"Why do you care about animals more than people?" Anybody who is vegan or vegetarian, or has ever worked/advocated for animal rights and animal ethics is probably familiar with that - seemingly innocent - question. The answer is simple: I don't. I care about animals as well as people, and I believe that all kinds of exploitation, oppression, and violence and inextricably linked. If we are to be effective advocates, we should strive for a world without -isms, may they be sexism, racism, ageism, classism, or speciesism. I firmly believe that we cannot eradicate one without, at the same time, eradicating the other. If we fail to do that, the same evil will keep coming back in ever new disguises and forms - as its has done many, many times over the course of human history.
We all can - and should - be able to care about more than one thing, to oppose violence and exploitation in every form, without imposing some sort of ranking, and attacking those who we feel do not tackle the "most important" or "worst" oppression. Many of the -isms we are faced with today are deeply interconnected. Just as I pointed out earlier that violence against women and sexual assault are caused by the same underlying structure - misogyny - as objectification and subtle sexism, and are thus expressions of the same phenomenon, differing mainly in intensity, so are all the other -isms basically manifestations of the same spirit of oppression.
Whenever we degrade, humiliate, violate and subjugate other humans, we treat them "like animals", implying that it is okay to treat animals that way. From there, it is only a small step down the slippery slope. We can treat animals the way we treat them because they are not "like us", and we can treat a certain sub-group of humanity "like animals", because they are not "like us", either. Once you've created a criterion which determines whether one deserves to be treated with respect, it is easy to further narrow down the in-group, and exclude more and more beings based on more and more trivial grounds. They are not "as smart as we are". They "do not recognize their reflection in the mirror". They are "too emotional". They are "not civilized like us". They are --- you get the picture. The only way we can truly stop this vicious cycle is to recognize the intrinsic value of each and every being (and, just in case you were wondering, I am not talking about "potential beings", I have always wondered how people can be so concerned about "potential" life while being so unconcerned with the suffering of so many of those already in this world!).
By treating animals as products, rather than sentient beings, we de-sensitize ourselves to the suffering of others. We teach ourselves and our children that, even though this other being may look and sound and behave as if they were in pain, they really aren't. And if they are, it's not like "our" pain, because they are different in some way. We do not see all the things we have in common, the desire to live, to love and be loved, to experience joy, but rather focus on what divides us. And we do the same with other humans, based on gender, race and ethnicity, sexual orientation or one of the many other ways we've been able to establish as divisions.
For me, veganism - like feminism - is about respect and fairness, about recognizing another being as a whole person, and treating them the way we wish to be treated. Nothing more, and nothing less.
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