the vegan message to my brothers and sisters.

I’m now living my dream.

The first leafletings I did at HBCUs in Maryland and DC went smoothly since I was still in my bubble and understood local customs. As I moved south, the sizes of these institutions got smaller and smaller and were in more isolated areas.

Outside of these schools, in their respective towns, I couldn’t help but notice the curious stares and the Confederate flags. I didn’t want to think much about it because I was on a mission and didn’t want any concern to sink in on this grassroots expedition, but let’s just say these places were probably not the best place for a black woman with locs to be at night.

While having a lot of fun, the trip took an ugly turn when my car broke down in Smithfield, NC. This is when I truly realized I was no longer home.

The stares and tensions were menacing as I walked about in a shopping center, desperate to find vegan food. Luckily I was able to find some, but with rude customer service. After a very expensive and time-consuming repair to my vehicle, I rushed out of that town so fast. I was emotionally exhausted.

That experience lingered with me the rest of the week until my car broke down again in rural Albany, GA. Luckily, my car had enough life to get me to a nearby gas station, but the gawks from white townsfolk intimidated me.

Determined to have my car fixed, I walked up to the only friendly face in the area who just so happened to be a black man. He directed me to a nearby tire shop where the front desk workers were white and the car repair employees were black. That wouldn’t have been a weird coincidence if the man at the front desk didn’t go out of his way to not look me in the eye while speaking to me, or if one of the women didn’t look square at my name on my ID and call me “Jamaica.” I wasn’t amused.

After this, my trip got better, but I continued to feel like I was different from what is preferable. It wasn’t until my first day leafleting in Atlanta, GA when the stress from my car issues completely melted away. A big thank you to Muki Pederson and her husband for treating me like a princess! I was able to fully relax thanks to their warm hospitality.

Just being in the Atlanta area for a few days made me feel a sense of community with my brothers and sisters—from the schools I leafleted to the city streets. And did I mention the food was fantastic? Every restaurant I dined at was black-owned, scrumptious, and oh-so easy to find.

Unfortunately, I had to end my tour almost two weeks early. I was truly looking forward to finishing this trip with a bang—which I totally did in Atlanta—but the obvious risks, along with racial tensions in the South with the upcoming election, became an inevitable issue.

Although there’s many things I’d do differently about this tour, I’m proud of my courage for speaking up for the animals despite safety risks, especially as someone who’s new to leafleting. I proved to myself that I’m capable of anything and won’t allow racial intimidation to deter me from including the black community in the vegan movement. No one can stop me!

After I returned home, I went straight to working on local community engagement projects. The goal is to create new support systems for people of color who want to go vegan. People of color are typically left out of the equation when it comes to helping people transition to a vegan lifestyle, which is shameful because veganism benefits everyone.

Along with that, my goal is to build a community for vegans who are struggling with the lifestyle. It’s quite common that many vegans experience recidivism in their journeys, and I’ll make it my business to help them stay put.

The trip was a learning experience for Vegan Outreach as well as myself. I had to drive through unfriendly rural areas where the typical white male leafleter would have been safe. As a queer, black woman traveling alone, the threat of a racially-based attack was all too real. And in some places, I could feel that I was not welcomed.

Becoming a more diverse organization means learning, listening, and making adjustments. Campaigns involving one type of employee might not be effective, or even safe. Therefore, Vegan Outreach has decided that in the future I’ll have an intern with me for all of my touring.

We’re excited for my 2017 outreach! Please contact me at [email protected] if you’re interested in accompanying me on my tour!