Exploring the Intersectionality of Oppression in Light of the Call to Compassion

A diet of meat, dairy, and eggs contributes to world hunger, harms and marginalizes the poor, and fosters racism, sexism, ableism, heterosexism, trans aggression, and ageism. Our dietary choices decide whether grains feed people or animals, and when we choose animal products, we waste calories and nutrients. Slaughterhouse work is undesirable so it is almost always marginalized people who take these jobs, including undocumented immigrants who have no legal protections. Animal agriculture also reflects and perpetuates a conception of living beings as expendable units of production and reproduction, valued according to their productive/reproductive capacities. Those who are oppressed, whether due to race, sex, sexuality, age, class, or species, suffer under the same overarching mindset of hierarchy, othering, denigration, oppression, and exploitation that is reflected and expressed in any form of denigration, exploitation, marginalization, or oppression.