Abby Jade Sarfas
To celebrate Women’s History Month, we look back over female animal advocates and activists throughout history.
Women have played a significant role in animal advocacy and activism throughout history, and continue to do so today. But while today’s activists are very much in the public eye, in the past, many female activists were not given the recognition they deserved.
Animal advocacy is a cause that has a long history. However, the role of female activists in building the animal advocacy movement over the centuries has not always been properly recognised. Here, we look back over some of their incredible achievements in creating a foundation for activists today.
Pre-21st Century
1362: Eleanor of Arborea, Queen of Sardinia, became the first ruler in history to grant protection to hawk and falcon nests against illegal hunters. This is possibly the first recorded act of a female animal advocate.
1860: Mary Tealby founded the Battersea Dogs’ Home.
1880-81: Anna Kingsford became one of the first English women to graduate in medicine, and one of the only students to do so without having experimented on animals. She published The Perfect Way in Diet in 1881, a book advocating vegetarianism.
1867-83: Caroline Earle White helped to found the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in 1867, and founded the American Anti-Vivisection Society in 1883.
1875-98: Frances Power Cobbe founded the National Anti-Vivisection Society in 1875 and the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection in 1898. The latter is now known as Cruelty Free International, an organisation aiming to end animal experiments worldwide.
1903-10: Louise Lind af Hageby and The Brown Dog Affair. She infiltrated the vivisection of a brown terrier dog at University College London and described the experiment in her book, The Shambles of Science (1903), writing that the dog had been conscious and clearly in pain throughout. She organised the International Anti-Vivisection and Animal Protection Congress, an event that included a public demonstration in London showing images of vivisection.
1927-32: Jessey Wade founded the Cats Protection League, now known as Cats Protection, and the League for the Prohibition of Cruel Sports (now the League Against Cruel Sports) in 1927. She also founded the National Society for the Abolition of Cruel Sports in 1932.
1944: Dorothy Watson founded The Vegan Society along with her husband, Donald Watson. This organisation was the first to coin the term ‘vegan’, in order to differentiate the diet from ‘vegetarian’.
1948: Catherine Nimmo founded the first vegan society in the United States, along with Rubin Abramowitz.
1962: Rukmini Devi Arundale founded the Animal Welfare Board of India. This organisation is now a statutory advisory body on animal welfare laws and promotes animal welfare in India. It was the first of its kind to be established by any government in the world.
1964: Ruth Harrison published Animal Machines, a critique of factory farming.
1980: Ingrid Newkirk co-founded People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, better known today as PETA.
1990: Carol J. Adams published The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory.
1992: Maneka Gandhi founded People for Animals (PFA), India’s largest animal welfare organisation.
1960-present: Jane Goodall has conducted work in primatology and anthropology. She is best known for her study of chimpanzees, and her research challenged two long-standing beliefs that only humans could make and use tools, and that chimpanzees were strictly vegetarian. She established the Jane Goodall Institute in 1977, and is a global leader in protecting chimpanzees and their habitats. She joined a host of scientists in 2021 to call on the EU Commission to abolish cages for farm animals, an act that has now been passed.
21st Century onwards
Today, women are prevalent in animal advocacy and activism, which has grown into a global force. Below we share some stories about the incredible work that a few of these women are doing for the animals.
Rosalie Little Thunder worked to protect wild buffalo in Yellowstone National Park; it was common practice for the Montana Department of Livestock to kill them, once murdering 1,100 over a few days. She spoke up for these animals from the mid-1990s to her death in 2014. She co-founded the Buffalo Field Campaign, a grassroots organisation that continues today to fight to stop the slaughter of these animals.
In 2006 Marianne Thieme and Esther Ouwehand were elected to parliament in the Netherlands representing the Party for Animals.
Jane Velez-Mitchell is a journalist who has spent much of her career writing about issues affecting animals. She founded a social media news site, now a vegan TV network - UnChainedTV - devoted to animal rights and promoting a vegan lifestyle. In 2010 she was named ‘Media Maven of the Year’ by VegNews.
In 2015 Jo-Anne MacArthur and Keri Cronin launched The Unbound Project, a multimedia and book project that celebrates women who have been at the forefront of animal advocacy around the globe.
In 2017 Genesis Butler became the youngest ever TEDx speaker, giving an inspirational speech about veganism. Since then she has become a well-known advocate and activist for animals and has started her own foundation, Genesis For Animals.
Also in 2017, actress Evanna Lynch (famous for portraying Luna Lovegood in the Harry Potter films) started a vegan podcast called The ChickPeeps. She and her co-hosts discuss all things veganism and animal welfare, and episodes often include a guest speaker, giving a platform to animal advocates and activists around the world.
Dr Linda Alvares co-created the Vegan Advocacy Initiative and the People of Color: Animal Rights, Advocacy, and Food Justice Conference. She works to provide a space for people of colour within the animal rights movement and has also developed the Coalition of Vegan Activists of Color, a movement that encourages community building among vegans of colour.
And there are so many more women changing the world for animals! There are far too many incredible women working to save animals from suffering to name on this list, but we celebrate and thank them all. We are stronger together, and it is inspiring to reflect on how the animal activism movement has developed from lone voices to the voice of millions.
If you want to add your voice, and take action to help animals, join us today.
