In this article, Research Advisory Committee member Dr Corey Lee Wrenn traces the history of vegan feminism, highlighting its connections to wider movements for social justice and liberation.
Although vegan feminism is a concept that may appear rather modern, indeed, only emerging in the activist discourse in the past decade, its roots go much deeper. In researching for my book, Vegan Feminism: History, Theory, Activism, I traced women’s intersectional activism at least as far back as the early 19th century. Although veganism was less common in the 19th century, it was not unheard of. Think of women like Emarel Freshel, for instance. Freshel formed the Millennium Guild and wrote one of the first ethical vegetarian cookbooks. She tended to promote vegetarianism but was likely vegan herself (Bello 2025). Lizzy Lind-af-Hageby, founder of the Animal Defence and Anti-Vivisection Society, campaigned against vivisection and slaughtering without stunning. Her efforts subjected her to hostile and jeering crowds, and more than once she was landed in court for libel. She may also have been vegan herself (Galmark 2000).
More importantly, many of these women, if not vegan or vegetarian, were very cognisant of nonhuman animals’ suffering and its relationship to the feminist cause. They also linked it to other social justice causes of the day, including prison reform, poverty relief, socialism, pacifism, anti-colonialism and abolitionism. Dr. Anna Kingsford was one of the first women to obtain a medical degree and was an ardent ethical vegetarian and anti-vivisectionist. She couched her investigations of horrific injustices to nonhuman animals in her concerns for the indigent, working poor, food producers and consumers and children. Many of these early vegetarian or vegan feminists were also lesbian, living openly with other women, as was the case with Lind-af-Hageby. This suggests a close relationship between feminist, queer and nonhuman animal advocacy long before these connections were widely recognised.
These histories are important because they are largely unknown. Although a handful of authors have attempted to uncover and promote early women’s efforts – folks like Carol J. Adams, Hilda Kean, and Leah Leneman (now deceased) – they remain murky and generally unknown in dominant movement discourses. Given the pervasiveness of structural sexism, it is unlikely that this unknown history is simply forgotten. Instead, it may be actively sidelined or suppressed. By way of an example, the Animal Rights Hall of Fame has recognised primarily men’s achievements, although women have predominated in the movement for two hundred years. Vegan events and conferences still prioritise male speakers. Men are also disproportionately represented in leadership positions in professionalised nonprofits (Wrenn 2015). The historical erasure of women’s contributions to the movement can only contribute to this persistent failure to diversify.
Many vegan feminists have noted this discrimination and have organised to resist it. Although 19th century activists like Cobbe and Kingsford were resentful of their being misogynistically dismissed as ‘sentimentalists’ by speciesist institutions and the elites that protected them, 20th century vegan feminists were also raising awareness of sexism in vegan and anti-speciesist activism as well. Unlike their predecessors, this second wave of vegan feminists were also fully embracing veganism. They were also consciously working to build connections across animal rights, environmentalism, gay rights, pacifism and feminism. While their efforts for crosspollination, the archives show, were considerably strained, the persistence of vegan feminist thought in 21st century vegan discourse suggests at least one success can be found in the nonhuman animal rights arena. Vegan feminism’s call for attention to diversity, equality and inclusion in outreach and hiring practices has found some audience, if limited. Indeed, feminism’s intersectional theory of change has influenced a number of contemporary charities.
Vegan feminism as a theory of change continues to fluctuate and develop. Intersectionality, notably, has not been consistently appreciated. First-wave vegan feminists were inconsistent in their adoption of a plant-based diet, as previously mentioned, but many of those in the second wave failed to engage substantively with critical race theory and trans inclusion and remained hesitant to promote veganism beyond their own collectives. Feminists for Animal Rights, for instance, debated considerably on whether or not to adopt a rights-based approach to anti-speciesism, whether or not to mandate veganism of its membership and whether or not to include men and transgender or non-binary persons. Today’s vegan feminism, what I would consider a third wave, is finding itself rapidly expanded by the inclusion of queer theory, critical disability theory, Black feminism and feminisms of the global south. Radical theories of liberation have moved from margins to centre, and intersectionality, a contribution from 20th and 21st century Black feminism, has become a default perspective. That said, even intersectionality is finding itself under scrutiny as theorists and activists consider its practical limitations beyond Black feminism.
My hope with Vegan Feminism was to document this astounding, if complicated, history not only as a service to the women who did this work, but as a service to women and girls (and everyone else!) today who will only benefit from recognising women’s achievements. This is an unavoidably political aim. My archival and interview research into movement discourses of the late 20th century finds that men were actively involved in papering over women’s contributions. There was a fear that the nonhuman animal rights movement’s association with the feminine was working to its discredit, a worry that can only be described as misogynistic. I argue in Vegan Feminism that a movement can only benefit from its diversity. This is important for increasing resonance for the widest possible audience, drawing on the largest possible pool of potential activists and understanding the basic mechanisms of oppression – which do not stop with nonhuman animals.
As the nearly 30 vegan feminist thinkers and doers I interviewed for the book attest, vegan feminism is a work in progress that owes much of its recent gains to active crosspollination from other social justice frameworks, including gay rights, transgender activism, Black Lives Matter, environmentalism, food justice, anti-colonialism, disability activism and more. These efforts continue a fascinatingly complex tapestry of the efforts of women, non-binary folks, men and other resisters that reaches back decades. Vegan Feminism attempts to capture this history and identify historical and contemporary theoretical tenets of vegan feminist thought for present-day applications for effective vegan outreach. The lessons are many, but perhaps the most fundamental is the inappropriateness of a gender-neutral analysis of power and resistance. Gender not only informs speciesism and other forms of oppression, but also shapes efforts to resist.
References
Bello, A. 2025. “Pioneering Animal Justice.” Revista Canaria de Estudios Ingleses 90: 101-118.
Galmark, L. 2000. "Women Antivivisectionists - The Story of Lizzy Lind af Hageby and Leisa Schartau." Animal Issues 4 (2): 1-32.
Wrenn, C. 2015. "The Role of Professionalization Regarding Female Exploitation in the Nonhuman Animal Rights Movement." Journal of Gender Studies 24 (2): 131-146.
Corey Wrenn is Senior Lecturer of Sociology with the School of Social Sciences and Co-Director of the Centre for the Study of Social and Political Movements at the University of Kent. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology from Colorado State University in 2016. She was awarded Exemplary Diversity Scholar, 2016 by the University of Michigan’s National Center for Institutional Diversity. She served as council member with the American Sociological Association’s Animals & Society section (2013-2016), was elected Chair in 2018, and co-founded the International Association of Vegan Sociologists in 2020. She serves as Book Review Editor for Society & Animals, Consulting Editor for Psychology of Human-Animal Intergroup Relations, and past Editor for The Sociological Quarterly, and is a member of The Vegan Society’s Research Advisory Committee. She is the author of A Rational Approach to Animal Rights: Extensions in Abolitionist Theory (Palgrave MacMillan 2016), Piecemeal Protest: Animal Rights in the Age of Nonprofits (University of Michigan Press 2019), Animals in Irish Society (SUNY Press 2021), Vegan Witchcraft: Contemporary Magical Practice and Multispecies Social Change (Routledge 2026), and Vegan Feminism: History, Theory, Activism (Bloomsbury 2027).
