In perceiving how animal exploitation, abuse and violence undermines progress towards achieving gender equality, all one must do is consider how from our species’ earliest history a mindset of a “lessor capacity” was attributed to the female sex, and deeply embedded within gender roles in the shape of the “dominant” male provider and the “subservient” childbearing woman. From this perspective, women have long been a vulnerable target for males to exploit, similarly to how animals are perceived. In particular, the female of every animal species is exploited for their young to replenish the herd or flock and they have no control over their reproductive processes, being subjected to insemination, and being deprived of their young once born. Mankind has long dominated the animal world, much as patriarchal societies have suppressed the advancement of women’s rights, and women and their children have been seen, even in law, as the chattel of men. True equality, across gender or gender identity, race, color, religion, origin, and additionally all species, would attribute the same value towards all sentient beings. Many argue that speciesism does not compare to racism or sexism, yet a more robust moral framework would consider that it is wrong to purposefully cause harm, pain, suffering, and death to any other sentient being.

We now know that in studies of perpetrators of individual or mass human violence, that violence toward animals is highly predictive of violence towards humans. In animal exploiting industries, in particular slaughterhouses and meat processing facilities, as well as the food and catering industry to some degree, there has been found to have elevated levels of sexual harassment, and the surrounding areas suffer from elevated levels of violence, in particular domestic violence, perpetrated towards women and children.