Dress to Impress: Wearing Your Veganism
“The opposite of love is not hate but indifference.”
–Dr. Will Tuttle,
The World Peace Diet: Eating for Spiritual Health and Social Harmony
An Expression of Self
The clothes we wear say a lot about us, especially to all the random people we come across in life. And wearing vegan statement clothing is a great way to get people to consider veganism. Now, the primary argument against doing this is that there’s no real effect on other people that may see your shirt. I’d counter, however, that it is incredibly impactful. Everyone will read your shirt (or hat, pin, etc.), and, at the very worst, they will not care. The absolute worst thing that can happen is that they’ll still be indifferent and continue to consume animal products like they would anyway. Which means there’s no real argument against doing this, since every other option includes the potential to sneak in some thoughts about veganism.
As Wayne Hsiung – the founder of Direct Action Everywhere – said in his speech, “The Science of Social Change,” our job as vegans is not to make everyone convert instantly. Our current task is to make the public conscious of the plight of animals used and exploited for humans. Once they start to become aware, they will begin to seriously consider arguments against animal agriculture and for veganism. And if they’re already on this journey towards veganism, seeing you wearing a vegan shirt may propel them to take another step forward.
People Are Aware
It’s scary to wear clothes like this. I still worry about people reading my vegan statement tee, getting offended, and confronting me about it. But that’s never happened. In fact, the few times anyone’s said anything about what I wore, it was a compliment. Of course, those times I wasn’t wearing anything that said “meat is murder” or something like that. But that just proves to me even more that I’m having an impact and people really are paying attention, because they’re too scared to say anything to me about it. And that’s not because I am a naturally intimidating person, ‘cause that’s certainly not the case. They’re just uncomfortable with conversations like that, and they’d rather not bring it up. We have to be aware that everyone else is also self-conscious, especially when you’re publicly saying something that goes against their way of life. You put that out there, and then it’s up to them to reconcile and rationalize within themselves why they feel put off by your statement.
Fitting In
I’ve heard other vegans say that they feel uncomfortable wearing shirts like this because other people just don’t do that with causes about which they care. So what? Who cares whether or not other people do it? And if they don’t, that’s good. That makes you even more unique, putting carnists off-guard when they see a shirt promoting either veganism or anti-carnism. In my opinion, it normalizes veganism. I may never talk to anyone that reads my shirt, but they will probably remember seeing it. And if someone they know decides to go vegan or talks to them about veganism, I’ll be another vegan they “know” or know of. And if they start to see every vegan wearing shirts about it, they’ll start to wonder more about veganism, wonder if they should go vegan, and doubt their strong faith in carnism. I think it’s especially important in places where there aren’t a lot of vegans since that population has probably never even thought of veganism.
As I said above, I still sometimes feel uncomfortable wearing a vegan statement when I go out, especially if I'm going to be someplace that is in the animal exploitation industry (like the grocery store). However, more and more often as I've become acclimated to doing this, it makes me feel empowered. Like I'm really changing the world, and what are you gonna do about it? When I slip on that bold-faced "VEGAN" shirt, I feel like strong, like I could take on even the most headstrong of carnists.
Be "That Vegan"
Some vegans also will say that they don’t want to be “that vegan” who always wears vegan statements shirts. It makes them seem like a one-dimensional person that doesn’t care about anything else. I understand that perspective, and I’m in no way saying you should discard your old wardrobe and only wear animal rights clothing. In fact, I think that would be incredibly unhealthy and wasteful. But why are you so afraid to be labeled as “that vegan”? Like I said in my “How to Become an Introverted Vegan Activist, Pt. 2” post, don’t be afraid to be that person. Embrace it!
**If you want to start wearing vegan activism clothes and accessories, I’ll link to some of my favorite online shops. Don’t be alarmed, but you may notice I had a slight addiction to Etsy for a while. I think I’m past it now….
Also, this is important because everything and everyone around us is constantly bombarding us with nonvegan propaganda, usually without us even realizing it. I have two real-world examples of very different situations of clothing perpetuating carnism. First, in my final semester of college, I noticed one day in class that a guy was wearing an…interesting graphic tee. Pictured on it was the grim reaper holding a scythe. But the blade was made of a slice of pepperoni pizza, and there was a fun little line that said, “I’d kill for a slice.” While most people might think, Ah, what a clever little shirt, I was disgusted. Like, dude, you do kill for a slice. You kill a lot for a slice. Maybe I get triggered too easily, but it proved to me that people are walking through the world completely blind, without even an inkling of a clue of the devastation they cause. I only wish I had been wearing one of my anti-dairy shirts at the time. That could’ve made for some interesting discussion.
PETA
Then we have the other end of the spectrum. During my senior year of high school, when I was neither vegan nor vegetarian, but still the biggest animal lover around, I had to sit behind a football player in my physics class. In all honesty, I never much liked this guy, but this really cemented in my mind why my dislike for him was valid. On the back of his t-shirt one day, there was a PETA acronym: People Eating Tasty Animals. If I was a bold or brave person, I would’ve said something about it, but I remained silent, staring daggers into his back and hoping that would somehow hurt him.
The place in which I lived – Tennessee – had this sort of attitude toward animals, as it's in the South and people quite enjoy hunting and meat and “manly” things like that. That was definitely the part of the culture I hated most. These people know they’re hurting and eating animals, and they enjoy it. Most of them, obviously, are still ignorant to the real truth of it, but they’re much more comfortable and set in their ways about exploiting animals. So, if they’re going to wear shirts like that, I’m going to actively fight that with shirts of kindness.
Someone Else's Skin
But let’s move on from graphic t-shirts for now. There are many other nonvegan clothing items that aren’t vegan in a different way. Unfortunately, people today are still wearing leather and skins, fur, wool, silk, down, and all sorts of strange animal body parts, usually in the name of fashion. It’s also important to speak out against those too, so in the wintertime, I always keep an anti-fur pin on my scarf. We are constantly bombarded with nonvegan fashion, so I think it’s perfectly acceptable to show that you can still wear all the same things in vegan form.
However, my only problem with wearing faux fur and leather is that most people might not be able to tell the difference (which is why I like to wear my anti-fur pin, since I’m usually wearing a coat with faux fur trim or will be around people with animal-fur trim). I’d be curious about what other vegans thought about this topic. In order to stop these crimes against nature, we must do at least a little something to show support against them. And it’s just wearing a t-shirt or a pin or a hat or some pants. You’re simply making public the beliefs you already hold in your heart. You are telling the world that it’s wrong to hurt animals in any capacity, and you are encouraging others to wake up.
All in all, you never really know what will connect with someone, what will get them to make the switch. But it can’t hurt to put it out there in whatever way you can.
be conscious, be kind, be vegan