The Love List… August 3, 2008

In the February issue of Oprah Magazine, there’s this article titled “The Love List” which tells the story of a woman, who after one failed relationship too many, decides to write a list of qualities she desired in a soul mate (100 of them in all).  She kept the list hidden in a safe place and thought nothing more of it until her future husband came along 5 years later.  Ironically, he met all but 2 of her requirements on the list.

After reading the article, I wrote a love list of my own. It’s not quite at 100 yet, but there is one requirement that is high on the list- that my “one” must be a herbivore.  Recently, I was told by a beloved confidant that by making this requirement, I was closing off my options.

Despite the fact that I disagree with this statement, it had me thinking it over.  Finding a veg*n mate wasn’t always an issue for me, especially when I just started becoming veg. But as time went by, I realised how important it was for me to be with someone who understands and shares my desire to lead a cruelty-free life to the best of one’s ability. Now if I chose to be with someone whose values and lifestyle didn’t correlate with mine, not only I’d be settling, but I believe I’d be limiting myself in much greater ways.

How important a part does veg*nism play in finding the right mate for you? Obviously I am thinking out loud on this subject, but it’d be interesting to get various opinions on the matter…

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Blogging against Racism with an Anti-Speciesist Twist

Tomorrow starts the third International Blog Against Racism Week. This year’s optional theme is intersectionality, which is right up our alley here at VoC…

Should anyone here want to write & submit a post, there should be more information on how to submit your link to the official collection of IBARW posts up soon at the IBARW Livejournal community (though I assume it’ll be similar to last year, where you could submit items to daily link-collecting posts on the LJ community, or add your link directly to IBARW’s del.icio.us).

(& of course non-VoC bloggers should consider writing IBARW posts too!)

Veganism’s Feeling a Little Small

**This post is about me wanting a new more encompassing name for my diet**

All my posts, and the wonderful comments that follow, get me thinking harder about my veganism than I ever truly had before. But now I’m wondering about leaving my veganism behind, and I don’t mean going back to being an omnivore.

I really like words, and names, and labels, and identities. Not that I enjoy creating a heirarchy of terms, I just like having a name for what I do. I remember being overjoyed when I found out what I was doing back in 8th grade was called veganism. And though I haven’t constantly been doing veganism for the 7 years since then (I have slipped into omnivorism, freeganism, meaganism, and lacto-ovo vegetarianism at various times) vegan has been a huge part of my identity.

But now veganism feels a little too small; like an old sweater that shrank in the wash. See my problem is that veganism is too small for me. My veganism needs to be anti-racist, decolonial, feminist(womanist), anti-capitalist,horizontal, queer, and green, along with anti-speciesist. And it seems some might think that I’m stretching veganism too much, making it too big, too hard. But my mind and my stomach recognize the the interconnetedness.

And thats why I really wish I could think of a new label (see I prefer womanism to feminism, and horizontalism to anarchism). I’ll keep using vegan for now, at least till someone comes up with a better name for a more encompassing diet. a diet I imagine being more dynamic, constantly changing, and always asking questions.