All posts tagged: justice

Celebrating 15 years of being vegan!

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I don’t have a clear vegan anniversary date, but July 2009 was when my husband and I made the ‘click’ to go vegan. This happened at the first Minding Animals Conference in Australia, an international gathering with leading activists and academics in the field of critical animal studies (I also gave two presentations btw). The atmosphere was amazing and inspiring! 🤗Veganism was considered normal, a ‘given’, which was a real eye opener, and a big contrast to the more dominant ‘vegetarian/veggie’ focus in those days (especially in Belgium). Despite having been vegetarian for more than 10 years before and being aware of animal rights issues, we realised we were still contributing to animal oppression in many ways. We wanted to change that.

Delicious food and inspirational talks at VegfestUK, London 2018

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A couple of weeks ago at the end of October, we went to VegfestUK, a vegan festival which is held annually in London at the Olympia. We had already visited VegfestUK in 2016, and were really impressed by its scale and the intersectionality conference which was held then. The festival not only houses nearly 300 stalls (food, body and care products, organisations, etc) but there are also dozens of presentations, on a wide range of topics: from health to veganic gardening, from radical veganism to bodybuilding, or environmental aspects to animal rights. Really interesting! We ate a lot, we bought some products that were new for us, and we listened to a lot of inspiring talks! And meeting up with friends and getting to know new people! Here is an overview with a selection of pics from the weekend: I also gave a presentation, in the Justice room: Ableism, bodyshaming and health shaming. On intersections and inclusiveness. (Geertrui Cazaux). I Previously posted an introduction to that talk here . It took me a while to get the …

VIDEO – Ableism in the vegan movement. Intro to my talk at VegfestUK – Geertrui Cazaux

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Why do we need to address ableism in the vegan and animal rights movement? This is an introduction to my talk at VegfestUK, in London, Oct 27 – 28: Ableism, bodyshaming and healthshaming, Geertrui Cazaux Transcript below. Transcript. Hello, I am Geertrui. Or, that’s Trudi in English. And I will be presenting a talk at the upcoming VegfestUK festival in London. And my talk will be about ableism in the movement. Now ableism is discrimination or prejudice against people with physical or mental disabilities. So against disabled people. Now, I can immediately hear some of you think: oh, ableism what does that have to do with veganism? Why should we be discussing this at a vegan festival? It should be about tackling speciesism. About fighting for animal rights. We shouldn’t be talking about ableism or other forms of discrimination like racism and sexism, but only focus on the animals, because it’s about the animals, right? yes, of course veganism is about tackling speciesism and about the animals, but how we deal with each other as …

Drop the ‘strict’

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Words are not simply neutral  expressions of how we experience or want to describe reality. They shape and give meaning to our thoughts and ideas, and even though we think we are giving an objective account of reality, our choice of words often has a very subjective interpretation. Here are a few texts about veganism (or a vegan diet). Note the use of ‘strict’.   The repeated use of the word ‘strict’, portrays veganism (even more) as something extreme and hard. Don’t make it sound more difficult than it is, and drop the use of the word ‘strict’.

Tofu never screams! Handlettering for the animals

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Nice handwritten posters or memes, with a great composition, witty slogans! One sees them everywhere, on a chalkboard outside a shop or restaurant, as online memes, on shopping bags or other merchanise. I saw a post on instagram from Silke who had received a handbook on handlettering as a present. I had no idea there are even books about it, and also facebookgroups, and then found loads of information online (well, in retrospect, of course there are books and Facebookgroups and workshops about it, like there are about just anything!). A couple of weeks ago, I ordered two books, some pens and paper, and tried some basics. I find it extremely relaxing and it clears my head. A great way to get rid of stress! So far I have made these, vegan inspired handlettered posters. I know there’s room for improvement (any constructive feedback appreciated 😉 , but I hope to be learning along the way 🙂