the animal rights challenge minding animals 2008

www.kimstallwood.com / www.grumpyvegan.com 1

The Animal Rights Challenge

Kim StallwoodMinding Animals, London 2008


The Animal Rights Mission

• Intervene in abusive situations• Bring public attention to egregious

examples of animal cruelty• Attract the media’s attention• Create a more humane world • Challenge institutional exploitation• Go vegan!• Think! Care! Act!


The Moral Shock

• Open our eyes to animal cruelty• See what was previously hidden • Discover animal exploitation everywhere• Seek out and witness animal suffering• Prevent its occurrence• Want others to see what we now see• Want them to experience their personal

transformative moment


How We Become Animal Advocates

Assume society will change in the same way that we changed – a personal transformative moment caused by a moral shock – when animal cruelty and exploitation become visible


How We Become Animal Advocates

This powerful experience informs the rationale of the majority of the animal rights movement’s existing programs, which are largely public educational


Important Point #1

To understand how social movements advance their mission from obscurity to acceptance


Important Point #2

To implement a strategy balancing a vegan utopia with the pragmatic politics of the possible



Make Animal Rights a Mainstream Political Issue


Where’s Public Opinion?

• 2% “completely vegetarian”

• 5% “partly vegetarian”

Consumer Attitudes to Food Standards survey 2008


Lord Houghton of Sowerby

Animal welfare is largely a matter for the law. This means that to Parliament we must go. That is where laws are made and where the penalties for disobedience and the measures for enforcement are laid down.


Lord Houghton of Sowerby

There is no complete substitute for the law. Public opinion, though invaluable and indeed essential, is not the law. Public opinion is what makes laws possible and observance widely acceptable.


UK and US Movements

• Mostly female practitioners whereas many of the organizations’ leaders are male

• Commitment to humane education and public education programs that link children’s and people’s welfare and the environment

• Focus on egregious examples of animal cruelty that seek to portray all animal suffering

• Promotion of cruelty-free lifestyles• Struggle to reconcile the tension between utopian

idealism and pragmatic politics


30 Years of Putting Animals into Politics


Social Movements

“A collective, organized, sustained, and noninstitutional challenge to authorities, powerholders, or cultural beliefs and practices.”


The Five Stages of Social Movements

1. Public Education2. Public Policy Development3. Legislation4. Litigation5. Public Acceptance


The Five Stages of Social Movements

Minimum Influence

Maximum Influence

Stage Five: Public Acceptance

Stage Four: Litigation

Stage Three: Legislation

Stage Two: Public Policy Development

Stage One: Public Education

As a social justice issue progresses through each stage, its influence and resistance to setbacks increase proportionately. (www.kimstallwood.com)

The Caring

Sleuth—

Personal

Transformative

Moment

Public Policy Maker—Animal Rights a Mainstream Political Issue


The Five Stages of the Abolition of Bloodsports

Minimum Influence

Demos, Sabbing, Letter writing

Local hunt bans by county councils

Hunting Act 2004

House of Lords, EC of HR

Maximum Influence

Stage Five: Public Acceptance

Stage Four: Litigation

Stage Three: Legislation

Stage Two: Public Policy Development

Stage One: Public Education

As a social justice issue progresses through each stage, its influence and resistance to setbacks increase proportionately. (www.kimstallwood.com)


Labour Government’s Accomplishments Since 1997

• Toxicity testing banned• Alcohol and tobacco products

testing banned• Sow gestation crates banned• Fur farming banned• Bloodsports banned


Comparison of Three Social Movements with the Five-Stage Analysis

Civil Partnerships

Smoking in Public Places

Animal Rights

5: Public Acceptance

4: Litigation3: Legislation

2: Public Policy Development

1: Public Education


ASH and StonewallASH • Advocacy & Policy

Development • Information & Research • Networking & Enabling

Networking • Governance • Resources & Sustainability • Image & CommunicationWorks with:• British Heart Foundation• Cancer Research UK

Stonewall• Policy Development• Cultural and Attitudinal

Change• Lobbying for Legal Change• Providing Information• Good Practice Design and

AdviceWorks with:• Leeds City Council• Metropolitan Police

Authority• Sainsbury’s


Responding to the Challenge

• Evaluate, develop and reassess long-term strategies with the Five-Stage Analysis

• Position animal rights as a Public Education and as a Public Policy issue

• Build alliances with non-animal rights organizations, civic groups, professional associations, businesses, NGOs, etc.

• Invest in international coalitions with like-minded groups

• Position animal rights within a larger social and political context



• Establish a permanent movement-wide initiative targeting local, general and European elections

• Stay focused on political parties, elected representatives and government employees to ensure accountability

• Join political parties, get active and stand for election

• Target elected representatives who consistently oppose animal interests



• We need a think tank committed to creating the political ideas and hosting the policy debates to make the moral and legal status of animals a priority in British politics


Conclusion

1. Understand how social movements advance their mission from obscurity to acceptance

2. Implement a strategy balancing a vegan utopia with the pragmatic politics of the possible

the animal rights challenge minding animals 2008

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