Principle 1: Challenge Speciesism

Principle 1: Challenge Speciesism

Often when we stop directly supporting the exploitation of non-human animals (going vegan), we believe that we have absolved ourselves of our wrongdoing towards non-human animals. While going vegan is a great step towards not perpetuating the oppression of non-human animals, it is only the beginning of a much longer process of continued learning and unlearning of the speciesism that we have all been taught our whole lives. Speciesism runs deep in our society and pervades much more than just our actions that directly affect non-human animals. Speciesism is in our language, our thoughts, and our beliefs, even if we are vegan. Challenge Speciesism strives to create an environment where we are all committed to an ongoing process of unlearning speciesism. This means critically thinking about our own beliefs regarding non-human animals and recognizing that we all still benefit from human privilege. Thinking deeper about our own attitudes towards non-human animals helps us better understand their oppression and makes us better advocates.

The more we challenge speciesism in ourselves, the more equipped we are to challenge it in others. We must strive to challenge speciesism wherever we come across it; whether it be in the actions, beliefs or language of other humans. While we hope challenging speciesism will encourage others to reconsider their attitudes towards non-human animals, even if they do not, we will begin to create a society where speciesism is not acceptable. Each time we unequivocally challenge and reject speciesism we increase the social pressure on speciesist beliefs and actions.