Feminism and veganism. Two issues that may seem very far apart but are actually united by respect for and struggle against a system that somehow always manages to crush the female gender. The subjugation of women is clear to everyone now. We see it in the daily news, with the many reports of women dying at the hands of men, often their partners or ex-partners, but also from the data pertaining to work that show us how female professionals are often paid less than their male colleagues and only rarely hired for top roles. What is less talked about, however, is the exploitation of the female gender in the production of food for human consumption. All animals locked up in the many intensive farms can only spend a short and suffering life, but those who suffer the most harassment are the females of certain animal species, primarily pigs, chickens and cows.
Dairy cows
As we can imagine, what makes females the main victims of the livestock industry is their reproductive capacity for which they will be exploited for as long as possible. Think of dairy cows, for example. Like all mammals, the cow produces milk after calving to feed her calf. To have sufficient production to feed the dairy industries, the animal is, therefore, artificially inseminated and will be forced to undergo pregnancy for nine months each year. Continuous milking of the cow forces it to produce 10 times the amount of milk that would be needed in the wild to feed the calf, which in this case is fed artificial milk and then, often, killed for its meat. The life prospects of farmed cows are inevitably shorter than they would be in the wild: at the age of 5 or 6, when their milk production declines, they are destined for slaughter.
Sows
A similar role is assigned to sows. On intensive farms, from which almost all the meat found in supermarkets comes, the lives of female pigs are punctuated by artificial inseminations and pregnancies spent in so-called “gestation cages,” cramped spaces that do not allow them any movement. A few days before farrowing, sows are transferred to “lactation cages,” nooks and crannies in which the animal is not even able to stand because it is surrounded by metal bars. Once this stage is completed, the piglets will move on to the fattening stage and the mother will be inseminated again.
Laying hens
Finally, laying hens. From the Italian National Livestock Registry 2022 data, laying hens confined in cage systems account for 36 percent of all hens raised for egg production in the country, about, then, 16 million animals. Although European legislation has banned conventional cages, so-called ‘enriched’ cages still do not give the hen a chance to behave according to nature. Among the damage caused to the animal are weakening of the musculoskeletal system, the assumption of stereotyped behavior, and the appearance of serious diseases that depend on the absence of movement.
Regardless of species, the female gender is, more often than not, the one in the worst condition. When we carry out a campaign against male violence against women, let us also remember all those living beings of the female gender who suffer every day in total indifference.
