Feminism and Animals

Abstract

In the last chapter, we saw that irrespective of the theoretical links between Marxism and justice for animals, the two social movements related to them possess close historical connections. Many Victorian social reformists, such as George Bernard Shaw and Henry Salt, campaigned on behalf of both workers and animals. Interestingly, the historical links between animal protection and feminism are just as strong, if not stronger. Once again, those connected roots lie in Victorian Britain where social reformers campaigned on behalf of women and animals. For example, Frances Power Cobbe was an active campaigner for women’s suffrage, and also co-founder of the Victoria Street Society for the Protection of Animals Liable to Vivisection. Anna Kingsford was one of the first women in Britain to qualify as a doctor, did so without vivisecting a single animal, and campaigned against vivisection for the rest of her life.¹ Furthermore, it is certainly possible to argue that such connections have carried forward to contemporary times, not least because women comprise the bulk of campaigners in the animal protection movement.