In the UK, the Vegan Society found that twice as many women as men are vegan. It’s not just the UK though, an incredible 79% of vegans in the US identify as female.
REPUBLIK CITY NEWS: There has been an extraordinary upsurge in the number of people deciding to go vegan over the past 10 years. What with concerns about the impact of animal agriculture on the environment, combined with claims that the diet can be beneficial to our health, the number of vegans has doubled across Europe and the US. One factor, however, seems to significantly increase our chances of abandoning animal products altogether. That factor is being a woman.
In the UK, the Vegan Society found that twice as many women as men are vegan. It’s not just the UK though, with statistics showing an incredible 79 per cent of vegans in the US identify as female. Perhaps this isn’t a surprise as animal rights and feminism have long gone hand in hand, with activists seeing the refusal to eat meat as a form of rebellion against the patriarchal status quo. Whether or not you subscribe to this way of thinking, the figures certainly seem to suggest something must be going on. So why do fewer men adopt a plant-based diet?
There are a couple of possible reasons. Meat and gender have likely been linked since the beginning of our time on this planet. Hunting was important to early humans with food gathering tasks split into gendered roles. Men went out to kill large game animals while women typically ate smaller portions of meat and collected plant foods. For chimpanzees, the more successful a male is at hunting, the better his social status. This was probably also true for our hunter-gather ancestors where studies have controversially suggested meat may have meant a bigger brain.
Men in most western societies today aren’t likely to be out tackling game to feed their families, but are still more likely to associate meat with ideas of health and strength. If millennia of social conditioning causes us to associate meat and masculinity, it’s inevitable, perhaps, that men who go vegan don’t always get a positive reaction from those around them. If millennia of social conditioning causes us to associate meat and masculinity, it’s inevitable, perhaps, that men who go vegan don’t always get a positive reaction from those around them…
Insults like “soy boy”, defined by urban dictionary as a phrase to describe “males who completely and utterly lack all necessary masculine qualities”, are clear indications of this attitude in popular culture… These negative responses could be a part of why more women identify as vegan in surveys on the subject. Even if men are interested in eating less meat, without acceptance it can still be a difficult choice…
Gym-goers and health enthusiasts are particularly receptive to these newer vegan insights… Documentaries like Game Changers are beginning to change the tune as well. “I do think that the different routes into veganism matter however and can provoke very different responses,” says Lecturer in Human Geography at Newcastle University, Dr Michael J Richardson, currently researching the link between meat and masculinities. SOURCE…
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