Contesting Anthropocentric Masculinities Through Veganism: Lived Experiences of Vegan Men 303119506X, 9783031195068

Table of contents :
Acknowledgements
Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction: Men, Masculinities, and the Consumption of Nonhuman Animals in the Anthropocene
Eating Nonhuman Animals as a Driver of Global Ethical, Social, and Ecological Crises
The Potential of Plant-Based Diets
Beyond Plant-Based Diets: Intersectional Veganism as a Pathway Towards Ecological Justice
Men, Masculinities, and Intersectionality
Men’s Veganism and Post-Anthropocentric Masculinities
Research Design: Materials, Context, and Methods
Outline of the Book
References
Chapter 2: Going Vegan: Understanding Men’s Vegan Transition Narratives
Introduction
Key Features of Men’s Vegan Transition
“A triangle of reasons”: From One to Several Motivations Behind Veganism
“Snowball effect”: Becoming Immersed in Information on Nonhuman Animal Exploitation and Veganism
Beyond Facts and Reasoning: Practical, Material, and Other Factors and Circumstances
Construction of the Self as Unique: Performing Masculinity Differently
Meaningful Past Experiences of Connecting to a Nonhuman Animal or Eating Meat
Relational Veganism: The Influence of Others
Prior Values and Practices Facilitating the Vegan Transition
Distinct Paths to Veganism
Nonhuman Animals and Social Justice
From a Plant-Based Diet for Health Reasons Towards Veganism
Environmental Motivations
The Significance of Becoming Vegan in the Men’s Lives: Changing Values and Selves
Conclusions
References
Chapter 3: Vegan Men Making Sense of Veganism: Multiple Meanings
Introduction
Vegan Men Approaching Veganism: Multiple Definitions
Animal Ethics: Challenging Nonhuman Animal Exploitation and Anthropocentrism
Beyond Food and Animal Justice: A Nonviolent and Compassionate Life
An Intervention to Tackle Environmental Damage
Not a Lifestyle but a Political Practice
A Social Justice Struggle Amongst Others
Individual Boycott
A Means to Advance Personal Health and Well-being
Conclusions
References
Chapter 4: Beyond the Discursive: Emotions, Affects, and Embodiment in Men’s Veganism
Introduction
Men, Masculinities, Emotions, Embodiment, and Affect: Conceptual Insights
Emotions in Post-Anthropocentric and Ecological Masculinities
Men’s Embodied Veganism: Entanglement of Emotions, Affect, and Rationality
Nonhuman Animals
From Anger to Compassion
Health
Environmental Concerns
Conclusions
References
Chapter 5: Doing Veganism and Masculinity in Everyday Interactions: Men’s Strategies and Dilemmas in Communicating Veganism
Introduction
“The Social Side of It Is the Most Difficult”: Navigating the Social Terrain as a Vegan
Contextual Communication: Presentation of Veganism and the Vegan Self
“It’s Only Them Who Raise the Issue”: Avoiding Talking About Veganism
“I Don’t Wanna Be One of Those Preachy Vegans”
“It Helps Me to Remind Myself that I Also Have Been Eating a Lot of Meat”: Practising Compassion and Non-confrontational Approaches
“Planting Seeds”: Enabling Non-vegans to Reach Their Own Conclusions
Non-discursive Communication: Role Modelling and Signalling Veganism
Explaining Veganism: Animal Ethics, Environmental, or Health Arguments?
Terminological Dilemmas: To Mention “Veganism” or Not?
Conclusions
References
Chapter 6: Navigating Close Relationships: Vegan Men Relating to Friends, Family, and Intimate Partners
Introduction
Veganism and Community: Friends and Acquaintances
“I Live in My Little Bubble”
“I Don’t Really Have Any Vegan Friends”
Doing Masculinity and Veganism: Interactions with Non-vegan Male Friends
Relationships with Birth Family and Relatives
“My Mom Has Always Been Very Supportive”: Positive Experiences with Family Members
“It’s Like Banging Your Head Against the Wall Trying to Convince Your Close Ones”: Negative Experiences with Family Members Around Veganism
“My Dad Refused to Eat Vegan Food:” Relationships with Non-vegan Male Relatives
Communicating Veganism to Family Members and Managing Difficult Situations
Intimate and Romantic Relationships
Female Partner’s Influence in Men’s Vegan Transition
Vegansexuality: Negotiating Intimate Relationships
Conclusions
References
Chapter 7: Veganism and Social Justice: Vegan Men’s Gender and Intersectional Politics and Practices
Introduction
Ideals and Practices of Masculinity
(Re)framing Veganism as Compatible with Hegemonic Masculinity
Contesting Hegemonic Masculinity Through Veganism: Performing Alternative Masculinities
Cultural Ideals of Masculinity as Barriers to Men’s Veganism
Veganism as a Separate Issue or Part of Interlinked Oppressions?
Vegan Men’s Material Practices in Support of More Egalitarian Gender Relations
Greater Involvement in Household Cooking
Vegan Fatherhood: Concerns over Children’s Nutrition
Conclusions
References
Chapter 8: Conclusions: Towards Post-anthropocentric Masculinities Through Men’s Veganism
Men’s Veganism, Vegan Masculinities, and Gender Equality
Vegan Masculinity and Changing Ideals of Masculinity in the Anthropocene
Vegan Masculinity as an Ecological and Post-anthropocentric Masculinity
Limitations of This Book and Possible Future Research Agendas
References
Appendix: Overview of the Research Participants
Index

Citation preview

Contesting Anthropocentric Masculinities Through Veganism Lived Experiences of Vegan Men Kadri Aavik

Contesting Anthropocentric Masculinities Through Veganism “Challenging the carnivorous stereotype inherent in conceptions of Western masculinity, Kadri Aavik’s work deconstructs the real and often complex reasons why men become vegan and how their veganism constitutes an intersectional and anti-­ speciesist resistance to gender norms that are confining and obsolete. Aavik’s study examines how men challenge narratives that marginalize and feminize male vegans, and, more significantly, examines how vegan men reconstitute their veganism as intersectional validation of the lives of both human women and non-human animals.” —Laura Wright, Professor and Director of Graduate Studies, Western Carolina University, USA “While there are quite a few self-help and advocacy books on men and veganism, Contesting Anthropocentric Masculinities Through Veganism is, to my knowledge, the first full-length social science analysis that is devoted to making sense of the diverse lived experiences of vegan men. Bringing together a wide range of theoretical tools – including ecofeminism, new materialism and posthumanism – and detailed interview material, the book examines these questions clearly, expertly and critically, yet also positively, in moving towards the possibilities for post-anthropocentric masculinities and food practices. The book is necessary reading for all concerned with gender, food, and the politics of the planet, as well as students of contemporary social change.” —Jeff Hearn, Professor, Hanken School of Economics, Finland, and author of Men of the World “In documenting the narratives of men becoming and living as vegan, this book encourages men to consider the impact of dominant forms of masculinity on ethical and sustainable food consumption. Drawing upon ecofeminist and critical masculinities’ perspectives, this important book makes a unique contribution to the necessary transformation of anthropocentrism and carnism towards an ethic of care for non-human others and the Earth.” —Bob Pease, Honorary Professor, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Deakin University, Australia and author of Facing Patriarchy

Kadri Aavik

Contesting Anthropocentric Masculinities Through Veganism Lived Experiences of Vegan Men

Kadri Aavik School of Governance, Law and Society Tallinn University Tallinn, Estonia

Kone Foundation Conducting research for and writing this book was supported by the Kone Foundation, as part of the project “Climate Sustainability in the Kitchen: Everyday Food Cultures in Transition”, carried out at the University of Helsinki, 2018-2022. ISBN 978-3-031-19506-8    ISBN 978-3-031-19507-5 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-19507-5 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: oxygen/Moment/Getty This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

For Silven

Acknowledgements

I would not have been able to write this book without the personal and academic support, inspiration, and encouragement from several people. When I became vegan in 2005, I could never have imagined that researching and writing about veganism would one day become a legitimate and prolific line of academic inquiry, let alone one that I would be able to undertake. Conducting research in critical animal and vegan studies has been a lonely experience in Estonia, where I am based, due to the marginalisation of these fields in academic settings. I am very appreciative of the various fruitful and supportive collaborations with colleagues in different parts of the world which inspired me to write this book. This book is an outcome of my work as a postdoctoral researcher in the project “Climate Sustainability in the Kitchen: Everyday Food Cultures in Transition”, carried out at the University of Helsinki from 2018 to 2022. I am immensely grateful to Kuura Irni, who included me in this project. I would like to thank the Kone Foundation for funding the project and my participation in it. Being involved in the “Climate Sustainability in the Kitchen” project has been an enormously enriching experience, both academically and personally. It was a pleasure and a privilege to work in our small, but a very supportive and inspiring research team. In particular, I am grateful for the opportunity to collaborate with and learn from Kuura Irni and Milla-Maria Joki who continue to impress me with their academic rigour, creativity, and choice of fascinating research topics. I want to thank our research assistant Riitta Komulainen for her work of proofreading my interview transcripts. vii

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am forever grateful to my research participants—the 61 vegan men from Estonia and Finland who agreed to be interviewed for this study and whose rich and detailed narratives about their experiences of becoming and living as vegans enabled me to gain valuable insight into links between men’s veganism and masculinities. Talking to you was a privilege and a joy. In the process, I learned a lot about veganism and gender, including my own. I am immensely grateful to Jeff Hearn, Kuura Irni, and Luke Stange for reading parts of the book manuscript and giving valuable feedback. I am also very thankful to the reviewer for their kind and constructive comments which helped me to develop my arguments. I also thank the reviewers who provided helpful feedback to my initial book proposal. I am indebted to the Estonian animal rights and vegan activist communities, in particular, the key activists in Loomus and Estonian Vegan Society, organisations that I have been affiliated with for years. Being part of this community of brilliant and dedicated activists has been a source of immense inspiration and support to me over the years. It has sustained my academic work and has nourished me as an activist and as a person. Writing this book has been incredibly challenging while taking care of a toddler and working at the university—both full-time commitments and beyond. I am deeply indebted to and dedicate this book to my family whose love, care, and support (in various forms) over the years has made it possible for me to write this book—especially my sister, Tiina; my mom, Ingrid; my dad, Urmas; my partner, Luke; and my son, Silven. Finally, a special thanks to my cousin Karin, the first one to become vegan in our family and a great inspiration to me on my path to veganism.

Contents

1 Introduction:  Men, Masculinities, and the Consumption of Nonhuman Animals in the Anthropocene  1 2 Going  Vegan: Understanding Men’s Vegan Transition Narratives 33 3 Vegan Men Making Sense of Veganism: Multiple Meanings 69 4 Beyond  the Discursive: Emotions, Affects, and Embodiment in Men’s Veganism 87 5 Doing  Veganism and Masculinity in Everyday Interactions: Men’s Strategies and Dilemmas in Communicating Veganism117 6 Navigating  Close Relationships: Vegan Men Relating to Friends, Family, and Intimate Partners147 7 Veganism  and Social Justice: Vegan Men’s Gender and Intersectional Politics and Practices183

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8 Conclusions:  Towards Post-anthropocentric Masculinities Through Men’s Veganism207 Appendix: Overview of the Research Participants241 Index247

CHAPTER 1

Introduction: Men, Masculinities, and the Consumption of Nonhuman Animals in the Anthropocene

In the past few decades in particular, veganism has increasingly entered into the popular imagination in many Western societies and become the subject of academic discussions. This growing cultural significance has expanded and diversified debates around veganism. This book is an exploration into one of the thus far less studied aspects of veganism: its links to men and masculinities. In Western societies, such as in the U.S. and UK, men make up a clear numerical minority among vegans (Oliver, 2021). In Western cultural narratives, veganism and masculinity are still largely considered incompatible. Yet, an increasing number of men are taking up veganism and aligning it with their ways of doing masculinity. This book engages with questions of what it means to practise veganism as a man, how veganism relates to masculinities, and the potential of men’s veganism to disrupt anthropocentric and inegalitarian masculinities. While not offering definitive answers, I aim to open up a conversation about how to approach veganism, men, and masculinities empirically and theoretically. Based on 61 in-depth interviews with vegan men in Northern Europe, the central argument of this book is that vegan men offer an alternative to anthropocentric ideals of masculinity and that some of their key values and everyday practices support more egalitarian gender relations. An important means through which to introduce veganism and its radical promise to reshape human-animal relations is to create and expand vegan imaginaries (White, 2022, p.  21) about vegan practices and

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 K. Aavik, Contesting Anthropocentric Masculinities Through Veganism, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-19507-5_1

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potentialities of veganism, to contest those put forward by the animalindustrial complex in deeply speciesist societies. This book is an attempt to offer such imaginaries about vegan men and masculinities, introducing new ways to understand men’s veganism and its promise to contest unsustainable masculinities. Patterns of food consumption and human-animal relations are gendered. Cultural ideals of masculinity shape men’s food practices and the ways men relate to nonhuman animals in significant ways.1 In turn, these relationships mould men’s constructions of masculinity, indicating socially acceptable and desirable modes of doing masculinity. Examining links between men, masculinities, and veganism addresses several urgent and interconnected global issues such as exploitative human-animal relations, climate change, gender and other social inequalities, as well as unsustainable cultural ideals of hegemonic masculinity. This book explores on the one hand the possibilities of men’s veganism to foster more ethical and sustainable ways of relating to other animals and on the other hand positive change to cultural ideals of masculinity that veganism, as practised by men, may bring and ways in which these are interconnected. In tackling these issues, this book deals with the potential of humanity’s transition to more sustainable and ethical ways of eating and relating to other animals, as a major process of social change. I hope to add to existing knowledge on the meanings and performances of veganism by men, with a particular focus on how masculinity figures in men’s experiences of becoming and living as vegan and the implications of men’s veganism for hegemonic masculinity and for the spread of veganism. I also consider how men’s veganism relates to gender equality and other social justice issues. This book engages with and seeks to contribute to understanding men’s veganism from interdisciplinary perspectives. I primarily draw on theoretical and empirical work in the fields of critical animal studies (CAS)

1  While more cumbersome, I use “nonhuman animals” and “other animals” interchangeably throughout this book, to refer to “animals”, to account for the fact that humans are also animals. The homogenising word “animal” does not do justice to the myriad of vastly different species with unique characteristics and their diverse ways of inhabiting the world. This terminological decision follows the political commitments of critical animal studies (CAS) for animal liberation, including through language and discourse. I have not however changed the word “animal” in terms like “critical animal studies”, “animal-industrial complex”, and other more established terms.

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(Taylor & Twine, 2014; Nocella et  al., 2014), vegan studies2 (Wright, 2015, 2021; Giraud, 2021), vegan sociology (Cherry, 2021), gender and feminist studies, including ecofeminism (Adams, 1990; Adams & Gruen, 2014; Donovan, 1990, 2006; Gaard, 2002; Polish, 2016; Harper, 2010), and critical studies on men and masculinities (CSMM) (Hearn, 2013; Hearn & Howson, 2019), including feminist new materialist and posthumanist approaches to men and masculinities (Mellström & Pease, 2023; Garlick, 2019). The areas of scholarship at the intersection of which the book is most strongly situated are CAS, vegan studies, and CSMM. Research in CSMM takes a critical perspective on social constructions of men and masculinities within gendered power relations and problematises men’s hegemony (Hearn, 2004, p. 50). While CAS has important convergences with posthumanist and new materialist approaches aiming to decentre the human, the former focuses specifically on human-animal relations and explicitly denounces human exploitation and killing of other animals. It is an engaged scholar-activism that cares about the material fate of nonhuman animals, beyond theorising about them (see Taylor & Twine, 2014; Nocella et al., 2014). Vegan studies and vegan sociology are closely aligned with CAS, but focused on studying veganism and vegans, as I do in this book. Scholarship in these fields seeks to contribute to social change. This book shares the political and epistemological commitments of these areas of research.

Eating Nonhuman Animals as a Driver of Global Ethical, Social, and Ecological Crises The most typical relationship we have with other animals is through consuming them, largely as food. Eating nonhuman animals has become a pressing challenge on multiple fronts: it is an increasingly dire ecological,

2  While considerable overlap exists between CAS and vegan studies, the latter has been conceptualised as a separate field of study with some distinct features, focusing mainly on studying veganism as an identity and practice and cultural meaning assigned to veganism (Wright, 2015, p.  2). For an overview of both areas of study and their relationships, see Giraud, 2021, pp. 21–23.

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ethical, social, and public health problem in the Anthropocene3 where humans are causing large-scale and irreparable damage to the planet’s ecosystems (Steffen et al., 2015; IPCC, 2021; Ripple et al., 2020). Farmed animals now make up around 60% of all mammals on Earth (Bar-On et al., 2018). Roughly 75 billion land animals are killed for food annually (Chemnitz & Becheva, 2021). Already for many decades, animal advocacy activists, CAS, and other scholars have exposed and called for an end to the routine violence and exploitation of nonhuman animals in the animal-industrial complex4 (for the term, see Noske, 1989; Twine, 2012; see also Taylor & Twine, 2014). Aside from a serious ethical crisis in human-animal relations where humans cause immense suffering to billions of other animals, eating nonhuman animals is increasingly talked about in the context of climate, the environment, and human health—concerns that in our speciesist societies seem more compelling than nonhuman animal well-being. Farming nonhuman animals for human consumption is one of the key drivers of climate change (Steinfeld et al., 2006; GRAIN and The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, 2018), having doubled over the past twenty years (Chemnitz & Becheva, 2021). Paradoxically, this occurs at a time when countries are failing to meet climate targets set in the Paris climate agreement (United Nations, 2021). Animal agriculture is responsible for between 14.5% (Steinfeld et  al., 2006, p. xxi) and 51% (Goodland & Anhang, 2009) of all anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and uses 77% of all agricultural land (Ritchie & Roser, 2019). The scale of animal farming is predicted to double globally by 2050 (Koneswaran & Nierenberg, 2008). Thus, human use of other animals is a serious threat to the livelihoods of all living beings. Raising nonhuman animals for human food is also an increasing public health concern, as 3  The Anthropocene refers to vast human-induced changes to the Earth’s biosphere (Crutzen & Stoermer, 2000). Not all humans are, however, equally responsible for causing climate change; it has been brought on first and foremost by nations and people in the Global North, largely driven by masculinised values and practices of privileged men (Hultman & Pulé, 2018, p. 8; Twine, 2021). Some authors have therefore placed “Anthropo” in quotation marks (Twine, 2021). Also, the term Capitalocene has been used, to denote the centrality of capitalism in domination over nature (see, e.g., Moore, 2016). 4  The animal-industrial complex is “a partly opaque and multiple set of networks and relationships between the corporate (agricultural) sector, governments, and public and private science. With economic, cultural, social and affective dimensions it encompasses an extensive range of practices, technologies, images, identities and markets” (Twine, 2012, p. 23).

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antibiotic-resistant bacteria (Landers et  al., 2012; World Health Organisation, 2017) and the spread of zoonotic diseases (Brown, 2004; Chemnitz & Becheva, 2021)—associated largely with large-scale animal farming and other forms of human violence towards nonhuman animals— are becoming increasingly serious concerns for humanity, as attested by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. At the same time, animal-based diets have been linked to several common preventable lifestyle diseases (Bouvard et al., 2015; Micha et al., 2017). Beyond these environmental and health consequences, the disproportionately adverse effects of animal farming for vulnerable individuals, groups, and communities (Eisnitz, 2006; Sebastian, 2018; Jenkins, 2018; Mirabelli et  al., 2006), particularly in the Global South (Parks & Roberts, 2006; Roy, 2018)—those who are the least responsible for causing climate change—remains less known and talked about. These insights indicate that consuming other animals is not only a question of animal ethics, climate, or environment, but a broader intersectional issue of ecological justice that includes social justice. Despite the by now ample scientific evidence on the extensive harmful impacts of industrial animal farming on multiple fronts, the transition towards plant-based diets and veganism is slow and the consumption of other animals remains a social and cultural norm. Meat reduction has become more popular in the Global North, yet vegans make up only a small percentage of the population.5 Globally, meat consumption is projected to increase by 14% by 2030 (OECD/FAO, 2021, p. 164). Links between consuming nonhuman animals and climate change are becoming public knowledge, as this issue is increasingly discussed in the mainstream media (Kristiansen et  al., 2021). In many wealthy Western countries in particular, a broad range of plant-based alternatives to meat and dairy are widely available and affordable to many privileged middle-class people. In high-income countries, plant-based diets have been found to be less expensive than animal-based ones (Springmann et al., 2021). Given the abundance of public information on the causes and consequences of consuming nonhuman animals, privileged people in the Global North in particular—such as white middle-class men living in urban areas—can be expected to make more sustainable and ethical food choices. This position aligns with arguments in some ecofeminist work, for instance, Diane Curtin’s (1991) call for “contextual moral vegetarianism” (p. 60) for well-­ off people in wealthy countries, as a manifestation of ecofeminist ethics of 5

 As of 2020, vegans constituted 1.9% of the European population (Veganz, 2020).

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care. Yet, there are significant social and cultural barriers to this major process of social change. I suggest that these obstacles (but also opportunities) are crucially related to men’s practices and masculinities. Examining privileged men’s veganism provides insight into barriers and opportunities for the spread of veganism and “food system de-animalisation” (Morris et al., 2019). While this book focuses on the perspectives and lived experiences of individual vegans, institutional support of veganism is crucial for its spread, a point I will touch upon in several chapters and will come back to at the end of the book.

The Potential of Plant-Based Diets Various solutions have been proposed to tackle the numerous negative effects of consuming other animals. These are sometimes argued to be preferable ways forward, rather than a transition to plant-based diets or veganism. Each of these, however, involves significant shortcomings. Compared to plant-based diets, local food and “humane” animal farming are less environmentally sustainable and continue using other animals as resources (Stănescu, 2010, 2016), organic farming6 requires a significant increase in land use (Kirchmann, 2019), making it an unsustainable solution in the context of global population growth, if pursued within current animal-based food systems, and there is yet little evidence of the potential advantages of cultured meat in terms of GHG emissions (Chriki & Hocquette, 2020). The latter, while potentially bringing about a number of positive outcomes for animal welfare and human health, does not resolve many ethical dilemmas related to meat consumption (see, e.g., Alvaro et al., 2019). Some of the proposed solutions can be considered technofixes—masculinised attempts, typically by wealthy white men, to offer superficial remedies to complex problems within the capitalist framework, without reimagining current fundamentally exploitative human-­ animal relations and other inequalities that (continue to) cause these problems (Hultman & Pulé, 2018, pp. 45–51). Given that ending human use of nonhuman animals remains a radical idea in current societies relying 6  In fully plant-based agriculture, organic farming is not incompatible with veganism. Veganic agriculture could instead constitute a viable alternative to current unsustainable industrial farming. It could help maintain and restore health to soils and reduce exploitation of human and nonhuman animals, thus supporting intersectional vegan goals (White, 2018, p. 9) (see Seymore & Utter, 2021; White, 2018).

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upon extensive use of other animals to satisfy human needs and tastes, it is not surprising that proposals such as those outlined in this paragraph are put forward and pursued. Established evidence of the multiple harmful effects of eating nonhuman animals has prompted several prominent international health, sustainability, and animal advocacy organisations to call for a reduction in or even elimination of animal-based foods from human diets (e.g., Willett et al., 2019; Whitmee et al., 2015; Wiseman, 2008). Compared to other diets, the plant-based diet has the smallest ecological footprint (Chai et al., 2019). Elimination of animal agriculture is considered one of the most effective strategies for mitigating climate change (Eisen & Brown, 2022). Plant-based diets have been deemed by the world’s leading nutrition organisations as appropriate for humans (British Dietetic Association, 2017; Melina et  al., 2016). Thus, humanity’s transition to plant-based eating constitutes a promising path to more ethical human-animal relations, planetary, and human health. Notably, however, the recommendations of these prominent organisations typically call for a reduction in the consumption of animal products and tend to do so primarily for human health and climate considerations. Concern for the lives and well-being of other animals is typically not listed as a major reason why we should stop eating them. By refraining from advocating for or even mentioning veganism, most leading health and environmental (as well as many animal welfare) organisations fail to promote any fundamental transformation in human-animal relations. As I discuss in the next section, veganism extends beyond a focus on food and plant-based diets in important ways.

Beyond Plant-Based Diets: Intersectional Veganism as a Pathway Towards Ecological Justice Before discussing how veganism can contribute to a paradigm shift in human-animal relations and help further social justice goals, it is useful to discuss what veganism is. Defining veganism is not a straightforward matter, as there are debates and disagreements in academic and activist settings on how to conceptualise veganism7 (see Chap. 3). Some authors have used “veganisms” in the plural, to account for the multiple ways of 7  For a discussion on definitions of veganism, see, for example, Linzey & Linzey, 2018, pp. 1–4; Giraud, 2021, pp. 3–4; Dutkiewicz & Dickstein, 2021; North et al., 2021.

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conceptualising and practising it (see Giraud, 2021, p. 152). These contested meanings of veganism are not fixed, but constantly renegotiated. One of the most well-known definitions of veganism and the one that I take as a starting point in this book is provided by the Vegan Society (in the UK), according to which veganism is “a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose” (Vegan Society, n.d.). This understanding of veganism focuses on radically challenging exploitative human-animal relationships as the core of veganism. Following a plant-based diet is just one, albeit a key, manifestation of veganism. Thus, I understand veganism as more than a food practice—as a political and ethical intervention that fundamentally contests current unethical human-animal relations. I also consider veganism as a social justice issue enmeshed with various hierarchies in human societies (see also Giraud, 2021). This way of conceptualising veganism aligns with how it tends to be defined by CAS, vegan studies, and vegan ecofeminist scholars, including those writing from critical race perspectives (see, e.g., Polish, 2016; Harper, 2010; Giraud, 2021; Polish, 2016; Ko & Ko, 2017; Wrenn, 2019; Hodge et al., 2022; Wright, 2015). Veganism and vegan advocacy are closely linked to the animal advocacy movement8 with significant overlaps between the two. While the animal advocacy and vegan movements include organisations campaigning for veganism, the majority of vegans are not part of organised collective action, but act more as separate individuals (see also Cherry, 2006). Thus, veganism is not typically recognised as activism, but as a lifestyle movement, or ethical lifestylism (Giraud, 2021, p.  45). However, when approaching the notion of activism in a less conventional sense, encompassing various activities not traditionally considered part of activism, veganism could be considered a form of everyday activism (Mansbridge, 2013). In this kind of activism, vegans challenge the social norm of consumption of other animals in microsettings, for example, in everyday conversations, including in online interactions, and role modelling in various routine situations. Animal advocacy and veganism (including activism) are gendered phenomena and shaped by the activities of men and ideals of

8  The animal advocacy movement is “a collective effort to advance the interests of nonhuman species on the grounds that these animals are inherently worthy of equal consideration, not as human resources, but as persons in their own right” (Wrenn, 2019, p. 35).

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masculinity (see also Aavik, forthcoming), as I will discuss in the subsequent sections. Accurate statistical information about the proportion of vegans in the  population is scarce; such data is not necessarily easy to collect, for various reasons (see Martinelli & Berkmanienė, 2018). In countries with the highest percentages of vegans in the population, such as Israel and the US, around 5% of people claim to be vegan (Martinelli & Berkmanienė, 2018, p. 507). No highly reliable statistics are available about Estonia and Finland—the Northern European countries in which the vegan men interviewed for this book are based, but existing sources suggest that they make up around 0.5–1% of the population in both countries (see TNS EMOR, 2018 for Estonia; K Group, 2019 for Finland). There are some commonalities in the demographic profiles of vegans in different Western countries: men constitute only about one-third of vegans; vegans tend to be concentrated in urban areas, have higher educational levels compared to the general population, and tend to hold leftist political views; and there is a higher proportion of secular/atheist people among vegans than in the general population (Martinelli & Berkmanienė, 2018, p. 507). Becoming vegan involves more than a change in diet. It is likely to bring about a rather profound change in one’s sense of self and relationships with others, as I discuss in this book. I approach identities and identity change through sociological perspectives, understanding identities as not essential, stable, or located “inside” people, but emerging in social interaction. As Greenebaum (2012) puts it, “[i]f identity is a public declaration of the self that is constructed through interaction with others, identities are then situational, relational, and part of a constant process of negotiation” (p. 142). To manage their identities, people actively and continuously perform identity work in everyday social situations. Identity work refers to “a range of activities individuals engage in to create, present, and sustain personal identities” (Snow & Anderson, 1987, p. 1348). While acknowledging the limitations of this approach, in this book, I study vegan men’s identities through their discursive constructions of identity, known as identity talk (Snow & Anderson, 1987; Ybema et  al., 2009). Thus, the focus is not on who the men are but on how they express themselves and construct their identities through language, which includes talk about their material and embodied practices. Despite its potential to positively contribute to reducing nonhuman animal suffering and mitigating the effects of climate change, veganism on

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its own cannot solve environmental and various social crises (see Giraud, 2021, p.  109). As several authors have underlined, veganism does not directly address or can even perpetuate various forms of human exploitation (see Brueck, 2019), particularly in the mode of “plant-based capitalism” (Giraud, 2021, p. 129) or “plant-based consumerism” (White, 2022, p. 27). For instance, veganism that does not address workers’ rights in the production of plant-based foods has been found not only to ignore but also reproduce racial inequalities and white privilege (Harper, 2010; Polish, 2016; Ko & Ko, 2017). Veganism on its own does not necessarily challenge patterns of hegemonic masculinity (Greenebaum & Dexter, 2018; Hart, 2018), although some elements of the vegan praxis might contribute to this inadvertently, as I will discuss in this book (see also Aavik, 2021). In efforts to increase sales of their plant-based products in the climate crisis, many companies specialised in selling animal products engage in what has been termed as veganwashing (Alloun, 2020). This entails advertising their products as healthy, natural, and sustainable, relying on popular associations that people have between plants and such values and imagery (Giraud, 2021, p. 140). Thus, while highlighting many positive aspects of veganism, maintaining a critical view of (men’s) veganism is also warranted. With these considerations in mind, this book situates veganism and human-animal relations more broadly within the paradigm of ecological justice (Baxter, 2004; Schlosberg, 2014; Nussbaum, 2006) that challenges anthropocentrism and regards all species as entitled to habitat and use of the Earth’s resources (Baxter, 2004). Ecological justice includes social justice as a key element; that is, it also addresses social inequalities. Veganism cannot be a viable and effective strategy to combat exploitative human-­ animal relations and climate change if it neglects issues of social justice, as various exclusions of large parts of the vegan movement attest, notably its white privilege (Harper, 2010; Polish, 2016; Ko & Ko, 2017) and reproduction of gender stereotypes and inequalities (Wrenn, 2016, 2019). Ecological justice as conceptualised here aligns with the idea of total liberation—an approach recognising the interlinked nature of inequalities and oppressions affecting humans and nonhumans and calling for the liberation of all beings from oppressive structures (see Pellow, 2014; Colling et  al., 2014). Veganism and creating vegan imaginaries (White, 2022, p.  21) are fundamental components of advancing ecological justice. I argue in this book that vegan masculinities offer the potential to support ecological justice.

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Before addressing the question of how veganism relates to men and masculinities, I first explain how I approach gender and masculinities in this book.

Men, Masculinities, and Intersectionality I understand gender and gender relations as socially constructed, that is, they are assigned meaning in human societies and social interactions,9 and are therefore flexible and open to change. In the same framework, the categories of “men” and “masculinities” are also socially produced and thus open to contestation as well. Drawing on insights from critical studies on men and masculinities (see Hearn, 2004), I use “masculinities” in the plural, to refer to hierarchically organised multiple masculinities in the gender system, with hegemonic masculinity (Connell, 1987; Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005) located at the top of the hierarchy, as a cultural ideal. This does not however mean that hegemonic masculinity—or other masculinities—has fixed content. Masculinities are processual and “actively produced, using the resources and strategies available in a given social setting” (Connell, 2003, p. 16). The ongoing accomplishment of masculinity in everyday interaction is captured by the idea of “doing gender” (West & Zimmerman, 1987), and in the context of masculinities—“doing masculinity”. Just as masculinities are not natural or fixed, the category “man” is not to be taken for granted either. Jeff Hearn (2014) has called for critically examining men as “a taken-for-granted social gender category in all sorts of everyday contexts” (p. 14), emphasising how men are produced by the gender system and reproduce it through their individual and collective practices. Beyond the construction of reality through discursive means, given that veganism is an embodied practice, I find it important to consider the material and embodied dimensions of masculinities and men’s veganism, inspired by feminist new materialist and posthumanist perspectives on men and masculinities (see Garlick, 2019; Mellström & Pease, 2023). Within these  approaches, masculinities have been thought of as “technologies of embodiment oriented toward the control of nature” (Garlick, 2019, p.  397). As Pease and Mellström (2023) note, “[t]he implication of new materialist theoretical approaches for masculinity is to encourage more attention to affect, embodiment and respect for 9  The social construction of gender includes material practices through which the category of gender and gender inequalities are reproduced.

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ecological systems” (p. 10). This includes consideration of how men relate to nonhuman animals, as an important relationality. I argue in this book that through the material-discursive practice of veganism, vegan men challenge men’s domination over nature. Although this book focuses on men, masculinities are always constructed and performed in relation to women and other genders. Certainly, veganism as practised by men is not entirely unique from how it is pursued by people not identifying as men. While focusing on vegan men, I seek to avoid essentialising the category “man” and emphasise the ways in which masculinity is accomplished in social interaction. This book views vegan men as gendered beings whose food practices are enmeshed in intersectional power relations. While foregrounding the category of gender and specifically masculinity, I take an intersectional perspective (Crenshaw, 1989). This study focuses on vegan men who are intersectionally privileged10 (Aavik, 2015, 2020), in terms of at least gender, age, race, class, educational background and/or professional status, and geographical location. While there exists an uneasy relationship between veganism and the category of masculinity, to say that this makes it equally difficult for all men to become vegan is an overgeneralisation that dismisses important distinctions between men, which could facilitate or hinder their vegan transition. Particularly for white Western middle-­ class men living in urban areas—that this book focuses on—race, class, and other privileges are conducive to adopting veganism, as I will demonstrate. Further, given that men positioned as such are the drivers of climate change globally, including due to their patterns of meat consumption, as highlighted above, it is this group of men who should therefore first and foremost have a moral obligation to challenge animal exploitation, given also that their privileged social position affords them easier material access to veganism. Using the notion of intersectionality to study the identities and practices of privileged men is not straightforward and unproblematic. There are conceptual and ethical debates about the use of intersectionality, for example regarding how intersectionality should be defined, which categories it should focus on, and what exactly intersects. A major question 10  Intersectional privilege refers to “opportunities and advantages that are systematically available to individuals or groups in particular social contexts and situations due to their privileged position on the axes of gender, age, ethnicity, race and other relevant social categories simultaneously” (Aavik, 2020, p. 222).

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concerns whether intersectionality should stay true to its original focus in Black feminist thought and be concerned with anti-racist commitments or could the focus be on any relevant intersections. Some scholars have provided critical perspectives on the now ubiquitous and often superficial application of the concept beyond gender and feminist studies to the point where it departs significantly from its original meaning and political intention and thereby becomes depoliticised (see, e.g., Collins, 2015, 2019; Bilge, 2013; Collins & Bilge, 2020; on these discussions in the context of veganism, see Giraud, 2021, pp. 106–127). From these debates, an important question arises regarding the focus of this book—whether and how is it justified and helpful to use intersectionality to study privileged white men? To do this question justice would require a much more in-depth discussion, but as a way to start thinking about this problem and not as a definitive position, I would suggest that there are some good reasons to use intersectionality in this context, as well as risks. However, I suggest that if done in a careful and sensitive manner, intersectionality could be a helpful lens through which to understand the experiences of privileged vegan men while supporting intersectional feminist commitments. Here, I find it insightful to draw on scholars who emphasise that what matters most is the purpose we use intersectionality for (Collins & Bilge, 2020), arguing that central to any application of this notion should be a commitment to social justice and an intent to challenge social inequalities (Collins & Bilge, 2020, Bilge, 2013). Thus, intersectionality is understood as a form of critical inquiry as well as praxis (Collins & Bilge, 2020). I believe that critically examining the practices of privileged men, attending to the ways in which their advantageous social position facilitates their veganism, adheres to these commitments. Thus, using insights from CSMM and other critical bodies of scholarship, throughout this book, I consider how my research participants’ practices and definitions of veganism are shaped by their social position and take a critical stance towards their privilege. To honour the origins of intersectionality in Black feminist thought and retain its commitment to racial justice, the category of race should not be dismissed, even if it appears irrelevant at first sight. The whiteness and white privilege of the interviewed men shape their vegan practices and identities in significant ways, despite tending to remain invisible in narratives of white privileged men (Aavik, 2020). Indeed, this very fact of silencing is indicative of the taken-for-grantedness of privilege. Marginalisation and privilege are interlinked, as different sides of the same

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coin of structural inequality. Thus, understanding the privileged and unmarked (Brekhus, 1998) sheds light on marginalised identities and conditions that create these structural disparities. Further, in engaging with intersectionality, I draw inspiration from new materialist and posthumanist perspectives on masculinities. According to Pease and Mellström (2023), intersectionality should be extended “beyond the discursive position of human subjects to encompass their material existence in human and other-than-human relations” (p. 10). Veganism as an embodied practice enables us to rethink current unethical human-animal relations and ways of co-existing. In these discussions, careful attention must be paid to the question of which humans we mean when speaking of human-animal relations, as intra-human differences often become obscured in examining human-animal relations, typically assuming a privileged human subject not named as such. It is important to consider that it is always particularly situated humans who relate to other animals. The specific position of the humans in question in intra-human power hierarchies significantly shapes these relations, as several vegan and feminist scholars from critical race perspectives have noted (see, e.g., Harper, 2010; Ko & Ko, 2017).

Men’s Veganism and Post-Anthropocentric Masculinities Studying veganism in relation to men and masculinities is fruitful for various reasons. Gender plays a significant role in shaping patterns of food consumption, human-animal relations, and climate sustainability (e.g., Modlinska et  al., 2020; Inness, 2001; Counihan & Kaplan, 2003). Hegemonic masculinities in Western societies have damaging effects on the planet, on other beings, and on many men themselves (Hultman & Pulé, 2018, pp. 40–51; Alaimo, 2009, p. 26). Men’s everyday practices tend to inflict more harm on the environment compared to other genders. Men (especially white, Western, middle-class) remain the key drivers of climate change; for instance, they are overrepresented among the owners and managers of extractive industries (Hultman & Pulé, 2018). The overall ecological footprint of men, particularly privileged men in the Global North, is on average much higher than women’s (Räty & Carlsson-­ Kanyama, 2010; Rippin et al., 2021), including their footprint from food, as men consume more meat than women, globally (Rippin et al., 2021;

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Nakagawa & Hart, 2019; Prättala et  al., 2007).11 Strong links between eating nonhuman animals and Western ideals of masculinity have been observed: eating meat is culturally coded as a masculine practice and remains a powerful norm for many men through which to do masculinity (Ruby & Heine, 2011; Thomas, 2016; Szabo, 2019; Ruby, 2012). Thus, cultural constructions of masculinity shape men’s food practices and, in particular, their relationship to eating other animals. Previous research directly engaging with the experiences of vegans is still relatively scarce (e.g., Griffin Stephens, 2017; Giraud, 2021; Kalte, 2021; Greenebaum, 2012; Aavik, 2021; Aavik & Velgan, 2021); most of it focuses on Anglo-American contexts and has not systematically considered the dimension of gender. Some of this research has focused on men and masculinities. Studies exploring links between men, masculinities, and veg*nism12 (e.g., Hart, 2018; Potts & Parry, 2010; Rothgerber, 2013; Sumpter, 2015; Greenebaum & Dexter, 2018; Mycek, 2018; DeLessio-­ Parson, 2017; Aavik, 2021; Aavik & Velgan, 2021; Adewale & Harper, 2021) suggest that veganism offers potential for men to do masculinity differently. Yet this does not mean that vegan men—just by being vegan— necessarily challenge gendered (and other) power relations; they may sometimes even reinforce conventional masculinity norms (Greenebaum & Dexter, 2018; Hart, 2018; Wright, 2015, p. 126).13 For example, some vegan men’s ultramasculine gender performances have given rise to the term “heganism” (Wright, 2015, p. 126).14 Other research has identified negative cultural representations of vegan men, captured in the figure of the “soy boy” (Gambert & Linne, 2018; see also Giraud, 2021, p. 52). In both of these cultural depictions—the hypermasculine hegan and the soy boy constructed as effeminate—men’s bodies are central, attesting to the  Statistical information on this for other genders is unavailable.  The term includes vegetarians and vegans. 13  In addition to these studies conducted in Western contexts, it is worth noting that some non-Western religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, practised by millions of men, promote compassion and nonviolence towards all living beings and, by extension, vegetarian or fully plant-based eating. The practitioners of these religions challenge perceived essentialist links between men, masculinities, and meat consumption. At the same time, gender relations and ideals of masculinity in societies where these religions are predominantly practised (such as in South East Asia) do not suggest that men’s avoidance of or lesser consumption of nonhuman animals leads to the emergence of alternative masculinities and greater gender equality in society. 14  Exemplified for instance by the film Game Changers (2018) and the book Meat Is for Pussies: A How-To Guide for Dudes Who Want to Get Fit, Kick Ass, and Take Names (2014). 11 12

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embodied nature of the vegan praxis. In this book, drawing on this previous scholarship, I seek to bring new insights into knowledge on connections between veganism, constructions of masculinity, and social equality, examining the potential of vegan men to do masculinity differently, in more progressive ways. Through its focus on men’s veganism, this book deals with changing masculinities at a time when humanity is facing multiple social and ecological crises. The premise is that ideals of hegemonic masculinity have become unsustainable and do not meet the needs of a rapidly changing world. Drawing on and in dialogue with recent research on various “new” masculinities that challenge hegemonic masculinity (Connell, 1987; Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005), notably, caring masculinities (Elliott, 2016; Hanlon, 2012), inclusive masculinity (Anderson, 2010), ecological masculinities (Hultman & Pulé, 2018; Pulé & Hultman, 2021), and egalitarian masculinities (Lamont, 2014; Pajumets, 2012), as well as posthumanist and new materialist approaches to men and masculinities (Garlick, 2019; Mellström & Pease, 2023), I suggest that men’s more sustainable relationship to the environment and nonhuman others is likely becoming an increasingly important element in ideals of hegemonic masculinity in the context of climate change and men’s domination of nature and other beings. Indeed, some recent research provides evidence of men’s declining attachment to meat consumption, along with men’s critical attitudes towards cultural associations of meat with masculinity (De Backer et al., 2020). The theorising of several of these alternative masculinities is rooted in posthumanist and ecofeminist thought, particularly vegetarian or vegan ecofeminism (e.g., Adams, 1990; Adams & Gruen, 2014; Donovan, 2006; Gaard, 2002; Twine, 2021). I argue in this book that veganism, as practised by men, offers potential for the emergence of alternative, especially more sustainable, caring, and egalitarian, masculinities, such as ecological masculinities (Hultman & Pulé, 2018). Also, posthumanist perspectives on men and masculinities could help to move towards such a transformation, by disturbing the stability of the category of man (Mellström & Pease, 2023). Within these frameworks, I propose the notion of vegan masculinity, discussed in more detail in the concluding chapter. While considering the transformative potential of men’s veganism for the emergence of such alternative masculinities, this book at the same time assumes a critical perspective on men’s veganism. While it is important to foreground the voices of vegans themselves in making sense of the

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phenomenon of veganism, I am aware of the dangers of amplifying already privileged perspectives and I avoid generalising the findings to all vegans. As previous work has pointed out, differently situated vegans, for example, vegans of colour in different social and geographical contexts, can experience veganism differently (e.g., Harper, 2010; Ko & Ko, 2017). This underscores the importance of using sensitive intersectional approaches in studying veganism and vegans.

Research Design: Materials, Context, and Methods This book is based on 61 in-depth qualitative interviews that I conducted in  2018 and 2019 with vegans who identify as men, based in Finland (30) and Estonia (31) (for an overview of the research participants, see Appendix, pp. 241–245).15 Most research participants were recruited via the two largest vegan-themed Facebook groups in the two language communities: Eesti Veganid (Estonian) and Vegaani (Finnish) and some through personal contacts. The Estonian sample included a few men I was acquainted with, due to my involvement in the Estonian vegan community. The interviewed men were between 18 and 56 years of age, with an average age of 34. The time they had been vegan ranged from a few months for some to nearly two decades for others. The research participants constituted a privileged group: they were white, predominantly ethnic Estonian or Finnish, typically middle class, almost all were living in urban areas, most had completed tertiary education, and working as professionals. Those few who had working class and/or rural backgrounds had typically obtained higher education in cities and had remained living there. Most men did not identify as activists, in animal advocacy or otherwise. The sample included a few Estonian research participants who lived in Finland and vice versa. A couple of interviewed Finnish and Estonian men resided temporarily or for a longer time in some other European countries, such as Switzerland and the UK. Also, a few men were not of Estonian or Finnish ethnic origin but had been living in these countries for years. Overall, this demographic profile of 15  Informed consent was obtained from all research participants. The research was carried out at the University of Helsinki, in the framework of the project Climate Sustainability in the Kitchen: Everyday Food Cultures in Transition (funded by the Kone Foundation). According to the University of Helsinki research ethics policy (at the time of collecting the empirical data), sociological qualitative research involving interviews with adults capable of giving informed consent did not require approval by a research ethics committee.

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the sample represents well the broader population of vegan men in Estonia and Finland as well as in most Western countries. When recruiting research participants, I sought to avoid essentialising gender and relied on self-identification of gender, calling out for those who identified as men (and as vegans). While those who identified with the category “man” were asked to participate, the research participants were however given opportunities during the interviews to question this category and their relationship to it if they wished. While all the interviewed men self-identified as vegans, the particular (and diverse) ways they understood and practised veganism were explored in the interviews. Recruiting research participants and establishing rapport with them before and during the interviews was facilitated by my own long-time veganism (since 2005) and participation in animal advocacy and vegan activism, which I disclosed already in the call for research participants. My own experience as a vegan enabled me to understand and relate to various aspects of their veganism, reflected in my questions and comments in the interviews. Also, in the course of the interviews, I sometimes shared my own experiences as a vegan in response to the men’s accounts. Certainly, this was conducive to the research participants opening up about their vegan experience. Thus, in many ways, the emerging narratives were collaboratively produced (Gubrium & Holstein, 2009). The average length of the interviews was 83  minutes. The topics explored included the men’s experiences of transitioning to veganism, what veganism means to them, their relationships with non-vegans, their views on gender and masculinity in relation to veganism, and their health and well-being. All interviews were recorded and transcribed. The interviews were analysed first using the key principles of thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006), to identify the main themes and subthemes in the data. The subsequent analysis made use of narrative approaches (Gubrium & Holstein, 2009; Lawler, 2002), focusing on the stories men told about becoming and living as vegans, as the interviews contained rich and detailed information on the men’s vegan experience, often presented in storied form.16 Through these narratives, the men made sense of their veganism as well as produced their identities (on narrative identity, see Ricoeur, 1991; McAdams et al., 2006; McAdams, 2011). Via recounting 16  Narratives are typically understood as “accounts which contain transformation (change over time), some kind of ‘action’ and characters, all of which are brought together within an overall ‘plot’” (Lawler, 2002, p. 242).

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their vegan transition and experience, the men signified “who they are for themselves and for others” (McAdams et al., 2006, p. 4; see also Lawler, 2002). The analysis also includes interview material that does not follow a typical narrative format but is nevertheless significant for making sense of the research participants’ veganism.17 I have chosen, whenever possible, to use interview extracts that contain stories, as these typically convey both events and evaluation of these events, including emotions. Interviews with the Finnish men were conducted in English and interviews with Estonian men in Estonian (except two interviews, which were conducted in English, with men who did not speak Estonian). I have translated the Estonian language interview excerpts used in the book into English. In the quotes I use from the interviews, I refer to the research participants using pseudonyms. Research on vegan men and masculinities has primarily been conducted in and about Anglo-American countries, with little scholarship on men’s veganism in other parts of the world, such as Northern Europe. Despite the overall small proportion of vegans among the Finnish and Estonian populations, veganism in both countries has become increasingly culturally visible. Veganism has had a longer presence in Finland. Partly due to this, it is more accepted as an identity and practice in Finland in contrast to Estonia, where its reception, particularly by the medical and nutrition establishment, remains more unfavourable (Aavik, 2018, 2019).18 Yet, veganism, and also plant-based diets, are gradually becoming rapidly more accessible and visible in Estonia, as evidenced by increasing media coverage, the availability of a more diverse range of plant-based products (including in rural shops), and the presence of vegan eateries. In terms of gender, the Finnish society exhibits more egalitarian gender norms and relations than Estonia, where anti-egalitarian masculinities are more predominant (Pajumets,

17  This broader approach to narratives also considers the so-called small stories which contain “a gamut of under-represented and ‘a-typical’ narrative activities, such as tellings of ongoing events, future or hypothetical events, shared (known) events, but also allusions to tellings, deferrals of tellings, and refusals to tell” (Georgakopoulou, 2006, p. 130). 18  The reasons behind this institutional resistance to veganism include strong traditions of meat and dairy production and consumption in Estonia, the entanglement of business interests (of meat and dairy companies) with the production of scientific knowledge on nutrition, and reliance on outdated knowledge on plant-based nutrition in the training of medical doctors and nutrition specialists (for more on this, see Aavik, 2018 and 2019).

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2012), partly as a legacy of the Soviet past.19 In the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE)‘s Gender Equality Index, Finland scores above the EU average, occupying the fifth place, while Estonia remains below the EU average, at 17th place (European Institute for Gender Equality, 2021). As a commonality, in both countries, consuming animal products remains an important element of doing masculinity for most men. Additionally, specific to the geographical context, men may confront the narrative of the difficulty of veganism in cold Nordic climates and the perceived necessity to sustain oneself by consuming animal products. While I do not conduct a systematic comparative analysis of men’s veganism in Estonia and Finland in this book, I do contrast the Finnish and Estonian men’s experiences where relevant. The purpose of including in the sample research participants from these two countries was to gain a more diverse picture of men’s veganism in Northern Europe and to understand how men’s veganism is shaped by specific cultural and social contexts. While these cases exhibit several commonalities, they also feature important geographical, historical, political, institutional, and other differences that shape men’s veganism in specific ways. The different gender regimes and institutional and cultural reception of veganism in Finland and Estonia are of particular importance for this study.

Outline of the Book In offering detailed insight into the lived experiences of vegan men, each of the chapters in this book focuses on a specific theme. The chosen themes were among the key topics covered in the interviews. They are significant in understanding and providing insight into men’s veganism and vegan masculinity from gender and intersectional perspectives. As such, the selected themes address debates or gaps in existing literature, including how vegan men negotiate veganism in social interactions, the relationship between vegan men, masculinities, emotions, and embodiment, as well as links between men’s veganism and pursuits of social equality. Chapter 2 examines the men’s process of becoming vegan and the significance of this transition in their lives. I identify some key elements of their vegan transition, including factors that facilitated this. The chapter complicates typical representations of vegan transition experiences by 19  Estonia was part of the Soviet Union until 1991 when the country regained its independence.

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demonstrating the importance of other elements beyond discursive reasoning and moral development. Rather, I argue that becoming vegan should be seen as a material-discursive process. I consider how privilege shapes men’s transition to veganism. Given the somewhat contradictory existing definitions of veganism, Chap. 3 takes a look at how vegan men understand veganism and, more broadly, what veganism means for them in the context of their lives. Partly stemming from the men’s somewhat varied paths to veganism, their conceptualisations of veganism differed to some extent. I discuss these meanings using ecofeminist approaches to care, typically not associated with men’s lives and practices. I argue that for men in particular, veganism, as an embodied and relational practice, offers the potential to engage in and strengthen their sense and relationships of care. Chapter 4 focuses on veganism as an embodied practice and considers the significance of emotions and affects in the context of men’s veganism. Historically, privileged Western white men in particular have seen themselves and have been depicted in cultural representations as disembodied and unemotional. Using ecofeminist, new materialist, and posthumanist approaches to men, masculinities, embodiments, and emotions, the chapter troubles this still prevalent understanding by demonstrating how emotionality and rationality are entangled in men’s vegan experience. Chapters 5 and 6 share a similar conceptual framework, approaching (men’s) veganism as a deeply social and relational phenomenon. Using the notion of “doing veganism”, in Chap. 5, I present strategies and dilemmas that vegan men face in communicating veganism to non-vegans. The chapter builds on and aligns with the findings of previous research underlining difficulties that vegans often face in various social situations. In these interactions, men attempted to appear non-confrontational, including avoiding talking about veganism. They tended to rely on masculinised facts and emphasised environmental aspects of veganism, over care and empathy towards other animals, deeming these arguments to be more effective. Thus, doing veganism is intertwined with doing gender. I discuss the implications of this communication strategy for the spread of veganism and for ideals of masculinity. While Chap. 5 draws on the men’s experiences with a wide range of social interactions mostly in the public sphere (such as with colleagues in workplaces), Chap. 6 focuses on how the men negotiate close relationships as vegans. Gender and, in particular, masculinity shape these interactions, as relationships with non-vegan male friends and relatives were the most difficult to manage.

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In Chap. 7, I discuss vegan men’s gender and intersectional politics and practices, that is, how vegan men understand and practise masculinity and how veganism in their view links with gender and other social inequalities. I identified two major and opposing positions on how veganism relates, or rather, should relate, to the ideal of hegemonic masculinity: first, attempting to frame veganism as compatible with this cultural ideal and, second, considering men’s veganism as a challenge to hegemonic masculinity. While for some men veganism was part of a larger social justice agenda, others did not explicitly make these links or outrightly dismissed them. Despite these seemingly opposite discursive positions, however, I argue that it is not easy to draw a distinct boundary and divide the men strictly into two groups. In the conclusions (Chap. 8), I discuss the main findings of the chapters and their implications and introduce the notion of vegan masculinity. I consider how vegan masculinity relates to other masculinities in the gender system and examine it in the context of changing ideals of masculinity in the Anthropocene. I argue that despite some limitations, vegan masculinity could be a useful concept through which to make sense of men’s veganism and discuss the potential of men’s veganism and vegan masculinities to contest anthropocentric and inegalitarian masculinities. I end the chapter by identifying limitations of this study and providing ideas for future research on men, masculinities, and veganism.

References Aavik, K. (2015). Intersectional disadvantage and privilege in the Estonian labour market: An analysis of work narratives of Russian-speaking women and Estonian men. Tallinn University, PhD diss. Aavik, K. (2018). Nonhuman animals as ‘high-quality protein’: Insistence on the consumption of ‘meat’ and ‘dairy’ in the Estonian nutrition recommendations. In D. Nibert (Ed.), Animal oppression and capitalism. Volume 1: The oppression of nonhuman animals as sources of food (pp. 140–165). Praeger Press. Aavik, K. (2019). Institutional resistance to veganism: Constructing vegan bodies as deviant in medical encounters in Estonia. Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Study of Health, Illness and Medicine, 25(2), 159–176. https:// doi.org/10.1177/1363459319860571 Aavik, K. (2020). Studying privileged Men’s career narratives from an intersectional perspective: The methodological challenge of the invisibility of privilege. In K. Aavik, C. Bland, J. Hoegaerts, & J. Salminen (Eds.), Men, masculinities

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Marten, R., Myers, S. S., Nishtar, S., Osofsky, S. A., Pattanayak, S. K., Pongsiri, M. J., & Romanelli, C. (2015). Safeguarding human health in the Anthropocene epoch: Report of the Rockefeller Foundation-lancet commission on planetary health. The Lancet, 386(10007), 1973–2028. https://doi.org/10.1016/ S0140-­6736(15)60901-­1 Willett, W., Rockström, J., Loken, B., Springmann, M., Lang, T., Vermeulen, S., et  al. (2019). Food in the Anthropocene: The EAT–lancet commission on healthy diets from sustainable food systems. The Lancet, 393(10170), 447–492. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-­6736(18)31788-­4 Wiseman, M. (2008). The second world cancer research fund/ American Institute for Cancer Research expert report. Food, nutrition, physical activity, and the prevention of cancer: A global perspective. Proceedings of the Nutrition Society, 67(3), 253–256. https://doi.org/10.1017/S002966510800712X World Health Organisation. (2017). Antimicrobial resistance in the food chain. https://www.who.int/foodsafety/areas_work/antimicrobial-­r esistance/ amrfoodchain/en/ Wrenn, C. L. (2016). Social Movement Prostitution: A Case Study in Nonhuman Animal Rights Activism and Vegan Pimping. Griffith Journal of Law & Human Dignity, 4(2), 87–99. Wrenn, C.  L. (2019). Piecemeal protest: Animal rights in the age of nonprofits. University of Michigan Press. Wright, L. (2015). The vegan studies project: Food, animals, and gender in the age of terror. University of Georgia Press. Wright, L. (Ed.). (2021). The Routledge handbook of vegan studies. Routledge. Ybema, S., Keenoy, T., Oswick, C., Beverungen, A., Ellis, N., & Sabelis, I. (2009). Articulating identities. Human Relations, 62, 299–322. https://doi.org/ 10.1177/0018726708101904

CHAPTER 2

Going Vegan: Understanding Men’s Vegan Transition Narratives

Introduction In vegan communities as well as in broader cultural representations of veganism, three themes or sets of motives—animal ethics, environmental concerns, and personal health considerations—strongly dominate and are often used as a shorthand to explain the decision to become vegan. Previous research on vegans has also underlined these reasons (Fox & Ward, 2008). In addition, a feeling of disgust about consuming nonhuman animals and a preference for the taste of plant-based foods feature among the top reasons behind veganism (Humane Research Council, 2014, p. 6). There is surprisingly little qualitative research exploring vegan transition experiences in more detail, including how vegans make sense of this process (for exceptions, see Stephens Griffin, 2017; Giacoman et  al., 2021). Stephens Griffin (2017, p. 38), examining turning points in the biographies of vegans based in the UK—particular life events and experiences that are recognised in hindsight as significant in leading one to become vegan—identified family relationships, religious upbringing, and participation in a straight-edge subculture as such major shifts. Giacoman et  al. (2021), studying young people’s experiences of going vegan in

This chapter draws on my previous work on men’s veganism (see Aavik, 2021) © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 K. Aavik, Contesting Anthropocentric Masculinities Through Veganism, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-19507-5_2

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Chile, identified five stages to this process: personal questioning, attempting to become vegetarian, adopting vegetarianism, becoming vegan, and getting involved in activism. Going through these steps can be a profound experience, involving a change in identity, as the authors of the study suggest. Previous research has not paid much attention to gender in studying vegan transition experiences and little is known about (privileged) men’s paths to veganism in particular. This chapter explores men’s vegan transition narratives. I identify factors that facilitate becoming vegan for (privileged) men. As I demonstrate below, unlike in many popular representations, where one makes a rational decision—typically for animal ethics, environmental, and/or health reasons—to become vegan, the men’s narratives suggest that this process is more complex, shaped by various intertwined elements, including ideals and practices of masculinity. Understanding privileged men’s experiences of becoming vegan could be helpful in planning and carrying out vegan outreach to similarly situated men specifically.

Key Features of Men’s Vegan Transition For most research participants, becoming vegan did not occur abruptly but was a longer and gradual process. It typically began with vegetarianism, while only a few men quit the consumption of nonhuman animals more quickly. In this section, I present some key themes in the men’s vegan transition narratives that help to understand how and why they became vegan. “A triangle of reasons”: From One to Several Motivations Behind Veganism The three kinds of reasons behind veganism mentioned above—having to do with concern over nonhuman animal lives, the environment/climate, and one’s own health—were by far the most typical in my research participants’ transition narratives. In part, these themes act as powerful narrative resources that the vegan men could draw on in making sense of their vegan transition and identities and rendering these intelligible to others. It was common for one or sometimes two of these concerns to be the initial driver behind becoming vegan, but after practising veganism for a while, more than one or all of these gradually became important reasons for the men to live as vegan:

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Panu, 22, FIN: The ethical aspect turned me gradually to veganism. I just couldn’t consume animal products anymore because I became aware of the horrors and the suffering. So, first, it was all about ethics and then I became more aware of the ecological consequences of animal consumption.

The theme of progressively expanding one’s awareness of different dimensions of veganism was prominent in the narratives, upon becoming increasingly immersed in information about veganism: Lauri, 28, FIN: You could like draw this triangle of reasons which is like climate, animals and health. […] So, if you start from one end of the triangle, you will always sort of like be gradually shifting to be more aware of the other ends of the triangle. So, if you start from animal rights, you will always have some sort of understanding about the climate and health and if you start from climate, you will gradually start to think about animals and health.

While concern over one’s own health as a driver behind veganism is often deemed in vegan and animal advocacy circles as a selfish reason that aligns with neoliberal pursuits of individual well-being, removed from concerns of animal suffering, and therefore “inauthentic” (Greenebaum, 2012), the narratives suggest that initially adopting a plant-based diet for health reasons could act as an entry point to developing a sense of care towards the lives of nonhuman animals and a vegan ethos. Indeed, for many men, concern for their own health subsequently assumed a secondary place, overshadowed by a commitment to animal justice: Timo, 38, FIN: First, it was only for my own health, but it really changed I think already after being a vegetarian for half a year. It had drastically changed to rather moral or ethical reasons … really feeling with the animals.

In describing his gradual development as a vegan, Timo highlights relating to other animals through emotions, an important element in the men’s vegan transition, explored in more detail in Chap. 4. As these narratives indicate, meanings of and motivations behind veganism can and do change for vegans (see also Chap. 3) and therefore, in some sense, the vegan transition is never complete, as one can always expand their awareness of different dimensions of veganism.

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“Snowball effect”: Becoming Immersed in Information on Nonhuman Animal Exploitation and Veganism An important theme in the men’s vegan transition narratives was their gradual immersion in information on the ethical, environmental, and/or health effects of human consumption of nonhuman animals. Typically, this occurred through coming across and watching documentary films online, but also books and video clips were mentioned. The films that the men commonly cited are some of the most well-known critical documentaries on farming and eating other animals, such as Earthlings (Monson, 2005), Dominion (Delforce, 2018), Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret (Anderson & Kuhn, 2014), and What the Health (Anderson & Kuhn, 2017). The first two are focused on animal ethics, the third on links between intensive animal farming and environmental damage, and the fourth on the health effects of animal and plant-based diets. The men’s narratives indicate the importance of such (typically freely available online) media, and these documentaries in particular, for the vegan transition. Academic research on films promoting veganism and plant-based diets underscores their cultural significance in shaping popular perceptions of veganism (see Christopher et al., 2018)1 and the ways they facilitate the vegan transition and popular interest in plant-based diets (see Middleton, 2015; Hartwell et al., 2022). Engaging with this material was described as a process of discovering a “hidden truth”. Coming across this material in the first place, however, was commonly characterised as a rather random occurrence. Having watched the first video clip, the men subsequently deliberately searched for related information. Engagement with this further media led them to become immersed in this material. This process was described by several as “one thing leading to another”, or a snowball effect, described almost as unstoppable and out of their control. In the course of engaging with this material, knowledge about animal farming and veganism was gradually accumulated: Ilmari, 27, FIN: I watched like videos or documentaries. […] I started learning more and more about what happens in the dairy and egg industry. And 1  Christopher, Bartowski, and Haverda (2018) note how such films put forward somewhat different and conflicting conceptualisations of veganism, such as a diet and a way to improve one’s health versus what the authors term as holistic veganism, encompassing animal advocacy, health, and environmental aspects.

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then I just kept reading more and more about it. So, it was kind of like an accumulation of knowledge both from like the ethical standpoint but then all these environmental things, like studies about climate change and land use started to, you know, become more and more public knowledge, even though I’m working in the environmental sector or like sciences, I didn’t even know from here, you know, that it was … I don’t know if it was like a turning point in the research or something. But yeah, it was kind of like a … I always like to say like an accumulation. You know this thing and this thing and then it just piles up into this acknowledgement of what’s going on and I was like, I can’t, you know, justify that with my personal ethics and morality.

Several men talked about intense emotions that they experienced upon becoming immersed in this material. The descriptions of engaging with such footage highlight the significance of the affective and emotional responses to animal suffering in the men’s vegan transition, as I explore in more detail in Chap. 4. Previous research suggests that such footage can facilitate going vegan, through moral shock (Fernandez, 2021; Middleton, 2015). Such films achieve an effect where “viewers’ horrified reactions are harnessed in the production of knowledge and political commitment”, as Middleton (2015, p. 285) notes about Earthlings. However, for such information or a close encounter with a vegan to lead to a change, the men had to somehow be “ready” to receive it and act upon it, as well as able to. Some important elements of this “readiness” will be explored in the sections below. Beyond Facts and Reasoning: Practical, Material, and Other Factors and Circumstances Significantly, it was not only reasoning and facts (such as those learned from documentaries and books) that prompted the men to become vegan. Various material aspects, sometimes identified as occurring randomly, were also important, mostly having to do with food and eating, for instance, situations where opting for a plant-based meal simply seemed more practical, as can be learned from the continuation of Ilmari’s narrative: Ilmari, 27, FIN: But when I started to realise this, I was living in Iceland. I was studying there. The food was … I mean everything was really expensive there and that included like cheese. Back then I didn’t really use milk for exam-

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ple or eggs that much. But cheese was like the big thing for a lot of people. The cheese in Iceland was first of all expensive and second of all, it was not good like [laughs]. It was expensive, at best mediocre cheese, so it was kind of easy to give up there. So, then I got used to kind of accidentally eating an almost dairy-free diet and then on top of that, you know, learning all these things so it was, you know, that’s like almost a chance happening.

Other such material circumstances included moving out of one’s childhood home, starting to live independently, and meeting a vegan partner. The following narrative aptly illustrates how various elements—intellectual reasoning; embodied, material, and visceral experiences; certain biographical events; random occurrences; and other favourable circumstances—are interwoven and in combination facilitate the process of becoming vegan: Ivar, 24, EST: I read a book […], How to Travel Without Fear, […] which had all sorts of interesting ideas that I mostly agreed with. The book also briefly talked about plant-based eating. Not aggressively like “Become a vegetarian or else …!”, but it explained it very well and suggested that the readers try a meat-­ free Monday. I thought okay. … I had just moved out of my parents’ home and I lived alone for the first time. This created some sort of freedom and I started to make new choices. I then tried one day a week, which soon became three. But I had in the house some foods with meat that I had previously bought, so I thought, let me just eat them, otherwise they’ll go bad. So, for Wednesday night’s dinner, I ate some piece of meat with cheese and after that, I felt this awful stomach ache. And after that, I did not want [meat]. It was such a powerful experience. After this I have never eaten meat due to this pain, just not to feel this kind of pain again […] It [going vegan] happened gradually, within two-­ three months. At first, I gave up meat and ate the rest [dairy] and then I started investigating. I remember I watched a film, I can’t remember what it was, but it must have been a documentary. […] It opened a new perspective on things I had never thought about before. […] So, I became vegan within two-­ three months.

Although not always expressed as distinctly and explicitly as in Ivar’s story, the men’s vegan transition was enabled by a combination of factors. In many accounts, some drivers behind becoming vegan were more consciously identified and explicitly acknowledged than in others. Overall, when making sense of their vegan transition, the men tended to give more weight to moral development and purposeful action rather than highlight

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random events and background circumstances that enabled their veganism. Emphasising one’s deliberate choices and own agency aligns with neoliberal cultural narratives of taking control of one’s life and helps to construct culturally legible representations of the vegan transition. Being in control is associated with masculinities in particular. Thus, becoming vegan tends to be presented as a story of conscious moral development rather than for example as an outcome of being at the right place at the right time. However, some narratives, such as Ivar’s above, included explicit or more tacit references to random events and affective elements. Virtually all stories however contained various taken-for-granted and unacknowledged elements that enabled the men’s vegan transition. For instance, the men in this study relied upon and took for granted their proficiency in English which enabled them to easily search for, watch, and read materials about animal farming and veganism, and the availability of and ability to buy speciality vegan products, indicative of at least their educational and class privileges. Even if not recognised by the research participants themselves, these constituted important material factors enabling their veganism. Construction of the Self as Unique: Performing Masculinity Differently As a conducive factor in facilitating the vegan transition but also functioning as a narrative device explaining why they became vegan, it was typical for the men to present themselves as having always stood out from others, including doing masculinity differently (for more details on this aspect, see Chaps. 7 and 8). This was manifested in making unique life choices, for instance, opting for alternative civilian service instead of the compulsory military service for men in Finland and Estonia, quitting alcohol, or choosing an unconventional educational path in a feminised field. Some men related such choices explicitly to doing masculinity in alternative, unconventional, and more progressive ways, transgressing from dominant cultural masculinity scripts (this point will be further explored in Chap. 7): Lukas, 25, FIN: From a young age I’ve been kind of like used to being a bit strange in a way. Like not using alcohol and all these things, like I never kind of did the expected thing and I feel like maybe that for me has been also a source of some kind of pride or strength in a way. I don’t mind kind of feeling like I’m different. I feel like that can also be like a masculine thing to do in a way, so

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there’s definitely not this feeling of being like less manly if I’m with some male friends of mine for instance. […] I feel like in my family we haven’t had this kind of really traditional gender roles between my father and mother, for instance. It has always been like for me … it’s just kind of a laughing matter, this kind of like a macho attitude.

Lukas’s narrative illustrates the ways in which most men in this study presented themselves, claiming to feel comfortable with standing out and making atypical and unpopular life choices. They also claimed not to be bothered by (the prospect of) having their masculinity questioned. Constructing alternative masculinities was regarded by the research participants as conducive to adopting veganism and used as a justification for why they adopted veganism, as opposed to most other men around them. It was in this context that several men made sense of their veganism—as yet another unconventional choice that they had made in life. Again, their privileged position in the social hierarchy makes it easier for them to pursue such alternative practices. Meaningful Past Experiences of Connecting to a Nonhuman Animal or Eating Meat In narrating their paths to veganism, the research participants engaged in retrospective meaning-making, where the process of becoming vegan was incorporated into their biographies, as they associated it with other life events, some of which assumed significance only from their present vantage point as vegans. As one of the prime examples of this, in explaining what prompted them to become vegan or was a significant influence in this process, several men brought up past experiences, from childhood, teenage, or later years, involving nonhuman animals. For instance, experiences of close relationships with a companion animal, typically a dog they had lived with, were shared and identified as important influences that eventually led to veganism: Ott, 28, EST: I just woke up one day and thought … I had a dog and I loved him a lot. He lived to the age of fifteen, he was a year younger than I was, I grew up with him. I would never eat my dog. And if I would never eat my dog, then why should I … If I know what a dog is capable of: all these thoughts and feelings. … Well, I don’t know about his thoughts but I know he is a living being and everything he is capable of, then I know that other animals are also capable

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of this. Not exactly the same things, but still. The difference is too small! And then it suddenly occurred to me that this makes no sense! I sat down at the breakfast table with my parents and declared ‘I’m no longer eating meat!’

Ott’s experience indicates how a close bond with a nonhuman animal, typically a companion animal considered kin, can produce a major transformation in thinking about and relating to other animals. Yet, many non-­ vegans live with companion animals and continue to eat other animals, without perceiving this as a major contradiction. Extending the idea of personhood attributed to (some) companion animals to other animals remains difficult for most people in light of speciesist social norms attributing greater value to some nonhuman animals and species than to others. Experiences such as the one shared by Ott suggest that making this conceptual and emotional move facilitates the vegan transition. On the more negative side, unpleasant past bodily experiences of eating meat were recalled (for more on this aspect, see Chap. 4). This is captured well in Kalev’s account, critical of speciesist socialisation in which children are conditioned to eat nonhuman animals, irrespective of their desire to do so: Kalev, 43, EST: In hindsight, recalling my first memories from childhood, I have a strong recollection of not liking meat. I never wanted to eat it, I wanted to leave it on the plate. But my parents always told me ‘You have to eat it!’ At that time, people just had this ‘you have to ….’ mentality. I remember some meals at the kindergarten. I recall this one situation, there was chicken liver and hearts. I could never eat these hearts. A friend of mine picked some blood vessels out of them and showed us how he is eating them. This seemed so disgusting to me! But that’s how it goes, if you are forced to do something, then you become used to it. Finally, I just got used to eating [meat]. I really didn’t like meat. Another memory I have is from when I was twelve. At that time, schoolchildren had to work in the summer, to do some community work. I worked at a bird factory, in the slaughterhouse. For two weeks I worked in a chicken slaughterhouse. I could see the whole process and I remember I couldn’t eat chicken for two or three months, despite being told that I have to. Because I had seen with my own eyes what it involves. But finally, the pressure was so big that I started to eat it, I was being forced. So, I learned to eat meat in my childhood.

The experiences introduced in this section illustrate how sometimes making the connection between meat and a nonhuman animal as a living being occurs in a rather abrupt and unpredictable way in various everyday

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settings. To use the terminology of Carol Adams (1990), in these instances, the absent referent suddenly becomes present. Even if this did not result in becoming vegan immediately after, such sudden and rather intense realisations lingered, sometimes for years, before the research participants adopted veganism: Olavi, 33, FIN: I actually remember the exact moment when I stopped eating meat, we were sitting at my friend’s summer cottage by a campfire and we were roasting a chicken and at that moment I realised that actually that the chicken had been alive like two days ago. So, and … do I really want to eat this like because it looked like a chicken? Usually, when you eat meat, it looks like something processed, but that was like full-blown chicken. So, at that moment I realised that I don’t need this, I can survive without meat and it gradually became evident that at some point I would become vegan also, but it took me a long time because I was never interested in nutrition or healthy eating or anything. So, it took me a long time to like cut cheese and that kind of stuff away from my eating habits.

Many non-vegans have likely had a meaningful encounter with a nonhuman animal at some point in their lives, without most of them becoming vegan as a result. Thus, these events do not feature as turning points in the biographies of omnivores. As such events become significant for vegans in retrospect, as they are placed in the biographical context, they can be used as narrative resources in producing accounts of going vegan. Connecting such past experiences to their present lives enabled the men to validate newly assumed knowledge and values on human-animal relations and veganism and thus facilitated their vegan transition. Relational Veganism: The Influence of Others While individual rational action tended to be foregrounded in the vegan transition narratives, relational aspects were also significant in becoming and remaining vegan (see Chaps. 4 and 5). The role of specific others or a larger community was important in the transition process, for instance, a vegan friend, family member, or partner, being part of a subculture or community (such as the straight-edge punk subculture) or being active in leftist political circles: Indrek, 34, EST: It all started when my partner became vegan, practically overnight. I didn’t know what veganism is. She threw everything [non-vegan]

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out of the fridge, well not everything, but she didn’t any more want to eat and cook [animal-based foods]. I obviously respected her decision and didn’t want to put her in an uncomfortable situation where she would have to cook meat or something. So, we started eating vegan at home, it was her influence. … She needed to talk to someone about these things and as we discussed it, my interest grew. First, it all seemed foreign to me, I made no connections. … But then I realised that I’m participating in taking someone’s life. After I had not eaten meat for a long time, I tried it. I didn’t like it, it seemed disgusting. Because all this had become very real. It really was someone’s body part. It was very unpleasant to eat it and from that moment on, I realised, no way. So, I became vegan through this sensation.

Indrek’s narrative illustrates how veganism is negotiated in intimate partnerships (discussed in more detail in Chap 6). His account is also an example of how the path to veganism could start with a change of behaviour or a material practice (such as eating plant-based food at home). Some research participants explicitly recognised how going vegan is a relational process where others play an important role. Here, Lauri specifically recognises the significance of his female partner in his vegan transition: Lauri, 28, FIN: I’m personally really like relational, when I think about it, in like retrospective view, because I had a lot of influence from other people, and a practical opportunity, so I was really influenced by others and I was like a vegetarian for the first few years and then I started a relationship with like a really convicted vegan. And then my sort of like half lazy vegetarian thing like became more intense and more like committed vegan sort of like thing. So, I had really big influence, I had considerable female influence on my path from vegetarian to vegan, in that transition.

Prior Values and Practices Facilitating the Vegan Transition For many people in Western societies, including in Finland and Estonia, it is not difficult to come across information about the treatment of nonhuman animals in factory farms and about veganism, as these issues are increasingly being discussed in mainstream and social media. Indeed, the disturbing nature and urgency of such material can be an important driver behind veganism, as I discussed previously. Given the smallness of the Estonian society in particular, it is likely that most people know someone who is vegan, facilitating the spread of information about veganism. However, only a few people become vegan after learning about veganism.

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How receptive one is to veganism is shaped, amongst other factors, by one’s prior values and practices that resonate with veganism. For instance, for men with a prior interest in sustainable living, coming across information about veganism and in particular about the damage of intensive animal farming on the environment resonated with these ideals, making them more open to adopting veganism: Tanel, 31, EST: I had a phase of life where I became interested in meditation, living in the countryside and sustainable living more broadly. I made an Excel table on Google Drive where I listed cool web pages and ideas about how you could warm water for yourself, grow plants and so on […] I am still thinking that it would be nice to live in the countryside with the children, surrounded by nature.

As another example illustrating the importance of previously held beliefs in the path to veganism, a few Estonian men associated their veganism with their spiritual practices and backgrounds, notably Buddhism and meditation2: Sander, 19, EST: I first became acquainted with Buddhism about five years ago and veganism came a bit later. I feel like Buddhism gives a very strong base for veganism. It has given me a very clear understanding that I and other animals are not essentially different. […] Tanel, 31, EST: There was a period when I meditated for a long time. Every day, for about forty minutes after I woke up. Meditation does things with your brain. You feel calmer and start valuing some other things. These things are connected: if you want a clean way of life then you can’t really eat dead animals. I found my way to veganism somehow smoothly; I didn’t know anything about it before. I somehow arrived at it. It was the turning point of my life. After this, I lived like a bit in a horror movie. I mean in the sense that you see what happens around you in shopping malls and restaurants and everywhere. It’s awful how many animals are actually killed. […] I think it was because of … I think these things [meditation and veganism] are somehow connected. That if you are calmer, you understand yourself, the world and your surroundings better and start to actually look around. When I think back, I feel like I had sunglasses or some kind of blinds on. You don’t even think for a moment that someone has actually been killed to satisfy your tastebuds. You don’t even think for a moment how it came to be this way. So, you won’t make the connec2

 In Estonia, while one of the most secular countries in Europe, spiritual practices abound.

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tion. But if you breathe for a while and meditate, you begin to think about things more calmly, whether what you are doing is right. How you behave, whether you are screaming, if you are anxious. Then you realise that you need to take some time off to understand these things.

Although Buddhism and meditation tend to be considered rather individualist practices, in the sense that they typically do not entail active political intervention for social change, the values of compassion and the condemnation of killing living beings that they cultivate resonate with the vegan ethos, thereby facilitating the vegan transition.

Distinct Paths to Veganism In this section, I present four typical paths to veganism. In doing so, I continue identifying key factors and circumstances that were conducive to the men’s vegan transition, complementing the ones I outlined above and providing more detail to some of the aspects discussed previously. The following four themes underscore the different contexts in which men’s veganism emerged, as well as somewhat distinct profiles of the men in this study. Although the discussion below is grouped according to the main motivations that the men identified behind their veganism, their broader vegan experience complicates the categorisation of vegans into ethical, health, and environmental vegans, as I demonstrate later. Nonhuman Animals and Social Justice For most men in the study, concern over the well-being and lives of nonhuman animals was central to their veganism, if not from the beginning, then as they gradually learned more about how humans treat other animals, it became an increasingly important driver, as I discussed above. Broadly, two kinds of positions within this theme can be distinguished: first, linking animal justice to other social justice issues and, second, perceiving it as a separate issue or not considering these connections as significant (although the latter did include in many cases attention to environmental issues) (see also Chap. 7). This section takes a look at the transition narratives where animal ethics was a key driver behind the research participants’ veganism. The links that some men drew between veganism and other social justice causes help to understand how a specific group of men arrived at veganism. For these

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men, animal advocacy and veganism were part of a broader effort to move towards a more egalitarian and just world. These men understood animal exploitation as linked to other forms of exploitation (for more details, see Chap. 7). Explicitly understanding veganism as part of a broader set of egalitarian values and commitments to social equality was much more typical among the Finnish research participants, with only a few Estonian interviewees fitting this profile. The reasons behind this have to do with the social and cultural settings of Finland making it a more conducive context in which to adopt veganism, specifically for men. For instance, the Finnish society is more egalitarian than Estonia and exhibits more flexible and egalitarian norms of masculinity. Finland is among the countries in the EU with the highest levels of gender equality (European Institute for Gender Equality, 2021). While independent social movements in Estonia under the Soviet occupation until 1991 were virtually non-existent, Finland has a much longer history of social justice movements, such as feminist activism, as well as some subcultures that encourage the emergence of veganism. For instance, several Finnish men for whom animal justice was one among various social justice issues had been part of the straight-edge punk subculture in their teenage years which supported an intersectional approach to social justice, including veganism: Lukas, 25, FIN: I was quite active in this kind of like hardcore punk subculture at the time. And became affiliated with the kind of other people who were in that culture as well, and many of them were vegan. And interested in all kinds of radical politics. So, that was kind of like the social sphere. […] Most of the people I knew and became friends with were vegans, and so it just was like really natural. […] I don’t know, maybe being an angry 14-year-old at the time [laughs] there was something that like first provoked me, but then again, I was kind of already maybe open to the idea of it. So, over time it just felt like I want to be part of this gang in a way. I was also like straight edge at the time. I didn’t use any alcohol or drugs or anything and that was kind of … went together with this veganism thing at the time. So, for me, it was kind of like a package of beliefs that really resonated with me, as a whole, kind of. I grew up in this kind of countryside place in Finland and I just felt really alienated from a lot of the stuff that I saw around me, people drinking a lot and kind of not really living up to any moral sort of anything I could really believe in. I felt like maybe veganism was part of becoming something else in a way, trying to kind of set up what I believe in, like at that young age where I wasn’t really developed as a person yet in a way. It gave me a kind of like clear moral code of what to follow

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[laughs]. […] I think it was like important part in becoming who I thought I want to be in a way.

Participation in this scene in one’s youth was identified as an important turning point in life, which provided a sense of purpose and facilitated adopting alternative values and practices that the wider meat and alcohol-­ centric culture did not support. Previous research has emphasised the importance of a supportive community, such as the punk subculture in taking up and maintaining veganism (Cherry, 2006; Stephens Griffin, 2017). Most participants in the straight-edge punk movement are men and previous studies have discussed contradictions in the ways that masculinities are constructed in this scene (see Haenfler, 2004, 2006). While the movement’s core values and practices include animal justice, veganism, anti-sexism, and pacifism, these co-exist with displays of hypermasculinity, thus sustaining, to some extent, the very values that the participants contest (Haenfler, 2006, p. 103). Despite these contradictions, my interviewees spoke of being part of this movement as a past phase of their lives that was conducive to taking up veganism. At the same time, they were critical of and attempted to distance themselves from what they deemed as “toxic” ways of doing masculinity. Also, they challenged heteronormative gendered power relations and were sensitive towards other social justice issues (for a more detailed discussion of the men’s gender and intersectional politics and practices, see Chap. 7): Ilmari, 27, FIN: Equality for example has been important for me from like from every standpoint, you know, like different ethnicities, different genders.

The men who became vegan as part of efforts to contribute towards animal justice and more egalitarian gender and other intra-human power relations were typically doing masculinity in unconventional ways beyond veganism. This included having an educational background or being employed in feminised fields, for instance, a degree in a field of social sciences or humanities, including in gender studies. These men recognised that their ways of doing masculinity differ from normative expectations for men in the Finnish and Estonian societies. Some admitted that their immersion in knowledge and professional activities related to understanding society and people or experience in care work was conducive to becoming vegan. These activities and values were seen as aligning with the vegan ethos of care and compassion:

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Veli-Matti, 34, FIN: I’m a bachelor in [a field in social sciences and healthcare] and I studied in a big campus for social and healthcare students and about 90–95 per cent of them are women. So, I have kind of been surrounded by and I have chosen a livelihood, a profession that is very feminine in the society— caretaking, guidance, working with people. So, I think that helped me in the transition, I guess. […] I studied Gender Studies, a couple of courses in Sociology. […] I guess there has been always a spark for [laughs] selecting some … I don’t know, values …, something, that it was easy finally for me to make the transition to becoming a vegan. Now it makes sense. There were some hints in my background, I guess. I see it that way.

A notable way in which these vegan men challenged gender norms discursively and materially was by opting out of the compulsory military service for men in Finland and Estonia, and instead choosing the alternative civilian service, prompted by the pacifist values they held.3 This typically occurred years before they became vegan. The alternative service they undertook commonly involved feminised activities, such as care work. While some men did not explicitly link this experience to their vegan transition years later, for others it was a significant life event that facilitated their vegan transition: Lauri, 28, FIN: I had these really big pacifist ideas about objecting to killing people. So, I went to the civilian service training centre at the age of 19. And that was like the ground-breaking thing because for the first time ever I met other vegetarians, I had never met any before. Coming from a town in Finland to somewhere where people from all over Finland are brought together and like really different kinds of people. There are those sorts of people with dreadlocks and the sort of anarchist and anti-fascist people and those sorts of people who have read Tolstoy, and those really religious people who like don’t wanna go to the army for religious reasons. Like people from all kinds of different walks of life. And we discussed over lunch about like dietary choices and it was the first time where I was sitting at a table and there could be like four vegetarians or vegans and like two meat eaters so the sort of tables really turned. I could say that the civilian service centuries […] [were] like really different from the mainstream society. And the training also had some lectures and […] for the first time I received like information about the climate impact of eating.

3  The alternative civilian service is a more established institution in Finland. It is therefore easier for men in Finland to opt for the alternative service, in contrast to Estonia, where they face more structural and symbolic constraints in doing so.

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Lauri’s narrative highlights the importance of institutional support for veganism (for more on this, see Chap. 8). The military is a masculinised institution that actively relies on and reproduces both hegemonic masculinity and speciesist values. Lauri’s narrative demonstrates how the military’s affiliate, the alternative civilian service, can inadvertently enable men’s veganism and alternative performances of masculinity, as it brings together and provides opportunities for an exchange of ideas and values for men with nonnormative ways of doing masculinity. In this path to veganism, where the central motivation behind veganism was animal justice and its links to various social justice causes, and where intellectual reasoning about these issues was foregrounded, material aspects, such as access to nutritious vegan food, were equally significant, alongside ideas and values. This is summarised well by Lauri, in the continuation of his narrative: Lauri, 28, FIN: But I think like really the most important thing is the most mundane or everyday thing and it’s that the civilian service training centre was the first-ever institution to provide an option, like vegetarian food or a vegan food option, and no questions were asked and you didn’t have to like bring any papers.

Experiences such as Lauri’s highlight the importance of the availability of plant-based meal options in institutions, as a means to support veganism. For men’s veganism, in particular, plant-based food in masculinised institutions inhabited overwhelmingly by men, such as the military, are significant, especially in countries where military service is compulsory for men, as in Finland and Estonia.4 The ways in which institutions facilitate or hinder veganism become apparent here. In Finland, significantly more plant-based options are available in institutional settings than in Estonia, where access to nutritious plant-based meals in institutions such as hospitals, schools, and the military remains very limited. Highlighting the importance of relationality discussed above, typically, these pro-feminist vegan men had been surrounded by people with similar values, including vegan friends and partners at the time of their transition or also before it. A few were political activists in leftist and green political parties. These men’s intersectional approach to animal and human justice 4  I deliberately speak of the provision of plant-based meals in the military, not its support of veganism, as I consider the military an institution incompatible with vegan values.

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shaped their understanding of veganism (see Chap. 3). Several of them had ambivalent attitudes about the relationship of veganism to capitalism, which was both celebrated and critiqued, sometimes by the same research participant. These critical perspectives condemned popular conceptualisations of veganism as a “lifestyle” involving certain modes of consumption, including criticism of “health” vegans: Lauri, 28, FIN: So maybe you have like ten different oat milks at the market and they will have a 20% share of the milk market, but I think it’s more important to sort of problematise and try to delegitimise the livestock industry or animal industry per se than having a lot of different vegan options. It [a vegan fair in Helsinki] was really positive and I went this year for the first time. I don’t know what it was in the previous years, but there was this sort of a really optimistic and enthusiastic and excited atmosphere there. Yay, there’s a new ice cream and let’s taste the oats, so good, this sort of real happiness about having new products. Which is nice but I fear it will become this sort of like a differentiated lifestyle for some like middle-class or well-off wealthy, like Helsinki-based people. […] It has to be about ending the meat industry, rather than having more vegan options. … It’s hard to explain but if we have like a hundred thousand or so vegans in Finland who enjoy a vegan lifestyle and their life is good and they can go to restaurants and eat tasty vegan food, but the mainstream society still every day participates in killing billions of animals, then it has to have something to do with ending the livestock industry in the long term. So, it’s really hard to form a simple opinion about the fact that we have more vegan options available because it can’t just be a lifestyle for me. It has to be this sort of like political thing or like changing the world for the better. I think many vegan friends are sort of like easy to be satisfied. Life is becoming easier, there are more options and some friends who have been vegan for a long time remember the times when you had nothing at restaurants and you had really limited options at markets, so they’re like happy. Yes, life is easier now, we get tasty options a lot. So, it’s good, but it can’t be enough, it can’t be like that’s it. […] It has to have an element of protest against meat-eating culture and meat-­ eating societies rather than just like this fashionable lifestyle.

Instead of a diet or lifestyle, veganism was conceptualised by these men as a political intervention (see Chap. 3). Because of their strong grounding in animal ethics, it was typical for these men to be sceptical of what they called “health veganism”, constructed as oppositional to veganism for animal ethics reasons, considered the only legitimate motivation behind veganism:

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Lauri, 28, FIN: Even nowadays I have this sort of like bad attitude to health veganism. I didn’t like these sorts of selfish reasons like health reasons. My veganism was more linked to the sort of like anarchist animal rights things and like anti-fascism and feminism and that sort of thing. It has to be this political thing and like self-centred health things are not my thing. But I don’t really know any health-based vegans or vegetarians. […] I may be wrong, but this sort of American vegan bodybuilder men, vegan athletes and vegan celebrities that are sort of promoting veganism for health reasons. […] I don’t know, but I don’t really care about like that sort of like health veganism thing as much as caring about like sentient beings and like the climate.

Previous research (Greenebaum, 2012) has similarly found that often those who define themselves as “ethical vegans” construct themselves as authentic, and from this position consider “health vegans” inauthentic. Several men however recognised the health benefits of veganism as a welcome bonus. While most men fitting the profile outlined in this section distanced themselves from what they deemed as “health veganism”, drawing a clear boundary between “health” and “ethical” vegans is in practice somewhat complicated, as the experiences of the interviewed men suggest, discussed in the next section. From a Plant-Based Diet for Health Reasons Towards Veganism Several vegan and feminist scholars have critically remarked how in Western cultural narratives of veganism, the health aspects of veganism have received disproportionate attention, at the expense of animal ethics (see Oliver, 2021; Greenebaum & Dexter, 2018). In the path to veganism introduced here, the men’s own health and well-being were the key drivers, at least initially. Also, food and eating practices were central to this kind of vegan transition. Indeed, it would be more accurate to say that at least some men did not initially become vegan, but adopted a plant-based diet (if we follow definitions of veganism, such as the Vegan Society’s, that conceptualise veganism as more than a food practice and emphasise challenging animal exploitation at its core [see Introduction and Chap. 3]). Arriving at veganism for health motivations occurred in somewhat varied ways. It ensued either as a result of a prolonged and conscious process of seeking information on ways to improve one’s health (significantly, via online media, as discussed earlier), due to not feeling well in one’s body,

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for instance, because of being overweight or having other health problems. Alternatively, in a more abrupt or random manner, an unexpected and unpleasant visceral bodily reaction to eating meat was experienced (for a detailed discussion of the embodied dimensions of men’s veganism, see Chap. 4). This led first to omitting meat from the diet and later on to veganism, as in Peeter’s experience: Peeter, 33, EST: After some party the previous day, I felt so bad in the morning, I had this acidic feeling. I remember I didn’t have much appetite. I found a box of sprouts in my fridge and ate them. And then I thought, oh, I’m feeling great, and after that, I started investigating if there is a difference in how you feel after eating some kind of food or another. And that’s how it began. I found information about different foods from the internet, about what is good and what is bad and why. And that’s how I came across veganism.

Another commonly mentioned catalyst was trying to eat plant-based for a certain period, also typically prompted by health considerations. Several men spoke of having participated in the Vegan Challenge5 campaign: Mikael, 36, FIN: I started about two years ago. […] It was an experiment, like it was supposed to be a two-week experiment. … I watched What the Health documentary … and there was this statement that it [eating animals] affects your health and so on and I was like, well I don’t believe that, but let’s try … and I decided that I try two weeks and see what happens and … well this is what happened. You don’t turn back. […] it was easier than I thought and I felt so much better that after the two weeks, I decided that maybe I’ll try for a month and then after the month, I was already like well, why would I ever go back […] I started to think more about the animal rights and such like I think like after a few weeks or after a month and I think the reason why I think I can’t ever go back to eating meat or even milk or anything like that … the reason for that is more in the animal rights. […] I guess I just wanted to explore the information available more like when I was like Googling for the recipes and about the health information and then found something else too. Like also that animal

5  The Vegan Challenge is a campaign typically run by animal advocacy and vegan organisations in various countries, including in Finland and Estonia, to encourage people to try a plant-based diet for one month. Participants of the challenge are provided daily newsletters with practical information, including recipes. Such campaigns tend to focus on food and less on other aspects of veganism and present veganism primarily as a personal choice. For more information about the Vegan Challenge in Finland, see Laakso et al., 2021.

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questions … like learned more that’s about that about the production of the animal factories.

While the Vegan Challenge tends to be almost entirely food-focused and could be thought of as a campaign to encourage people to try a plant-­ based diet, the accounts of the men in this study indicate that taking part in this challenge can lead to veganism for nonhuman animals. Previous research has also demonstrated the importance of the support of the Vegan Challenge community in the vegan transition (Laakso et al., 2021). Several narratives beginning with health-related reasons behind veganism conveyed the experience of coming across veganism “accidentally”, not as a result of deliberate choices. Typically, the men mentioned encountering one specific piece of information, such as a particular health effect of eating meat. This, in turn, prompted them to seek more (similar) information, which then finally led to learning about other aspects of veganism as well. Typically, this became what was at least expected to be a temporary break from eating meat or all animal products, which then gradually progressed to veganism: Martin, 27, EST: It was about four years ago when I read a book, which said that animal products, which we are used to eating, cause infections and aren’t necessarily healthy. This resonated with me and I started to pay attention to this when shopping for food. I began to feel that it’s disgusting to cut chicken, it’s much more fun to look at a carrot. And then I started to cook more plant-based foods and didn’t any more buy meat. I would still eat it outside home. So, I naturally started to cook more plant-based meals and at some point, I realised that I have not bought any animal product for more than half a year. And then I thought, what’s the deal with this veganism, I should probably read up about it. So, I came to veganism in a totally different way, through a visceral experience. […] And then I started googling and realised it’s completely f****d up what’s going on. For two weeks I just googled every day. And then I was like okay, I log off, I’m out. I’m no longer participating in this. I was a bit upset and disappointed at the whole world, that everyone is not vegan. I was like angry at everyone. I kept talking to people about it, in much detail. After these two weeks of reading, I couldn’t fall asleep one night. That’s when I realised that I can do something for the world to be a better place. It was a very profound switch.

Martin’s narrative illustrates how the research participants’ embodied and emotional responses to eating nonhuman animals and their suffering, as

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opposed to or alongside moral deliberation, can prompt a—sometimes rather abrupt—transition to veganism, a theme explored in Chap. 4. A few men who for health reasons had been seeking to reduce their meat and dairy consumption, as they had observed feeling physically better without consuming animal products, did not initially know how to prepare tasty and nutritious plant-based meals, due to their speciesist socialisation in food cultures where products made from nonhuman animals are central to most dishes. This encouraged them to seek information about and begin trying plant-based cooking: Kasper, 36, FIN: I was eating a lot of especially dairy and I thought that there has to be some … other way. I found myself shopping and I bought only like 10 different types of dairy products. So, I think that ‘This can’t be right, I have to eat something different’. And then I introduced more plant-based foods to my diet and I found out that actually it’s quite. … I felt quite good, energetic. And then I decided to study a bit more and at the same time I started to … or we with my wife we started to learn about how to cook vegan meals, and once you know how to cook vegan meals, then it’s, you, don’t know, you don’t need any animal products to prepare nutritious and delicious meals.

Films, video clips on YouTube, other online sources, and books provided the men with the knowledge that cooking and eating vegan is possible, as several men had previously thought this as overly complicated. These views reflect popular understandings of plant-based diets as difficult to pursue: Paul, 44, EST: I started to try these recipes [from a vegan cookbook]. It seemed unthinkable to me that it’s possible to cook without milk, eggs, fish, chicken, meat. It always used to be that when you asked what’s for dinner, then people would say that today we are eating chicken or fish or pig and everything else was just a side dish […] So, dishes were always defined according to the meat—‘Let’s take some pig?’ or ‘Let’s make chicken today!’ or ‘Let’s cook sausages today!’ And everything else was secondary. I remember when I made the first salad from that book, a salad with beans, lime and mango. I really liked it and thought wow, it’s really possible! […]

The narratives of Kasper and Paul highlight how speciesist knowledge of human nutrition and cooking which we are socialised into can prevent many from becoming vegan sooner, due to a lack of imagination and skills in food preparation in alternative ways. To begin to exit this dominant

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framework of the meat culture requires unlearning some taken-for-granted knowledge and obtaining information and practice in how to make nutritious plant-based meals. This process typically involves resources such as time and money, giving an advantage to privileged people. However, for most such (initially) health-oriented men, after gradually learning about veganism, animal ethics became either the primary reason for their veganism or at least an (equally) important motivation: Peeter, 33, EST: These YouTube videos I watched about health and so on, talked about other things as well and this opened my eyes even more, so I developed ethical motivations pretty fast. […] So, now I am vegan primarily for ethical reasons. First, I alternated between vegetarianism and veganism; I tried for a month to eat vegan at home and not when I was out. From the health perspective, I didn’t see a reason why I should be 100% vegan […]. But once you start considering the ethics, you realise that not even one small piece of animal-based food is excusable. So, I can clearly say that right now I am vegan for ethical reasons and everything else is a bonus.

Only a few men in the study continued to emphasise their own health and personal well-being as the main reasons behind their veganism (see Chap. 3) at the time of the interview. Environmental Motivations Links between the detrimental effects of eating nonhuman animals on the environment and especially on the climate are gradually becoming mainstream knowledge, particularly for privileged people in the West (see Chap. 1). The concept of eco-anxiety (Ojala, 2018; Panu, 2020; Coffey et  al., 2021) has recently been coined, capturing feelings of worry and concern of varying intensity about climate change and environmental destruction, including fears about one’s own and the planet’s future, seen as intertwined (for more on this, see Chap. 4). For most men in this study, environmental and climate issues were important drivers behind their veganism, typically taking second place after animal ethics and for a few men the primary reason why they became vegan (see Appendix for an  overview of  the research participants, pp. 241–245). It was common to learn about the environmental effects of intensive animal farming upon becoming immersed in information about veganism and plant-based diets, typically through films or video clips found online.

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Some of those who arrived at veganism through discovering the links between intensive animal farming and environmental damage already had broader concerns about environmental issues or were interested in sustainable living. Learning that going vegan can reduce one’s carbon footprint resonated with these previously held climate concerns and provided a (further) impetus for adopting veganism, as I have highlighted in the previous sections of this chapter. Thus, environmental arguments behind veganism made the research participants more susceptible to information about other aspects of veganism. Going vegan significantly expanded the men’s awareness of environmental issues related to the animal-industrial complex globally: Oskar, 32, FIN: You will see all the news and everything and they are related, like all the plastic in the ocean news and stopping pollution and the Arctic, the North Pole is melting and the meat industry, everything is related to each other. So, of course it’s gonna impact you, that you will learn more and more about like everything that’s there.

The idea that going vegan for the environment has a significant beneficial impact on the climate and should be done for the well-being of future generations was also articulated by some: Tõnis, 33, EST: I came across an interesting question: what would you do with your life if you only had one year to live? I thought about it and realised that I would like to travel and spend time with my family and friends, but I also realised that I would like to do something good this year. I would like to leave a good trace to the world and when I look at my values and skills, then this [going vegan] seemed to be the best way to do something useful in the world. So, this was my impetus behind going vegan. And as for deeper reasons, I care very much about nature and animals but more than animals I care about the climate. […] So that’s my motivation. It is very hard for me to think that my daughter, once she grows up, will be living in a different world than we do at the moment. And that she might one day ask me ‘Hey, dad, what did you do?’ Then I know that I have at least done my share for things to change and maybe I can influence some others to do this. By the way, I already have. So that’s a good thought to fall asleep with.

This and some other narratives on environmental concerns underscore the relational dimensions of veganism; however, they tended to remain rather anthropocentric, where the motivation to become vegan stemmed

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primarily from concern over the well-being of future human generations and less about other species. In the account of Tõnis, care for the environment and nonhuman animals was indeed seen as a quite separate issue from worry about the fate of humanity. Also, a more general sense of ecoanxiety (Ojala, 2018; Panu, 2020; Coffey et al., 2021) was articulated in relation to climate change and its consequences (see Chap. 4).

The Significance of Becoming Vegan in the Men’s Lives: Changing Values and Selves Typically, the interviewed men considered becoming vegan as a significant life change, which extended beyond the material practice of stopping to eat other animals—adopting veganism transformed their broader values, worldviews, and identities. According to the research participants, becoming vegan shaped many aspects of their lives in significant ways, including their relationships with others (see Chaps. 4 and 5). For many men, going vegan brought a profound change to their sense of self. It was considered one of the best choices they had ever made in their lives: Ivar, 24, EST: It [veganism] has shaped many choices I’ve made afterwards. It has been a very profound change of identity […] It’s probably the biggest change I’ve ever made in my life.

Looking back at their pre-vegan selves, several wished they had made the change sooner, as in the narrative of Olavi, where he laments not having developed a more critical outlook on life sooner: Olavi, 33, FIN: It’s stupid to say, but I was like a normal person until I was 25, I went to the army, I ate meat, I never like challenged basically anything.

The transformation that the men underwent involved questioning not only their former animal-based diets but also led them to rethink human-­ animal relations. The knowledge they accumulated about animal ethics, environment, and human health in relation to eating nonhuman animals in the process of going vegan also changed their understanding of and trust in human institutions and dominant social practices. As a result, several men developed more critical perspectives towards institutions and began to contest hegemonic knowledge more broadly. The treatment of nonhuman animals in the animal-industrial complex and its consequences

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on the environment were a significant and shocking revelation for many and the feeling of having been deceived was articulated, once the men learned how these facts have been kept hidden from the public: Timo, 38, FIN: I became a more critical thinker towards my cultural environment and also the government or like towards the country that I live in. … Nobody told me that they [farmed nonhuman animals] have been caged and that they have never seen the sunlight. Nobody told me that. Where is the consumer protection there? The slaughterhouses should have glass walls and then this information should be available and be provided. … I’m certainly much more critical due to the fact that I found out that I had been betrayed all my life, not learning, not being told that it’s completely wrong to do what everyone does.

It was common to talk about veganism as a source of physical and mental well-being, even for those men who had not become vegan for health reasons. Direct, overwhelmingly positive physical effects of a plant-based diet on the body were mentioned by many (for more on men’s veganism in relation to health and well-being, see Aavik & Velgan, 2021): Ivar, 24, EST: So, this period that I didn’t eat animal products was right away reflected in my health. I think I am lactose intolerant. I remember from childhood that when I ate cornflakes with milk, I experienced an awful stomach ache. […] After I gave up [animal products], I’ve realised that my health is better, the skin of my face is better, which used to be a problem when I was a teenager.

Significantly, the overall sense of well-being that many men described stemmed from the feeling that by giving up animal products, one is doing the morally right thing and can contribute towards a better world on several fronts. The theme of veganism providing one with a sense of hope figured in several narratives: Eetu, 18, FIN: I feel like I’m doing good or I'm not causing harm. And myself, I physically feel better when eating vegan as well and I feel like I’m performing better. […] Veganism … it’s kind of, I would say, it kind of saved me, or that’s what I believe. Because as I said, I was lonely, I was drinking and smoking and I was about to quit school and I was angry and upset towards the society […].

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But then, in some way, I think veganism gave me hope to overcome my depression. […] I was in a really bad place but I think in some way veganism gave me hope to overcome all of that […] because I know by being vegan […] my lifestyle can affect my well-being and then even though I was vegan, I was still doing all the unhealthy stuff, but then I decided to quit all that and I started to feel so much better even though it took a year or so, but still and I, as I said, I think it was because of veganism like saved me from quitting school and alienation from the society. […] It gave me hope to overcome all of that, bad things.

These ways in which the men made sense of their vegan transition and its significance in the context of their lives attest to how the physical and mental aspects of health are interrelated and challenge the mind-body dualism that has been particularly central to the construction of white privileged masculinities (see Chap. 4).

Conclusions This chapter has explored how privileged vegan men in Finland and Estonia arrive at veganism and the significance they attribute to this transition in their biographies. By and large, three major motivations behind becoming and remaining vegan—animal ethics, environmental concerns, and personal health reasons—dominated the narratives, with the first two much more typical than the latter, although many regarded the potential health benefits of plant-­ based eating as a welcome bonus. It was typical for the vegan transition to be initiated by one of these considerations, but over time, other motivations for remaining vegan also become important: for some, supplementing the initial reasons, and for others, surpassing them in significance. The dominance of these three themes in vegan narratives aligns with the findings of previous research (Fox & Ward, 2008). The men’s transition narratives however suggest that these three prominent (at least in vegan communities and popular representations of veganism) buzzwords representing the key motivations behind veganism do not adequately represent the actual complexity of the process of going vegan. To learn that someone went vegan for environmental reasons, for instance, offers a limited understanding of (the development of) their values, motivations, and actions, as well as events and material aspects on this path and the context that shaped these. It is more accurate to describe the vegan transition as a

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combination of various intellectual, practical, and material factors, such as biographical events, social and cultural circumstances, relationships, and embodied practices where these elements feed into one another. A focus on animal ethics, environment, and health as shorthand and self-evident explanations behind vegan transition experiences is problematic also because it implies that a rational decision of going vegan is taken after acquiring specific new knowledge or undergoing moral development. As this chapter has demonstrated, material aspects were of key importance in the transition, as well as behaviour change before a change of values, alongside intellectual reasoning. These material factors included the availability of nutritious vegan food in institutional settings, temporarily avoiding meat because of a health problem, or adopting a plant-based diet after a partner became vegan. Even in the case of men, who first became intellectually aware of nonhuman animal exploitation and deemed it morally wrong and then changed their behaviour (eating nonhuman animals) to correspond to their values (nonhuman animal exploitation is unethical), such material aspects significantly shaped their vegan transition in the particular time and place in which they developed a moral stance against consuming nonhuman animals. The idea that behaviour change can precede and facilitate a change in values, in contrast to the opposite, as typically assumed, is an approach to social change—and specifically to veganism— advocated, for example, by the vegan activist Tobias Leenaert (2017). Leenaert (2017) argues that moral awareness may not necessarily be the main factor in ending unethical social practices and can develop only after one ends their involvement in such a practice for reasons not necessarily having to do with ethics. Leenaert notes that it may be easier for people to morally denounce a practice when they are no longer personally participating in it. Thus, not partaking in an activity harmful to the climate, such as consuming other animals, enables one to more easily position themselves as someone who cares about the environment, even if the initial or primary reason for becoming vegan was unrelated to environmental considerations. These insights challenge strict boundaries between material, embodied, discursive, rational, and emotional elements of experience (see also Chap. 4). Thus, the vegan transition should be understood in material-­ discursive terms.6

6   For a discussion on an understanding of masculinities as material-discursive, see Hearn, 2014.

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However, as will be discussed in Chap. 5, there can be notable disparities between what the men consider important motivations behind their veganism personally and when talking to other vegans in contrast to the reasons and aspects of veganism that they communicate to (potentially hostile) non-vegans in various contexts. Alongside deliberate efforts to cultivate awareness of and moral responses to nonhuman animal suffering, several narratives referred to elements of randomness in the path to veganism—a sense of being in the “right” place at the “right” time. Some men suggested that veganism “happened” to them almost accidentally, upon coming across certain knowledge, for instance, a documentary they discovered online, without any particular intention of finding such information or having met someone (friend, partner) whose influence was significant in their vegan transition. These unanticipated events become meaningful and can be used as narrative resources in retrospect when speaking from the position of someone who has already become vegan. Non-vegans are likely to at some point in their lives randomly encounter a vegan or information about veganism, without these events having a transformative effect in their biographies. A recurring theme in the transition narratives was the sense of one thing leading to another—a snowball effect—for instance, watching a video clip on nonhuman animal exploitation leading to participation in a vegan challenge, until one became increasingly immersed in veganism. Commonly, first receiving one such piece of knowledge or eating plant-­ based for a while was followed by deliberately looking for more information, typically online. This process was facilitated by the affordances of social media platforms (in particular, YouTube and Facebook) that offer new content based on previously searched, read, or watched material. Thus, it seems almost inevitable that after watching the documentary Earthlings, similar ones, such as Cowspiracy and What the Health, were recommended by these platforms and the men ended up watching them. This underlines the significance of social media in supporting the vegan transition. The following table summarises some key factors on different analytical levels that facilitated the vegan transition for the men in this study. Not all of these are featured in the case of each research participant.

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Table 2.1  Summary of key factors and circumstances conducive to privileged men’s vegan transition in Estonia and Finland Key factors and circumstances facilitating men’s vegan transition Micro: individual Prior values and views: pacifism; egalitarianism (including gender equality); questioning established gender norms, including hegemonic masculinity; anti-oppression, nonviolence; compassion; concern about the environment, critical perspectives towards institutions and hierarchies. Practices and experiences prior to and during the vegan transition process: alternative performances of masculinity; living or having lived with a companion animal or another experience involving a nonhuman animal and developing a deeply felt connection to this individual; coming across and watching films or reading books about an aspect of veganism; doing a vegan challenge; pursuing (feminised) social sciences or humanities degrees that involve focus on social justice; professional experience in these fields; involvement in care work; spiritual practices such as Buddhism or meditation. Meso: relational/ Being surrounded by vegans (friends, family community members(s), partner, community); participation in activist and/or social justice-oriented social circles; involvement in the straight-edge punk movement. Macro: cultural, Direct and indirect institutional support to social, and veganism: access to tasty and nutritious vegan institutional food in institutional settings, for example, in the context alternative civilian service, schools, and universities; availability of gender studies and (other) social justice-focused university programmes and the normalisation of men’s participation in these; more egalitarian gender relations and acceptance of feminist ideas in the society; more flexible cultural norms of masculinity.

Privileged social position of the men (including gender, racial, educational, class privileges, able-bodiedness)

Analytical level

As summarised in Table  2.1, the social and institutional context can significantly enable or hinder men’s vegan transition, as contrasting Estonia and Finland in this respect suggests. For instance, largely due to historical reasons, the masculinised straight-edge punk movement is marginal in

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Estonia. Also, no Estonian university offers gender studies or other social justice-oriented degrees. While men are a minority among students in such programmes worldwide, this means that men studying in Estonian universities interested in gender cannot pursue gender studies degrees locally, unlike in Finland. Also, institutional vegan food provision, including in institutions occupied overwhelmingly by men, such as the military and the alternative civilian service, is much more advanced in Finland than in Estonia. At the same time, the Estonian society, with its prevalent individualist and neoliberal ideologies, has been a fertile ground for the emergence of spiritual practices. Thus, it is not surprising that a few Estonian men connected their veganism to their Buddhist backgrounds and conceptualised veganism as a practice of compassion and nonviolence. Interestingly, however, there were almost no references to religion in the men’s transition narratives, as Finland and Estonia are very secular societies. This explains why religion featured only very marginally in the men’s vegan narratives and worldviews, unlike in the vegan transition narratives of people based in the UK, where such orientations are more prominent (Stephens Griffin, 2017). The differences in these two social and cultural settings help to explain somewhat different paths to and meanings attached to veganism for men in Estonia and Finland. Overall, the findings demonstrate how the broader cultural and social resources shape the vegan transition. The interplay of these different kinds of factors on different analytical levels (micro, interpersonal/meso, and macro) complicates understanding the phenomenon of the vegan transition both empirically and theoretically, raising a number of questions. The word “transition” suggests that it is a process from one state to another with a more or less clear beginning and end point. However, as many narratives studied here indicate, it is difficult to establish an exact beginning of the vegan transition. Several research participants went vegetarian before becoming vegan—a phase that for some lasted for many years and that could be considered part of the vegan transition. How to place in the vegan transition process some profound experiences involving a nonhuman animal in the past that were considered by the interviewees significant in their path to veganism, even if adopting veganism occurred years later? Also, questions could be asked about the exact end point of the transition. Is the vegan transition complete when one stops eating nonhuman animal products? What about experiences where one first goes on a plant-based diet for health reasons but it takes several years before they begin to challenge nonhuman animal exploitation and when animal ethics becomes a driver behind their veganism only later on? Different responses to these questions are possible,

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depending on the conceptualisation of veganism that one adheres to (see Chap. 3). Thus, my findings challenge conceptualisations of the vegan transition process as a sequence of distinct stages, as some previous research has proposed (see Giacoman et al., 2021), suggesting more blurry boundaries between any phases of this process. In addition, some conceptual and methodological difficulties concern (biographical) narratives—always necessarily retrospective meaning-­making devices. It is difficult to disentangle to what extent some narrated events, such as a powerful and emotional encounter with a nonhuman animal in one’s childhood or a viscerally unpleasant experience of eating meat, influenced the decision to become vegan years later. It could be that these events made men more receptive to information about veganism later on in life, as they connected the new information and experiences to these earlier ones. Given that impression management and presenting a coherent and legible self is an important aim in communicating one’s vegan experience, also in the context of an interview (see Chap. 5), these factors certainly shaped the content of the narratives and the ways of telling significantly. Beyond what was explicitly said in the men’s narratives, it is important to also identify some more invisible or less articulated elements influencing their vegan transition. Here I want to specifically highlight those that are indicative of the research participants’ privileged position in the social hierarchy and thus significantly facilitate their vegan transition. The fact that these elements were expressed only marginally or not at all suggests that some factors conducive to becoming vegan could be taken for granted by privileged men and signify their favourable social position. For instance, the men in this study were highly proficient in English (the interviews with the Finnish men were conducted in English); they were able to find and follow information about veganism typically in English, including documentaries and books, also attesting to their educational, age, and class privileges, amongst others.7 Given that Finnish and especially Estonian are relatively small languages, most, especially new, information about veganism is not available in these languages. This means that becoming vegan might be easier for those with higher levels of English. Further, some 7  In a global comparison, Finland and Estonia are among the countries where English as a foreign language is spoken at a high level. In the 2022 EF English Proficiency index, Finland is classified as a country with very high and Estonia as with  high English language  proficiency, occupying 9th and 22nd place globally, respectively (https://www.ef.com/ wwen/epi/).

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important life choices that some men in the study had made that were conducive to taking up veganism, such as opting for the alternative civilian service and choosing a career in a feminised field, are certainly more available to privileged men, for whom it is easier to challenge normative ways of doing masculinity, including facing potential consequences of this. Being able to make material changes in one’s life towards veganism was also a significant advantage that remained largely unacknowledged. Indeed, the difficult aspects of veganism that the men highlighted were almost exclusively social (see Chaps. 4 and 5), not material. In terms of access to plant-based foods, including specialty products—becoming vegan was considered easy (although some men who had been vegan for a longer time spoke of a lack of specialty plant-based products at the time of their vegan transition and the need to cook more meals from scratch). Overwhelmingly, the men were able to afford these products and many enjoyed them regularly. There is a wide variety of specific products available for vegans in grocery stores as well as vegan-friendly dishes in restaurants, especially in urban centres of Finland and Estonia, which most men inhabited. Eating out, including when travelling, was frequently mentioned in the interviews. Further, the men did not feel out of place in the online and physical vegan communities that many were part of: the vegan movements in Estonia and Finland are made up of similarly positioned people: young, white, educated, middle-class, ethnic Estonian and Finnish, and living in urban areas. While men are underrepresented among vegans, the research participants’ privilege in terms of other social categories was able to offset this disadvantage and thus make veganism compatible with masculinity for them. On the contrary, the vegan communities the men were part of provided important support for them in their vegan transition and did not question their masculinity. This is in contrast to the experiences of many vegans of colour who have felt alienated in the physical spaces as well as the conceptual whiteness of vegan movements in the West (Harper, 2010; Polish, 2016). The vegan transition experiences of the men in my study are thus specific and not universal. They attest to the privileged social position of the research participants in terms of at least gender, ethnicity, race, and class which enabled these men to act upon newly acquired information on veganism. Also, previous research focused on whiteness and privilege in the context of veganism has arrived at similar conclusions (Harper, 2010; see also Mycek, 2018). The interviewees typically considered becoming vegan as a significant and positive life change that brought about a process of personal

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transformation. Previous research has also found that adopting veganism involves a significant transformation of identity and perspectives on the world (Giacoman et al., 2021). Although the research participants distinguished “ethical” and “health veganism” as two conflicting strands of veganism, with the latter associated with personal health and well-being, aligned with discourses of neoliberalism and individualism and more prevalent in Estonia, in practice, these boundaries might not be as strict. As the narratives suggested, personal health considerations that led to the adoption of a plant-based diet typically eventually resulted in veganism and an awareness and condemnation of nonhuman animal exploitation. At the same time, however, the men who claimed not to care about their health and strongly positioned themselves as ethical vegans were well-informed about the health aspects of veganism and paid attention to their health and well-­being (Aavik & Velgan, 2021).

References Aavik, K., & Velgan, M. (2021). Vegan Men’s food and health practices: A recipe for a more health-conscious masculinity? American  Journal of Men’s Health, 5(15), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1177/15579883211044323 Adams, C. (1990). The Sexual Politics of Meat. Cambridge: Polity. Anderson, K., & Kuhn, K. (2014). Cowspiracy: The sustainability secret. [Documentary Film]. A.U.M. Films. First Spark Media. Anderson, K., & Kuhn, K. (2017). What the health. [Documentary Film]. A.U.M. Films & Media. Cherry, E. (2006). Veganism as a cultural movement: A relational approach. Social Movement Studies, 5(2), 155–170. https://doi.org/10.1080/1474283060 0807543 Christopher, A., Bartkowski, J. P., & Haverda, T. (2018). Portraits of veganism: A comparative discourse analysis of a second-order subculture. Societies, 8(3), 55. https://doi.org/10.3390/soc8030055 Coffey, Y., Bhullar, N., Durkin, J., Islam, M. S., & Usher, K. (2021). Understanding eco-anxiety: A systematic scoping review of current literature and identified knowledge gaps. The Journal of Climate Change and Health, 3, 100047. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joclim.2021.100047 Delforce, C. (2018). Dominion. [Documentary Film]. Farm Transparency Project. European Institute for Gender Equality. (2021). Comparing scores for the 2021 edition. https://eige.europa.eu/gender-­equality-­index/2021/compare-­countries Fernández, L. (2021). Images that liberate: Moral shock and strategic visual communication in animal liberation activism. Journal of Communication Inquiry, 45(2), 138–158. https://doi.org/10.1177/0196859920932881

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Fox, N., & Ward, K. (2008). Health, ethics and environment: A qualitative study of vegetarian motivations. Appetite, 50(2–3), 422–429. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.appet.2007.09.007 Giacoman, C., Alfaro, J., Aguilera Bornand, I. M., & Torres, R. (2021). Becoming vegan: A study of career and habitus. Social Science Information, 60(4), 560–582. https://doi.org/10.1177/05390184211049933 Greenebaum, J. (2012). Managing impressions: “Face-saving” strategies of vegetarians and vegans. Humanity and Society, 36(4), 309–325. https://doi. org/10.1177/0160597612458898 Greenebaum, J., & Dexter, B. (2018). Vegan men and hybrid masculinity. Journal of Gender Studies, 27(6), 637–648. https://doi.org/10.1080/0958923 6.2017.1287064 Haenfler, R. (2004). Manhood in contradiction: The two faces of straight edge. Men and Masculinities, 7(1), 77–99. https://doi.org/10.1177/1097184X 03257522 Haenfler, R. (2006). Straight edge: Clean-living youth, Hardcore punk, and social change. Rutgers University Press. Harper, A.  B. (2010). Sistah vegan: Black female vegans speak on food, identity, health, and society. Lantern Books. Hartwell, M., Torgerson, T., Essex, R., Campbell, B., Belardo, D., & Vassar, M. (2022). Public awareness of a plant-based diet following the release of “game changers” and “what the health” documentaries. American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine, 16(2), 190–196. https://doi.org/10.1177/15598276211044106 Hearn, J. (2014). Men, masculinities and the material(−)discursive. NORMA: International Journal for Masculinity Studies, 9, 5–17. https://doi.org/1 0.1080/18902138.2014.892281 Humane Research Council. (2014). Study of current and former vegetarians and vegans. Initial findings, December 2014 (survey). https://faunalytics.org/wp-­ content/uploads/2015/06/Faunalytics_Current-­F ormer-­Vegetarians_ Full-­Report.pdf Laakso, S., Niva, M., Eranti, V., & Aapio, F. (2021). Reconfiguring everyday eating: Vegan challenge discussions in social media. Food, Culture & Society, 25(2), 268–289. https://doi.org/10.1080/15528014.2021.1882796 Leenaert, T. (2017). How to create a vegan world. A pragmatic approach. Lantern Books. Middleton, J. (2015). Documentary horror: The Transmodal power of indexical violence. Journal of Visual Culture, 14(3), 285–292. https://doi. org/10.1177/1470412915607913 Monson, S. (2005). Earthlings. [Documentary film]. Libra Max. Mycek, M.  K. (2018). Meatless meals and masculinity: How veg* men explain their plant-based diets. Food and Foodways, 26(3), 223–245. https://doi.org/1 0.1080/07409710.2017.1420355

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Ojala, M. (2018). Eco-anxiety. RSA Journal, 164(4(5576)), 10–15. https:// www.jstor.org/stable/26798430 Oliver, C. (2021). Mock meat, masculinity, and redemption narratives: Vegan men’s negotiations and performances of gender and eating. Social Movement Studies, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/14742837.2021.1989293 Panu, P. (2020). Anxiety and the ecological crisis: An analysis of eco-anxiety and climate anxiety. Sustainability, 12(19), 7836. MDPI AG. https://doi. org/10.3390/su12197836 Polish, J. (2016). Decolonizing veganism: On resisting vegan whiteness and racism. In J. Castricano & R. Simonsen (Eds.), Critical perspectives on veganism (pp. 373–391). Palgrave Macmillan. Stephens Griffin, N. (2017). Understanding veganism: Biography and identity. Palgrave Macmillan.

CHAPTER 3

Vegan Men Making Sense of Veganism: Multiple Meanings

Introduction There are significant debates and conflicting views on how to define veganism, in academic and activist circles as well as in popular media (see Linzey & Linzey 2018, pp. 1–4; Giraud, 2021, pp. 3–4; Dutkiewicz & Dickstein, 2021; North et al., 2021), suggesting that meanings attached to veganism are, at least to some degree, not fixed but fluid and constantly renegotiated. This multiplicity of meanings and ways of practising veganism might warrant speaking of “veganisms” in the plural (Giraud, 2021, p. 152). Existing definitions highlight different aspects of veganism, for example, diet, identity, lifestyle, and ethical practice. These at least somewhat conflicting formulations have implications for how veganism is perceived in the popular imagination and for the spread of veganism. With the increasing cultural visibility of veganism, popular media discourses now constitute a major arena where (certain) definitions of veganism proliferate and become dominant (see Giraud, 2021, p. 3). Giraud (2021, p. 15) argues that popular media representations typically depict veganism as an individual lifestyle choice, a health and consumption practice leading to personal empowerment, and as such, depoliticised and divorced from structural constraints. This is befitting of neoliberal societies—such “post-­ veganism” is similar to the postfeminist agenda that dismisses structural limitations and social power hierarchies as shaping women’s lives (Giraud, 2021). Such veganism has been labelled “plant-based capitalism” (Giraud, © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 K. Aavik, Contesting Anthropocentric Masculinities Through Veganism, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-19507-5_3

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2021, p. 129) and “plant-based consumerism” (White, 2022, p. 27), as it fits well into existing capitalist structures. Some authors have been critical of terms such as “ethical” or “dietary” veganism. White (2022), for example, argues that since opposition to nonhuman animal cruelty is at the core of veganism, these extras to specify the “kind” of veganism we are talking about should not be added, as “veganism should always be seen as a key intersectional, interspecies form of direct action” (p. 28). A key issue of debate concerns whether and how veganism should be understood as more than a food practice and diet, and related to this, if it is to be seen as a social justice issue linked to various intra-human hierarchies and struggles. Dutkiewicz and Dickstein (2021), for example, suggest that veganism should be used as a “neutral term”, referring to the practice of “abstention from the consumption of animal-derived products” (p. 2), without including in the definition reasons behind this practice. This formulation depoliticises veganism and implies that it is first and foremost a consumption practice. Thus, Dutkiewicz and Dickstein’s definition is rather controversial in approaching veganism as non-political and in isolation from various power relations, implying that such decoupling is possible in the first place. In contrast, in most scholarly conceptualisations (at least in CAS and vegan studies), veganism is understood as a political practice reaching far beyond food and eating. In fact, Eva Giraud (2021, p. 2) warns that we should be attentive to attempts (discursive, institutional, etc.) to reduce it to just an eating practice. Several authors have emphasised how veganism is a critique of anthropocentrism. It reimagines human-animal relations and envisions alternative ways of relating to nonhuman animals. As Giraud (2021) puts it, veganism “has historically not just focused on rejecting particular animal products but has also posed a series of more fundamental questions about the way particular humans relate to other beings” (p. 4). Similarly, veganism has been conceptualised as a form of interspecies solidarity, “an embodied critique of our species privilege” (Reggio, 2022, p. 253). A bulk of CAS and (eco)feminist approaches to veganism could be placed within the total liberation framework, as they highlight the interconnectedness of forms of oppression of humans and nonhumans and call for their liberation from oppressive structures and justice for all (see Pellow, 2014; Colling, Parson & Arrigoni, 2014; Jenkins & Stănescu, 2014). Several scholars from critical race and decolonial perspectives (see Ko & Ko, 2017; Harper, 2010; Polish, 2016) have emphasised the importance of an intersectional lens to veganism, demonstrating how in focusing

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on issues of food and nonhuman animals, concerns of race, class, and other power relations become foregrounded. As these scholars and also activists have pointed out, besides difficulties in material access to plant-­ based foods, the whiteness of the vegan movement in the West sets symbolic boundaries to participation, for instance, through the insistence of some white activists speaking from a privileged position that the focus should always be only on nonhuman animals, dismissing the fact that issues of race, class, and other intra-human inequalities are important in shaping people’s access to, as well as definitions and practices of, veganism. It is important to provide some further detail on the latter set of conceptualisations of veganism, originating from critical race, indigenous, and decolonial perspectives on human-animal relations and food systems (see Chu, 2019; Harper, 2010; Polish, 2016; Reggio, 2022, p. 253; Colling, Parson & Arrigoni, 2014; Ko & Ko, 2017). These perspectives view veganism as part of a broader framework of power relations, not just between humans and other animals but consider hierarchies within human societies. According to these approaches, control over a nation’s food supply through (Western) corporations constitutes a form of neocolonialism (Chu, 2019). Imposing an animal-based food system involves the exploitation of nonhuman animals and racialised and low-income human workers through factory farming and damages ecosystems. As such, it is a form of colonial violence, termed dietary colonialism (Chu, 2019, p. 189). As part of this neocolonial animal-industrial complex, institutionalised Western nutritional knowledge, constructed from a privileged white perspective, is rendered superior to indigenous knowledges. In this framework, cow’s milk is constructed as healthy for the human body (implicitly a white Western able-bodied human), even though lactose intolerance is prevalent in many African Americans, indigenous populations, and Asian people (Chu, 2019). In this system, populations on largely plant-based diets, such as some indigenous groups and people in some parts of Asia, are rendered effeminate and seen as lacking intelligence (Chu, 2019). Such constructions still prevail and are enabled by intersections of racism, colonialism, capitalism, speciesism, and men’s supremacy. As an effect of these intersectional inequalities, in many Western countries, poor people of colour and indigenous populations, in particular, are disproportionately affected by food injustice and factory farming, and their access to nutritious plant-based foods can be limited (see Harper, 2010). As a critical response to these epistemologies and structures that continue to reproduce white privilege, veganism has been considered a decolonising food

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practice (Chu, 2019; Reggio, 2022; Harper, 2010; Polish, 2016), enabling to contest capitalist and neocolonial structural violence (Chu, 2019, p. 180).1 Since privileged Western white men have been the key drivers of colonialism and continue to benefit from colonial legacies, it could also be argued that veganism, seen through the lens introduced here, helps to contest white male privilege. Adding to the conceptual confusion, the terms “veganism” and “plant-­ based diet” are sometimes conflated, in academic literature as well as in popular media. Yet, there are important distinctions—plant-based eating only refers to avoiding animal products in one’s diet and not necessarily in other areas of life (such as the use of leather or products tested on nonhuman animals). Plant-based diets are not necessarily followed for ethical reasons but could be pursued for health, environmental, religious, or other motives. Conceptualising veganism as merely a diet, a personal food choice, or a lifestyle not only dismisses animal ethics but also makes it difficult to connect it to issues such as gender, race, or class inequalities, not least because such definitions dismiss attention to structural conditions that shape access to veganism. In this book, I take as a basis the definition of veganism by the Vegan Society that goes beyond thinking of veganism as a food practice and envisions less exploitative ways of relating to nonhuman animals as the core purpose of veganism. However, the Vegan Society’s definition does not pay any attention to intra-human power relations, which I consider crucial in any discussion on veganism, including in understanding vegan men and masculinities. Inspired by ecofeminist, critical race, decolonial, and indigenous feminist approaches, some of which I outlined above, I understand veganism as a social justice cause, linked to gender, racial, class, and other inequalities and hierarchies. As I outlined in the Introduction, and as will be discussed further in the Conclusions, eating nonhuman animals is tied to ideals of hegemonic masculinity and its negative consequences on a global scale which affect racialised, low-income, and other vulnerable 1  Several authors writing from decolonial, critical race, and indigenous perspectives contest the idea that veganism is or should be a practice of privileged whites only. For instance, Chu (2019) notes that “[w]hile veganism has the mistaken stereotype of being a white bourgeoisie privilege, forms of plant-based eating have been practised by indigenous and native populations prior to colonization and are still being practised today as revolutionary acts of self-care. Veganism can be a means of resisting the lasting violence of the oppressor insofar as it enables the oppressed to regain agency in their daily existence and interrupts the cycle of violence” (p. 180).

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populations first and foremost. It does not however follow that the practices of all vegans automatically address these hierarchies or do so in a productive way. Previous research on how veganism is defined demonstrates that for omnivores, definitions of veganism emphasising the dimensions of lifestyle and diet prevail (North et al., 2021), reflecting popular media depictions of veganism. Cherry’s (2006) research on two groups of vegans, those part of a punk movement and those not, revealed differences in definitions and practices of veganism. Those affiliated with the punk subculture defined and practised veganism in a stricter way than non-affiliated vegans who relied on culturally dominant understandings of veganism as a lifestyle that one loosely follows, but can occasionally deviate from. Cherry (2006) argues that these differences have to do with the presence of supportive social networks that belonging to a community involves. Popular definitions of veganism influence how people perceive vegans. If veganism is defined as a lifestyle, diet, or simply a food practice, then it is up to the individual whether they choose to become vegan or not. In this framework, the “choice” to eat nonhuman animals or not is considered morally equivalent. Accordingly, it is not justified for vegans to “impose” their veganism on others (for a discussion of the figure of the preachy vegan, see Chap. 5). Indeed, in meat culture (Potts, 2016), social norms and institutions are configured in a way that makes adopting and advocating for veganism difficult. This depoliticised understanding of veganism however neglects that how we relate to other animals is a fundamentally political issue with profound (ethical, health, environmental, and other) consequences for nonhuman animals, people, populations, and the entire planet. If veganism was widely understood as a political practice of challenging nonhuman animal exploitation and would no longer be conceptualised as a personal choice, vegans would gain legitimacy to challenge the hegemonic practice of eating nonhuman animals. The previous chapter on the vegan transition narratives already hinted at how the men in this study understand veganism. This chapter takes a more detailed look at what veganism means for them. The findings suggest that the Estonian and Finnish vegan men interviewed for this study attribute somewhat diverse meanings to veganism, shaped by their paths to and experiences of veganism, as well as by their other values and ways of life. Yet, meanings related to avoiding causing animal suffering prevailed. I relate the findings to the idea of care, as conceptualised by feminist care ethicists (see, e.g., Fisher & Tronto, 1990; Keller & Kittay, 2017),

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including ecofeminist approaches to care (Curtin, 1991) and the ideal of caring masculinity (Elliott 2016; Hanlon, 2012). Privileged men’s ways of understanding veganism have implications for how they practise veganism and communicate it to others, including other men. It is interesting to explore whether and how the ways of making sense of veganism and dimensions of veganism that are emphasised or downplayed relate to ideals of masculinity, such as hegemonic masculinity. Also, given privileged men’s hegemonic status in the social power hierarchy, their conceptualisations of veganism might prevail over those of less privileged vegans.

Vegan Men Approaching Veganism: Multiple Definitions What veganism meant for the research participants varied somewhat, shaped by their different paths to veganism (as explored in Chap. 2) and the diversity of ways in which they practised veganism. As I demonstrated in Chap. 2, for most men, veganism was grounded in concern over the lives of nonhuman animals, with other aspects, such as the potential of veganism to mitigate environmental damage and possible health benefits seen as a welcome bonus. As a common thread in the narratives, living as a vegan was considered the best or the only acceptable way to exist under current social circumstances, on several fronts: for other animals, the environment and one’s health and well-being—at least one and typically more of these aspects were important. A few definitions included all these aspects. Beyond avoiding causing harm to nonhuman animals, veganism was seen as a more caring and sustainable way of relating to nonhuman animals, the environment, human others, and to oneself and, ultimately, a way of contributing to a better world more broadly. Regardless of the reasons, veganism was conceptualised as a prerequisite for living well and a manifestation of what a good person does: Eetu, 18, FIN: I knew I was doing something right and correct by not contributing to animal suffering and also not causing as much environmental impact and then also because of the way I eat or because of the vegan diet, I also knew that the Western diet can cause you a heart attack and so by diet and lifestyle you can really make a difference in your life and well-being.

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In the following sections, I provide more detail into the elements that the men’s ways of understanding veganism primarily focused on. Several of these overlapped and co-existed in the same narrative, while some stood out as contradictory. Some of the definitions discussed here were offered explicitly by the men, in response to my question about how they understand veganism. I have however included in this chapter their more implicit ways of making sense of veganism and insights from other parts of the interviews not focused on the meanings attached to veganism. Animal Ethics: Challenging Nonhuman Animal Exploitation and Anthropocentrism With a few exceptions, the vegan men in this study were opposed to humans exploiting and killing nonhuman animals as sentient beings and the cruelty and suffering caused by practices such as intensive animal farming in particular. From this perspective, typical understandings of veganism underscored the desire to contest the exploitative ways that humans treat other animals in speciesist societies. Not eating them was seen as the most straightforward way of putting this insight into practice: Veli-Matti, 34, FIN: Respecting animal rights, almost the same level as human rights. And not using any animal products or avoiding any products or any services that use animals in one way or another, that’s the core of veganism. And in that sense, it doesn’t have an environmental … it’s not to save the planet, it’s just, veganism as such is just to make animals equal and, and avoid industrial or any use of animals because animals have the right to live their own lives and not be part of anyone else’s interests.

It was typical to understand veganism as seeking to reimagine human-­ animal relations, envisioning non-exploitative ways of relating to other animals. Such ways of thinking about veganism challenged anthropocentrism and sought to decentre humans as a superior species: Hannes, 39, EST: They [the animals] have a right to be. […] We are not alone on this planet. I think we must co-exist with them. And we also have a right to be. But we must take less space, we don’t need to take the whole bench to ourselves.

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It was, however, admitted that in speciesist societies where the use of other animals for human purposes is ubiquitous, it is virtually impossible to entirely avoid animal products and those obtained through testing on nonhuman animals, such as most medicines (see Linzey & Linzey, 2018, pp.  2–3). Thus, rather than having purist ambitions, which vegans are often accused of, the men aimed to avoid using animal products as much as practically possible in the context of their lives, consistent with the definition of veganism by the Vegan Society (n.d.). Beyond Food and Animal Justice: A Nonviolent and Compassionate Life Several definitions of veganism put forward by the research participants not only highlighted human-animal relations in crisis but had a broader focus, beyond other animals. The idea of minimising harm as a result of one’s everyday practices and choices, not only towards nonhuman animals but also towards other living beings, was prominent: Peeter, 33, EST: My definition [of veganism] is that I do everything I reasonably can to not cause harm to other beings. Tapani, 35, FIN: The leading idea for me … [is] how you can minimise the harm with the resources you have.

The words “reasonably” and “with the resources you have” again refer to the contextual nature of veganism, suggesting not an absolutist and purist position, but a consideration of circumstances in which people can take up and maintain veganism, aligning with the concept of “contextual moral vegetarianism” (Curtin, 1991, p.  60). As some men remarked, people who are in a better position to avoid causing harm have a heightened responsibility to do so. This perspective displays an understanding of people’s different abilities and advantages. Within this framework of veganism as a more general philosophy, it was considered a perspective on life, which involves living in the most humane, nonviolent, and compassionate way one can. As such, veganism includes much more than just omitting animal products from one’s life: Jaagup, 23, EST: For me, it means a lifestyle, it’s not only food, like thinking ‘Okay, if it’s plant-based then I eat it, if it’s animal-based, I won’t.’ It’s a per-

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spective on life, for instance, how you relate to other people, being nice to them, and well, it’s about all this consumption, sorting garbage. A perspective on life.

For some men, veganism was a moral imperative, the least that one can do for others, highlighting the relational aspects of veganism: Gordon, 48, FIN: We have an ethical obligation to the other beings on this planet, to not exploit them and to kill them unnecessarily.

For a few Estonian men with Buddhist backgrounds, veganism was part of their broader spiritual worldview. While this was a marginal perspective, as most men in this study were not spiritual or religious, this way of making sense of veganism illustrates how veganism can be seen as a means of expressing broader values and convictions, not an end goal in itself: Toomas, 39, EST: My veganism is grounded in my Buddhist background, it’s like applying practices of compassion in life. […] My point of departure is compassion, which is very strongly grounded, with a deeply philosophical and strong background. And now my choices stem not from the fact that I want to be vegan, but from compassion and cultivating it.

At least some of the meanings attached to veganism introduced in this section align with the framework of total liberation (Pellow, 2014; Colling et al., 2014) and intersectional approaches to veganism. An Intervention to Tackle Environmental Damage Environmental reasons were important drivers for many men to become vegan, typically alongside animal ethics. Particularly the men whose paths to veganism were prompted (in part) by environmental concerns addressed environmental and climate degradation in their conceptualisations of veganism. Stemming from knowledge of the links between intensive animal farming and environmental destruction (see Chap. 1), veganism was seen as the most effective way to mitigate environmental harm: Kalev, 43, EST: The biggest thing you can do for the environment is not to eat animal products any more, become vegan.

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However, in understanding veganism as a strategy to deal with environmental issues, concerns over nonhuman animal lives and suffering became somewhat sidelined or at least not explicitly articulated. These approaches to veganism were carried by a more generalised feeling of eco-anxiety (Ojala, 2018; Panu, 2020; Coffey et al., 2021) (see also Chap. 4). Not a Lifestyle but a Political Practice Some definitions highlighted what veganism is not. Particularly the men for whom veganism was part of a broader justice agenda rejected the idea of veganism as a lifestyle. Instead, they understood veganism as a political intervention in the world: Lukas, 25, FIN: I don’t want to think that veganism is like a lifestyle thing for me either. There’s definitely a political side to it that should be addressed and like kept in mind.

Within this approach, critiques of capitalism were put forward, lamenting that veganism has become co-opted by capitalist consumption (see Chap. 2). As a critical response to some popular understandings of veganism as a lifestyle, some men were disappointed that vegans and their identities have become the centre of most discussions on veganism: Lauri, 28, FIN: It’s not about my identity or like it’s not about me at all. It should be all about these billions of animals and not me. So, my identity is like completely irrelevant and it should not be about me at all. There are moments of like this sort of feeling good about myself and I really sort of like this. At some moments I would think it’s completely egoistical to show this sort of vegan identity.

Indeed, the focus of veganism on nonhuman animals and human-animal relations, which many vegans seek to maintain, as Lauri suggests here, is constantly displaced in a speciesist culture where the attention of non-­ vegans to veganism is typically focused on the effects of a plant-based diet on the human body or on the potential impact of ceasing to consume nonhuman animals on human societies. In response to this specific interest driven by speciesist values, vegans spend considerable resources introducing these particular aspects of veganism (see Chaps. 5 and 6). Thus,

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veganism is reduced to an anthropocentric practice and an end goal in itself, obscuring the fact that it is a means of achieving less exploitative human-animal relations. A Social Justice Struggle Amongst Others Related to the previously discussed meanings assigned to veganism underlining its political nature, some men associated their veganism with broader principles and political leanings important in their lives such as pacifism, anarchism, equality (gender and other kinds), and nonviolence as equally important values alongside animal justice or considered their veganism as an expression of these wider core beliefs. Such understanding of veganism was put forward especially by men for whom veganism was grounded in animal ethics and part of a broader social justice agenda, specifically a group of Finnish men introduced in the previous chapter: Lauri, 28, FIN: When I was first interested in veganism, I was also really interested in like more general pacifist and really like these sort of anti-fascist ideas. And I still am, I would say, so it’s part and parcel of like bigger worldviews or something like that.

The narratives of men who considered veganism a social justice cause suggest that conceptualising veganism this way is facilitated by familiarity with the histories, goals, and activities of various social justice movements (e.g., the feminist movement and the civil rights movement) and knowledge of power hierarchies in society. Such awareness helps to recognise parallels between various forms and systems of exploitation. It is therefore not surprising that the men whose educational paths or experience (e.g., involvement in leftist social movements) had provided them with such resources were more likely to express such an understanding of veganism. For instance, the concept of intersectionality was used by some in defining veganism. Seeing parallels between different forms of exploitation and, more importantly, talking about these using sophisticated language (e.g., intersectionality) are skills that are to a great extent learned. The fact that veganism was talked about in this way first and foremost by the most privileged vegan men in this study indicates the importance of educational and professional backgrounds as well as class in shaping ways of approaching veganism.

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Individual Boycott Some men emphasised that veganism means for them first and foremost a boycott, a practice of removing themselves from an exploitative system. Within this framework, veganism was conceptualised, for instance, as a protest against the propaganda of meat and dairy corporations that harm nonhuman animals and the planet: Kasper, 36, FIN: [Veganism is] my own one-man stand out against propaganda.

A sense of well-being from taking this position was admitted, which, for some, included a growing sense of self-confidence and self-righteousness. In some narratives, veganism was described as more than a consumer boycott, involving a profound shift in one’s sense of self and perspectives on humanity. Some such descriptions resembled exiting the Matrix: Martin, 27, EST: It means that I don’t participate in the shit that they have made here. Human beings have done something very terrible. The animal industry is an absolutely awful thing. I don’t feel good participating in it. I feel good if I know that I’m not. One thing that changed when I became vegan—I gained some self-confidence. When I walk on the street and look around, I thought: ‘It’s totally f****d up, all these people are lying to themselves every day. And I’m no longer lying.’ [….] First and foremost, it’s for the animals, I like animals. I would not erect a camp where humans are tortured, so I also wouldn’t put up a camp that tortures animals. But since I know that this is being done and if I pay for it, I’m supporting it. I’d rather pay not to support it. So that’s why I’m boycotting this shit, you see. I couldn’t face myself if I knew that I did not boycott it with my simple actions.

Becoming vegan was conceptualised as a personally empowering act, due to the feeling that one is no longer directly paying for harming nonhuman animals: Ilmari, 27, FIN: You can do something, you know […]. I started thinking, well […] animal agriculture exists because they sell it to people, you know. So, if I’m the one buying it then I’m responsible for that, but if I’m not buying it, I’m doing something, so it’s in a way hopeful also. […] It was very very like empowering. It was like you’re in control of that. [...] because I was like, oh I’m responsible for what happens in the farms. But also, you know, in a way you’re also not,

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because you’re indirectly responsible. So, it was empowering to be like, well, I’m not, at least I’m cutting myself out of that.

Such understandings of veganism as a boycott could be linked to the idea of “ethical protest” (Linzey & Linzey, 2018, p. 1). However, these narratives carry some problematic implicit assumptions. First, behind this focus on the end consumer is the idea that it is entirely possible to remove oneself from systems and structures that exploit all beings (see Giraud, 2021; Fazzino II, 2022).2 Within global capitalism of which the animal-­industrial complex is an integral part, this seems hardly possible. Further, this attempt suggests the pursuit of some kind of purity and innocence. Second, this presumed ability to exit exploitative systems was deemed equally available to everyone, dismissing structural factors that make it more difficult for some individuals and groups to become vegan. Thus, in emphasising the need for personal change, one’s privileged position remains unacknowledged. A Means to Advance Personal Health and Well-being As mentioned earlier, for most men, the potential positive health effects of eating plant-based food were seen as a bonus, not the main motivation behind their veganism. Indeed, some men were explicitly critical of “health veganism” (see Chap. 2; see also Aavik & Velgan, 2021) and did not think that becoming vegan automatically led to a healthier diet. Although a clear minority, there were a few conceptualisations of veganism that focused on individual choice and personal well-being, in particular on the health benefits that veganism offers, aligning with the individualist approaches to veganism in the previous section: Paul, 44, EST: If someone asks, then I say that it’s my personal egoistic choice. I don’t think of others, I don’t think of animals, I don’t think of global wellbeing, it’s my personal choice. […] Let me clarify that I’m not a philosophical vegan who believes, according to the principle of do no harm, that we should not

2  Conventional production of plant-based products also causes harm to humans and nonhumans, involving the deaths of many nonhuman animals, loss of habitat, and exploitation of workers (see Fazzino II, 2022). This however should not mean complacency, but making active efforts towards “compassionate cultivation”, including at the institutional level (Fazzino II, 2022, p. 270), drawing on, for instance, principles of permaculture.

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harm anyone, but I am just eating this way because it’s the most useful and rational choice for me.

Such ways of understanding and practising veganism are at odds with most definitions of veganism and, in fact, seem to be referring simply to following a plant-based diet. Yet, the desire to improve one’s health through veganism was not necessarily always incompatible with animal justice goals. For instance, several men whose main motivations behind veganism had to do with animal justice were pursuing healthier eating and did consider veganism as a means towards better health, among other more important meanings: Markus, 40, EST: Veganism is about justice, fighting for a more just world. And I think it makes you more sensitive towards other forms of justice. My awareness has expanded. Towards many things. Also, towards issues that are connected, for instance, environment and health. I’ve started to eat much healthier and I am more aware of nutrition than before.

Yet, overall, veganism conceptualised primarily as a project of self-­ enhancement is consistent with neoliberal ideologies. This mirrors some contemporary tendencies in food activism where neoliberal subjectivities have emerged, emphasising consumer choice and self-improvement, among other themes, and, as such, support neoliberal rationalities (Guthman, 2008, p. 1171).

Conclusions This chapter has highlighted how veganism can be understood in somewhat diverse ways by those who practise it. The men in this study emphasised various aspects of veganism, in part stemming from their different paths to veganism, but also their political leanings and general outlook on life. It was most typical to understand veganism as an effort to reduce nonhuman animal suffering, killing, and exploitation. It was also common to see veganism as part of a broader worldview or perspective on life, seeking to minimise harm and display compassion towards all beings. For some men, veganism was one of many social justice causes, such as gender and racial equality. Some meanings focused more on individual human well-­ being were also put forward, such as thinking of veganism as a personal boycott or an attempt to remove oneself from exploitative systems, as well

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as a way to improve one’s health, consistent with neoliberal ideologies. Broadly, veganism was seen as an overall positive intervention to the world, helping to address various problems at once and a relatively easy way to be part of positive change. Critical views on veganism were rather exceptional, apart from a critique of a few elements of veganism by some, such as its increasing association with capitalism. The men sought to normalise veganism, arguing that it should be part of being human, at least in contemporary Western societies where wasteful and destructive lifestyles (towards other beings, the environment, and human health) proliferate. The ways men understood veganism broadly align with the findings of North et al. (2021) on the definition preferences of veganism among vegans, vegetarians, and omnivores. These ways to understand and practise veganism could be approached through the notion of care—more specifically, care for other beings, and the planet, but also self-care. Feminist care ethicists conceptualise care as practices seeking to “maintain, continue, and repair our ‘world’ so that we can live in it as well as possible” (Fisher & Tronto, 1990, p. 40). Care is a relational concept and has been mostly theorised as other-oriented, as central to the idea of care is a concern for the well-being of the other (Fisher & Tronto, 1990, p. 40). Care has however been traditionally associated with women’s lives and practices. For men, it has been argued that an orientation towards care and caring is rather exceptional (Hultman & Pulé, 2018, p. 165). The values and practices of the vegan men introduced in this book however challenge this assumption. When framed through the notion of care, veganism can be conceptualised as a “responsive, affective ethics of nonviolence”, built on feminist ethics (Jenkins, 2012, p. 505). Veganism can be thought of as an embodied everyday practice of care—for nonhuman animals, Earth, other humans, and the self. For men in particular, veganism offers the potential to engage in and strengthen their sense and relationships of care. It is here that the relational dimensions of veganism become especially highlighted. Yet, care directed primarily towards the self, for instance in veganism for personal health motivations only (which was however exceptional in this study), does not align with feminist and relational approaches to care. Some conceptualisations of veganism involved the pursuit of a sense of being in control—a desire to remove oneself entirely from a system that exploits nonhuman animals and thereby achieve a kind of purity or innocence, including attempts to take control over one’s health and body. Such pursuits are compatible with some dominant ideals of masculinity valuing

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such quests. They also assume that one can simply exit the animal-­industrial complex and that this choice is available to everyone, thereby obscuring the privileged position of those who make such an assumption. A critical perspective should also be extended to ways of thinking about veganism as the only acceptable way to live or a moral imperative, without a deeper consideration of the implications of such a position. Such views, coming from privileged men in affluent societies for whom becoming vegan is a relatively uncomplicated life change, while stemming from a sense of care for nonhuman animals, can at the same time display insensitivity towards some human beings and, as such, hinder the spread of veganism. Such statements may implicitly cast a negative moral evaluation on less privileged other humans for whom adopting veganism can be difficult, due to various structural constraints. These perspectives are challenged by ecofeminist ideas of contextual veganism (Curtin, 1991), rooted in the framework of care ethics, according to which the circumstances in which people (can) choose to become vegan matter. As Curtin (1991) notes, it is first and foremost privileged people in well-off countries for whom “moral vegetarianism is completely compelling as an expression of an ecological ethic of care” (p. 70). Understanding and addressing in a sensitive manner structural and other constraints that prevent some people and groups from becoming vegan is essential for the spread of veganism. The meanings of veganism that the men personally held differed from the ways in which they communicated veganism to others (the latter theme is explored in Chap. 5). Thus, there is some mismatch between what the men considered to be the core elements of veganism for themselves and what they deemed appropriate to communicate to non-vegan others. In terms of ideals and practices of masculinity, it is this latter aspect—the doing of veganism and masculinity publicly—that ultimately holds more significance, due to its visibility.

References Aavik, K., & Velgan, M. (2021). Vegan Men’s food and health practices: A recipe for a more health-conscious masculinity? American. Journal of Men’s Health, 5(15), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1177/15579883211044323 Cherry, E. (2006). Veganism as a cultural movement: A relational approach. Social Movement Studies, 5(2), 155–170. https://doi.org/10.1080/1474283060 0807543

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Chu, S. (2019). Nonviolence through veganism: An antiracist postcolonial strategy for healing, agency and respect. In L. Wright (Ed.), Through a vegan studies lens: Textual ethics and lived activism (pp. 180–201). University of Nevada Press. Coffey, Y., Bhullar, N., Durkin, J., Islam, M. S., & Usher, K. (2021). Understanding eco-anxiety: A systematic scoping review of current literature and identified knowledge gaps. The Journal of Climate Change and Health, 3, 100047. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joclim.2021.100047 Colling, S., Parson, S., & Arrigoni, A. (2014). Until all are free: Total liberation through revolutionary decolonization, groundless solidarity, and a relationship framework. Counterpoints, 448, 51–73. https://www.jstor.org/stable/429 82377 Curtin, D. (1991). Toward an ecological ethic of care. Hypatia, 6(1), 60–74. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1527-­2001.1991.tb00209.x Dutkiewicz, J., & Dickstein, J. (2021). The ism in veganism: The case for a minimal practice-based definition. Food Ethics, 6(1), 1–19. https://doi.org/10. 1007/s41055-­020-­00081-­6 Elliott, K. (2016). Caring masculinities: Theorizing an emerging concept. Men and Masculinities, 19(3), 240–259. https://doi.org/10.1177/1097184X 15576203 Fazzino, D., II. (2022). Farming vegan food. The ethics of compassionate cuisine and cultivation. In P. Hodge, A. McGregor, S. Springer, O. Véron, & R. White (Eds.), Vegan geographies: Spaces beyond violence, ethics beyond speciesism (pp. 257–271). Lantern Publishing & Media. Fisher, B., & Tronto, J. (1990). Toward a feminist theory of caring. In E. K. Abel & M.  K. Nelson (Eds.), Circles of care: Work and identity in Women’s lives (pp. 35–62). State University of New York Press. Giraud, E.  H. (2021). Veganism: Politics, practice, and theory. Bloomsbury Publishing. Guthman, J. (2008). Neoliberalism and the making of food politics in California. Geoforum, 39(3), 1171–1183. Hanlon, N. (2012). Masculinities, care and equality. Identity and nurture in Men’s lives. Palgrave Macmillan. Harper, A.  B. (2010). Sistah vegan: Black female vegans speak on food, identity, health, and society. Lantern Books. Hultman, M., & Pulé, P. M. (2018). Ecological masculinities: Theoretical foundations and practical guidance. Routledge. Jenkins, S. (2012). Returning the ethical and political to animal studies. Hypatia, 27(3), 504–510. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1527-­2001.2012.01291_4.x Jenkins, S., & Stănescu, V. (2014). One struggle. In A. J. Nocella II, J. Sorenson, K. Socha, & A. Matsuoka (Eds.), Defining critical animal studies: An intersectional social justice approach for liberation (pp.  74–85). Peter Lang Publishing Inc.

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Keller, J., & Kittay, E. F. (2017). Feminist ethics of care. In A. Garry, S. Khader, & A. Stone (Eds.), The Routledge companion to feminist philosophy (pp. 540–555). Routledge. Ko, A., & Ko, S. (2017). Aphro-ism: Essays on pop Culture, feminism, and black veganism from two sisters. Lantern Books. Linzey, A., & Linzey, C. (2018). Ethical vegetarianism and veganism. Routledge. North, M., Kothe, E., Klas, A., & Ling, M. (2021). How to define “vegan”: An exploratory study of definition preferences among omnivores, vegetarians, and vegans. Food Quality and Preference, 93, 104246. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. foodqual.2021.104246 Ojala, M. (2018). Eco-anxiety. RSA Journal, 164(4(5576)), 10–15. https:// www.jstor.org/stable/26798430 Panu, P. (2020). Anxiety and the Ecological Crisis: An Analysis of Eco-Anxiety and Climate Anxiety. Sustainability, 12(19), 7836. MDPI AG. https://doi. org/10.3390/su12197836 Pellow, D. (2014). Total liberation: The power and promise of animal rights and the radical earth movement. University of Minnesota. Polish, J. (2016). Decolonizing veganism: On resisting vegan whiteness and racism. In J. Castricano & R. Simonsen (Eds.), Critical perspectives on veganism (pp. 373–391). Palgrave Macmillan. Potts, A. (2016). What is meat Culture? In A.  Potts (Ed.), Meat Culture  (pp. 1–30). Brill. Reggio, M. (2022). Do nonhuman animals resist? Critical geographies, Decolonial theories, and the case for veganism as multispecies solidarity. In P.  Hodge, A.  McGregor, S.  Springer, O.  Véron, & R.  White (Eds.), Vegan geographies: Spaces beyond violence, ethics beyond speciesism (pp.  239–255). Lantern Publishing & Media. White, R. (2022). A call for vegan anarchist geographies. And four other ways to reassert the radical praxis of veganism. In P. Hodge, A. McGregor, S. Springer, O. Véron, & R. White (Eds.), Vegan geographies: Spaces beyond violence, ethics beyond speciesism (pp. 19–39). Lantern Publishing & Media.

CHAPTER 4

Beyond the Discursive: Emotions, Affects, and Embodiment in Men’s Veganism

Introduction Food practices are fundamentally embodied and imbued with emotionality. Previous studies have documented the intense, mostly negative reactions that vegans receive from omnivores, including from their loved ones (e.g., Twine, 2014; Roth, 2005; Markowski & Roxburgh, 2019; MacInnis & Hodson, 2015). Roth (2005, p. 197) suggests that those who refrain from eating meat are breaking the stability of familial bonds by disturbing established family traditions around food, which involve significant emotional attachments. This chapter focuses on the emotional, affective, and embodied dimensions of men’s veganism. Although veganism is much more than a diet, as I have discussed in the previous chapters, the key way in which veganism is practised is through eating. The body is thus implicitly central to the vegan praxis, although it tends to be neglected in the case of men in particular. Historically, men—especially Western, white, and able-bodied— have been disassociated with bodies, within anthropocentric, patriarchal, and colonial power relations. As Victor Seidler (2007) notes: [i]dentifying with mind, reason, and consciousness within a Cartesian tradition, dominant masculinities have learned a disavowal of bodies, sexualities, and emotional lives that are expelled as elements of an “animal nature” that needs to be controlled. Within prevailing colonial discourses, bodies,

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s­exualities, and desires come to be identified with the “un/civilized” who can only make a transition from nature to culture by accepting subordination to their colonial masters. (p. 9)

That being said, the disembodiment of privileged men is however increasingly being challenged in contemporary mainstream culture, as privileged men and their practices are becoming marked and recognised as performed by a specifically positioned group of embodied people, for instance, in the context of the #MeToo movement. There are contradictory gendered narratives about how veganism relates to emotionality. On the one hand, veganism and vegans and the entire animal advocacy movement are culturally constructed as feminised and devalued due to their associations with irrationality and “oversensitivity” towards animal suffering (Oliver, 2021; Adams, 1990; Probyn-Rapsey et al., 2019). Given how these emotional states are devalued in Western cultures, it is easy to dismiss veganism on these grounds. On the other hand, becoming vegan is often depicted as a rational decision, taken after becoming acquainted with facts on how humans treat other animals and the effects of this on climate and human health. This, conversely, along with perceptions of veganism as “extreme” and involving self-control, is associated with masculinities. There is little existing scholarship on men, masculinities, and emotions from sociological perspectives and in critical studies on men and masculinities (for exceptions, see de Boise & Hearn, 2017; de Boise, 2015; Pease, 2016; Seidler, 2007) and on emotions in the context of men’s veganism and animal advocacy in particular. Also, existing work in these fields has primarily focused on the discursive realm, neglecting material aspects of life, in particular, embodiment in the context of men and masculinities (Garlick, 2019). Yet, this issue is important as it has implications for how privileged men perform veganism, the spread of veganism amongst men in particular, and the construction of masculinities in the context of gendered power relations. One of the few studies that included a consideration of emotions in men’s veg*nism is Mycek’s (2018) research on how veg*n men explain their food practices. Drawing on interviews with veg*n men in the US, Mycek (2018, p. 224) found that “performances of masculinity in relation to veg* food choices uphold gendered binaries of emotion/rationality and current ideas of middle-class, white masculinity”. She argues that men maintain the gendered binary of emotionality and rationality by justifying their food choices through masculinised appeals to science, logic, and rationality (Mycek, 2018, p. 224).

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The complex relationship between men, masculinities, emotions, and embodiment implies possible tensions around men’s veganism. This chapter examines men’s emotions and affects in the context of the vegan transition and experiences of living as a vegan. I offer insights into how men relate to nonhuman animals through emotions and affects, as important modes of connecting to (human and nonhuman) others not typically associated with masculinities. I draw on ecofeminist approaches advocating for emotional and care-based relationships with nonhuman animals. In this thinking, however, care and emotionality tend to be associated with women’s lives and practices. Vegan men’s ways of relating to other animals offer a challenge to these assumptions, suggesting that care and emotionality in this context can be compatible with masculinities and men’s practices. This discussion also engages with the notion of vulnerability in men’s lives, important in ecofeminist scholarship and in some recent work in critical studies on men and masculinities. I also consider emotions in relation to the environmental aspect of veganism, using the concept of eco-anxiety (Ojala, 2018; Panu, 2020; Coffey et al., 2021), and suggest that various anxieties related to the body underlie veganism for health motivations. This chapter argues that emotions and affects are interwoven with intellectual and rational aspects of men’s veganism. I show how men’s concerns about nonhuman animals, their own health, and the environment are simultaneously emotional, affective, and rational. Thereby, this chapter provides empirical insights for feminist theoretical debates on links between men, masculinities, embodiment, and emotions and advances these discussions. Before proceeding, I however acknowledge that studying emotions and affective states through their discursive representations, as I do in this chapter, is certainly a considerable conceptual and methodological limitation.

Men, Masculinities, Emotions, Embodiment, and Affect: Conceptual Insights Ecofeminist approaches, notably ecofeminist ethics of care in the context of human-animal relations (e.g., Donovan & Adams, 1996; Donovan, 1990, 2006; Gruen & Probyn-Rapsey, 2018; Wrenn, 2019), provide an important basis for making sense of the emotional, embodied, and affective dimensions of men’s veganism. These ecofeminist theories of care consider emotional responses, such as “sympathy, empathy, and

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compassion as relevant ethical and epistemological sources for human treatment of nonhuman animals”, instead of privileging reason (Donovan, 2006, p. 306). In feminist ethics of care, emotions and reason are entangled and equally important, as Keller and Kittay (2017) aptly summarise: Care done without the right affect, such as love and empathy, is often not experienced as care at all. Similarly, when care is not offered through an intuitive and immediate response but mediated by reasoning, care can be experienced as insincere and calculated. But reason and principled thinking still play a role in care thinking. We care and because we care we ask—what are our responsibilities for this situation? [….] Thus, for care ethicists, morality focuses on how reason and emotion, together, inform and motivate moral deliberation and moral action. (p. 542)

The body and embodiments occupy a significant place in discussions over humanity and animality and how these are interrelated. In attempts to identify what makes us uniquely human, characteristics such as rationality and intellectual capabilities have typically been highlighted, rather than those which humans share with other beings, such as embodiment, capability to feel pain and pleasure, vulnerability, interdependence, and finitude (Stănescu, 2012, p. 569). Indeed, privileged white Western men in particular have been endowed with the former traits and disassociated with the latter that have been systematically degraded and feminised. Thus, any discussion on bodies implicitly concerns gender, race, and other relevant intersecting power relations. Posthumanist, new materialist, and some other critical approaches that have considered embodiment have rethought the body (Lockwood, 2018, p. 105), with political and ethical implications. For example, bodies have been conceptualised as “brain-­ body-­world entanglements” and questions have been raised about the possibility or desirability of strictly separating human and nonhuman bodies (Blackman, 2012, p. 1). Emotions and especially affects are embodied. Literature on emotion and affect abounds, with a multitude of (sometimes conflicting) definitions of these concepts (for a discussion on approaches to affect, see Sharma & Tygstrup, 2015). There are conceptual difficulties in attempting to neatly distinguish emotion and affect, with some authors questioning the feasibility of separating the two (see Schmitz & Ahmed, 2014). Broadly, however, the following distinction is typically made: “affect constitutes a dimension of bodily experiences and encounters, a dimension

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that remains, significantly, non-semantic and non-representational. In contrast, emotions are considered as a somehow translated, signified and subjectified version of the elusive, pre-discursive affective matter” (Sharma & Tygstrup, 2015, p. 7). In this chapter, I broadly follow this distinction while acknowledging these complications. An important dimension of affectivity relevant to the discussion in this chapter is the reactions that affects produce. Sharma and Tygstrup (2015) write about affectivity as being moved by something: “affectivity […] is about what happens to a given body, a given subject of imagination and agency, when it is targeted by an impulse that comes from its surroundings, and then reacts to this. It concerns what happens to us, and what we do about what happens to us” (p.  14). Thus, “[w]hen somebody is affected, this somebody is likely to change agency as well, producing new agency, affecting the environment in turn” (Sharma & Tygstrup 2015, p. 15). In this chapter, I am concerned with how emotional and affective experiences push men to pursue veganism. It is these insights primarily from (eco)feminist thinking that have provided conceptual foundations to many critical discussions on men, masculinities, and emotions that I will discuss in the following sections. In critical dialogue with still prevalent theorisations of masculinities as primarily discursive constructs, some more recent approaches, drawing on posthumanist and feminist new materialist scholarship, emphasise materiality, nature, and embodiment and their entanglements in the context of men and masculinities (see, e.g., Garlick, 2019; Mellström & Pease, 2022). Studying emotions in relation to men and masculinities is not straightforward and involves a number of conceptual dilemmas. There is some theoretical confusion and debates regarding the relationship between men, masculinities, and emotions, including difficulties in defining and using the notion of emotions (see de Boise & Hearn, 2017; de Boise, 2015). Even in some work using social constructionist frameworks, emotions have been theorised (or simply assumed to be) as innate physiological states (de Boise, 2015, p.  46), neglecting how displays of emotions are contextual and shaped by social and cultural factors (de Boise & Hearn, 2017, p. 4, p. 9). De Boise (2015) argues that we should seek to “understand the contexts in which emotions are constructed and enacted, rather than seeing emotions as inherently ‘feminised’ or to see some emotions as ‘masculine’ and others as ‘feminine’” (p. 65). In critical studies on men and masculinities, the idea of a “new” and more sensitive man has emerged in the past few decades, suggesting that

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softer ways of doing masculinity have become more prevalent and socially accepted (see de Boise & Hearn, 2017; de Boise, 2015). However, this claim disregards historical evidence according to which variously positioned men have always expressed emotions; thus, it is more a matter of how these performances are judged (de Boise & Hearn, 2017, p. 9). De Boise and Hearn (2017) point out that “the discursive figure of the ‘until-­ recently-­unemotional-man’ is premised only on certain men’s bodies and a reductive understanding of masculinity” (p.  9). Rationality, a quality typically associated with all men and masculinities, is in fact “a colonial, patriarchal discursive construction which often positioned white, heterosexual, middle class, Western European men in relation to ‘others’ rather than an objectively documentable state” (de Boise, 2015, p. 59). These others include nonhuman animals, as rationality is also a construct through which human exceptionalism continues to be maintained (Latimer, 2013, p. 82). Thus, what is perceived as rationality is relational. Men’s various privileges stem from and are enacted through certain emotions (de Boise & Hearn, 2017, p. 2; Pease, 2016). At least partly, the privileges enjoyed by Western white middle-class men originate from their performances of “rational” masculinity, involving repression of emotions (Boise & Hearn, 2017, p. 3). De Boise (2015) argues that instead of approaching men as “rational” and out of touch with their emotions—a prevalent depiction in popular culture, but also in some academic research—is misguided. Instead, we should be examining how emotions figure in the performances and constructions of masculinity in particular settings. For instance, men’s display of intense emotions in football matches is considered a socially legitimate expression of masculinity, compatible with hegemonic masculinity (de Boise & Hearn, 2017, p. 9). A central premise in much work on men, masculinities, and emotions is that men being more in touch with their emotions has an emasculating effect (de Boise, 2015, p. 57). Yet, emotions are compatible with masculinity (de Boise, 2015, p. 60) and masculinity can be done through emotional narratives (de Boise, 2015, p. 63; see also Galasinski, 2004), as I also demonstrate in this chapter, based on the narratives of vegan men. As a related point, a bulk of existing work takes an implicit assumption that men’s increased (displays of) sensitivity is somehow contributing to gender equality; however, there is no conclusive evidence on this; if anything, there is proof of the contrary (de Boise, 2015, pp. 57–58, 60–62; de Boise

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& Hearn, 2017, p. 5). Thus, an important question to ask when studying men, masculinities, and emotions is how men’s emotionality relates to gender and other inequalities (de Boise & Hearn, 2017, p. 10). De Boise and Hearn (2017) point out that “[i]t is not enough to point out that men have emotions and that emotions are embodied, but evaluate the ends to which emotions are put, what they are directed toward, how intensely and how these circulate between bodies to sustain as well as challenge men’s privileges” (p. 13). De Boise and Hearn (2017, p.  11) argue for a material-discursive approach to emotions, which involves challenging binaries regarding how we understand emotions, such as cognitive/emotional, irrational/rational, and biologically determined/socially constructed. It is not possible to disentangle rationality and emotions, as findings from neuroscience, including feminist neuroscience (see Fausto-Sterling, 2012; for a discussion on this, see de Boise, 2015, p. 66; de Boise & Hearn, 2017, p. 8) as well as much ecofeminist work, suggest (e.g., Gruen & Probyn-Rapsey, 2018; Donovan, 1990). These aspects are mutually dependent and enable one another (de Boise, 2015, p. 66). Emotions are both discursive and embodied (de Boise, 2015, p. 69), as well as contextual and situational (de Boise & Hearn, 2017, p.  13). Focusing on affective practice helps to understand how men develop attachments to and are affected by various issues in an embodied way (de Boise & Hearn, 2017, p. 13). Emotions in Post-Anthropocentric and Ecological Masculinities Emotions are significant in the context of ecological masculinities (Hultman & Pulé, 2018). For example, in deep ecology, as exemplified by Arne Naess’s thought, cultivating embodied emotional intelligence is an important aspect of developing a close connection to the environment (Naess, 2005; see also Hultman & Pulé, 2018, p. 109). Several authors argue that men need to develop emotional relationships with nature, including nonhuman life (e.g., Twine, 1997; Pease, 2019, 2021), to begin to improve humanity’s relationship with nature. It has been suggested that being involved in environmental activism encourages men to develop relationships of care and approach nature and/or nonhuman animals through emotions (Twine, 1997, n. p.). In the context of the current global ecological crisis, Pease (2021) emphasises the importance of various emotions in the construction of masculinities:

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Men must learn how to express their emotions and concerns about the looming ecological crisis facing the planet. This will involve expressing rage, grief, fear and despair about the environmental challenges we face. […] giving expression to painful feelings is an important act of self-preservation. It is unemotional passivity, wilful ignorance and denial about global ecological destruction that is the problem. Expressing emotions as a natural response to environmental crises is often a catalyst to taking action to address these environmental issues. It is only when we feel the pain for our role in environmental degradation that we will feel motivated to act. (p. 551)

In animal advocacy activism, several prominent privileged Western white male scholars and activists (notably, Peter Singer and Tom Regan) have highlighted the need to use rational argumentation when approaching nonhuman animal suffering, as opposed to emotions. They thereby reinforce the emotionality/rationality binary as well as rely on performances of masculinity that have historically supported privileged men like themselves. Ecofeminist scholars have critiqued these approaches (Gruen & ProbynRapsey, 2018; Donovan, 1990; Wrenn, 2019), challenging this binary. Approaches that engage with the emotional dimensions of human-­animal relations would help to contest such reason-based and hence limited ways of relating to nonhuman animals and doing masculinity. For instance, Lockwood’s (2018, p.  104) engaged and passionate autoethnographic account of attending vigils1 provides a good starting point, as he “offer[s] access to experiences of how emotion, activism and empathy overlap in ‘coming to care’ for nonhuman others”. This involves “recognition of the materiality and vulnerability of all living bodies” (Pick, 2011, p. 193).

Men’s Embodied Veganism: Entanglement of Emotions, Affect, and Rationality In their narratives of becoming and living as vegans, the Finnish and Estonian vegan men who participated in this study expressed a range of emotions and described  affective states, mainly in relation to learning about and witnessing nonhuman animal suffering, as well as in response to environmental degradation caused by intensive animal farming. Emotions 1  A vigil in the context of animal advocacy is a form of activism within the Animal Save Movement, which involves bearing witness to farmed animals being transported to slaughter. The key aim is to display compassion towards these nonhuman animals as well as to document the process (see Lockwood, 2018).

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did not figure as prominently in talking about the health aspects of veganism; however, I suggest that anxieties and concerns over one’s own physical and mental health and well-being are among the key drivers behind veganism taken up for health reasons. The following discussion focuses mainly on emotions, embodiment, and affective experiences concerning relationships with nonhuman animals, followed by a brief examination of these in relation to the health and environmental aspects of veganism. Nonhuman Animals Descriptions of emotions and affective states were expressed first and foremost in the vegan transition narratives, in the context of learning about how other animals are made into consumable products. The information that the men cited as having come across or specifically seeking on human treatment of nonhuman animals was typically about nonhuman animal deaths and suffering. Encountering these facts produced visceral, emotional, and empathetic reactions in the men, which facilitated their transition to veganism: Markus, 40, EST: First there was some kind of realisation, it started already earlier … this idea that someone has to die for me, for my choices. I couldn’t quite fathom this. It became very clear to me that there is a connection between my food choices and someone’s life. And that there is no justification for this. I googled about the suffering of animals … and then found all these videos, there are many of them on the internet. These videos showed what is going on in the egg and dairy industry. When looking at this material, I couldn’t understand how I didn’t know about this before. I was like in total darkness. And then we [with his female partner] decided to become vegan. It was very easy. But yes, the main reason was that we did not want animals to suffer because of our choices.

It is significant that when looking for information about industrialised animal farming, Markus sought to find out about nonhuman animal suffering first and foremost—enabling him to viscerally relate to nonhuman others, as opposed to only searching for facts and figures on human treatment of them and the consequences of this. While the latter kind of information about nonhuman animals, animal farming, and its environmental impact was important in learning about human exploitation of animals and its effects, it was not only reasoning but the emotional and affective experience of witnessing nonhuman animal suffering that led several men

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to veganism and ultimately more deeply comprehending the ethical aspect of it: Kalev, 43, EST: Last week when I attended this Vigil. This was an extraordinary experience for me. A truck stopped and we could look at the cows through these small holes that the trucks had. I developed eye-to-eye contact with one cow. I will never forget the look in her eyes. I felt like. … It was like communicating through the eyes. I sensed in her eyes the fear and desperation she felt. I saw through her whole being that she perceived … she had a premonition of where she is going or what is about to happen to her. I was taken over by that feeling and when I got home that night, I was unable to sleep, because I couldn’t get rid of this feeling. It was … I had thought that I have been numbed and so old that I would never be able to feel anything like this, but well, this was an extraordinary experience. So, the longer I’ve been vegan, the more I begin to understand the ethical side of it and the visceral side. So that’s the development I’ve had.

The power of the act of bearing witness has been discussed by several scholars (e.g., Lockwood, 2018; Joy, 2010, pp.  137–139). Joy (2010, p. 138) highlights how through this experience, we emotionally connect to the beings whose suffering we are witnessing. In his autoethnographic narrative of attending vigils as a scholar-activist, Lockwood (2018) explores the significance of empathy, emotional engagement, and bodily encounter in connecting to and making visible the suffering of nonhuman animals. He suggests that “this form of engaged witnessing offers opportunity for radically reimagining our species’ existing relationships with those species we currently identify as food” (Lockwood, 2018, p. 104). It is through being physically close to the bodies of nonhuman animals—an experience that the vigil as a type of activism offers—that possibilities arise for transforming the ways we relate to them (Lockwood, 2018, p. 121). Such experiences involving eye contact with a nonhuman animal or their gaze have been found to be especially profound and transformative. Lockwood (2018) shares a particularly significant affective experience from a vigil where he witnessed a pig being transported to slaughter avoiding eye contact with him because of what he perceived as the pig’s sense of shame. Through recounting this experience, Lockwood highlights, drawing on Derrida (2008), what the powerful act of the gaze of a nonhuman animal can accomplish—being seen through the eyes of another (human or nonhuman) being has an impact on our sense of identity and can lead us to critically examine ourselves and our actions.

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The theme of a deeply felt connection to a nonhuman animal in a past experience triggered a process of emotional and intellectual transformation, as some research participants acknowledged in retrospect. Such profound experiences of a connection to another animal were used by the men in the vegan transition narratives, to explain how and why they became vegan. This is illustrated well by Tom’s narrative of a close encounter with a suffering nonhuman animal when travelling as a teenager with his father in South East Asia: Tom, 41, EST: I was in this resort, this kind of hotel at the foot of some beautiful mountains covered in rainforest. I was staying with my dad …, we were kind of just hanging out there for a day or two. I just went exploring and I found this concrete pool, a swimming pool with mountains behind it. And at the edge of this pool, there was a concrete cell, so it was like concrete on three sides and on one side there were thick metal bars. And inside there was an orangutan … she was … quite lifeless. I mean she was obviously alive. Her hand kind of wrapped around the steel bar. She did not look at me so much as looked through me. Her eyes glazed over. For all intents and purposes, she was gone. I think she was not … at all engaged in the world. She … I would imagine even if I was able to open the bars, I doubt she would have been bothered to climb out. And that really struck me. It just hit me with an immense sadness that I felt, looking into her eyes that felt very much like my own. I identified with her as a being, not just another in inverted commas “animal”. But a being that I identified with, I related to, that I felt like … and I couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like if I was in that cage. What kind of life that would be, how I would cope, how I could survive in such a situation? But looking at her, I could imagine, could be not so dissimilar to what it might be like if a human being was in such a state. So that kind of hit home in a new way perhaps for me at the time … that you know … these boundaries I was drawing between myself, others, and then nonhuman animals was such a farcical distinction that it was really hard for me to cling on to that … I couldn’t do that with all human decency. So, I felt that it was not right for me to be treating animals the way I had been.

This experience described by Tom is an emotional and affective one first and foremost, conveying a profound and sudden sense of connection and empathy felt towards a nonhuman animal and grief over her situation. Tom expresses an embodied sense of connection to her, imagining himself in the physical reality, more precisely, in the body, of this other animal. As Tom admits, these feelings led to a realisation that a change is needed in how he relates to nonhuman animals. Such intense experiences did not

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necessarily result in going vegan instantly. Tom, for example, transitioned years later. However, he and some others retrospectively identified such moments as significant in their paths towards veganism, as these encounters initiated some kind of a spark or planted a seed: a feeling that lingered in the background, sometimes for years (see also Chap. 2). Such experiences could be made sense of through the notion of vulnerability. As several (eco)feminist, CAS, and CSMM scholars have noted, vulnerability is an important embodied way of being in the world and relating to others, including nonhumans (Butler, 2009; Stănescu, 2012; Mellström, 2023; Pease & Mellström, 2023; Alaimo, 2009). It is to be encouraged in men and promoted in ideals of masculinity in particular, as many current models and performances of masculinity embrace a sense of invulnerability (see Mellström, 2023; Pease & Mellström, 2023; Garlick, 2023). In this narrative, Tom recognises and embraces his entanglement and a shared sense of vulnerability with nonhuman animals as embodied beings. The number of nonhuman animals exploited by humans is staggering, amounting to around 75 billion land animals killed for food annually (Chemnitz & Becheva, 2021). Yet these facts and figures tend to remain abstract and emotionally distant for many people. One of the key challenges for animal advocacy activists is how to encourage people to relate to nonhuman animals in such a way that their fates and suffering would truly matter to people, a prerequisite for change. Thus, a common tactic used by animal advocacy organisations is to tell a story of a single nonhuman animal through which to foster a sense of empathy towards this individual that could make people more receptive to information about human consumption of other animals and ultimately lead to change. The following narrative illustrates the importance of relating factual information to the life and experience of a concrete nonhuman animal whom one personally knows. In the following narrative, Lauri explains how abstract argumentation about nonhuman animal suffering became personified and thus very “real” for him through an affective experience: Lauri, 28, FIN: I was really interested in studying philosophy [in high school] and I was meaning to train to be a philosophy teacher for like high school students, a lecturer in philosophy. And I took all the possible philosophy classes I could and they were like, they were the classic, like dead white men […]. I don’t even remember what they were discussing, but some other student asked the teacher like ‘what about animals?’ And the teacher—and that was like the only like 30 seconds in the entire studies that we were discussing animals—and the teacher whom I thought to be like really ­experienced and a good teacher, only

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said, ‘well, Descartes said that animals are more like flesh machines and they have no cognition and they cannot have rights.’ And I got really mad. It wasn’t like this sort of cognisant thinking. It was more like this sort of from the backbone, this really angry reaction. I was like ‘that must be bullshit!’, there is no way that is true. And the animal that came to my mind was my best friend’s dog, who is still alive today. A really old dog and still alive. I started thinking about my friend’s dog and I was really sure that animals must have rights. And the context was like a philosophy teacher telling me that animals have no rights and I got mad and I started thinking the opposite. That was like the first key moment.

Here, Lauri describes his sense of connection to a specific nonhuman animal whom he personally knew and whose fate he cared about. This classroom experience produced a sudden visceral and affective kind of understanding of the personhood and capacity for the suffering of other animals—based on a relationship with one particular individual—that Lauri in retrospect recognised as an important turning point in his vegan transition. This narrative again demonstrates the entanglement of rationality and emotions in the men’s vegan experience—intellectually embracing the idea of animal rights through a personal connection to a nonhuman animal and feeling angry at the implied suggestion that this being’s life does not matter. In addition to retrospective descriptions of meaningfully relating to a nonhuman animal, some past events described involved unexpected and unpleasant experiences of eating animal products, which was among the catalysts of going vegan for some men in the study, as explored in Chap. 2. Such embodied and visceral experiences led to an (emerging) sense of disgust towards eating other animals that could entirely precede intellectual and moral condemnation of human treatment of other animals: Petteri, 38, FIN: I was 18 at the time. I was living in a small town in the eastern part of Finland. […] My friends told me that this kebab thing is the most awesome thing in the world. I was like, hey, what’s that? I haven’t heard of that but I would try and I ordered one kebab and I took one or two bites and I was like ‘what’s this awful thing that I just ate!?’ and I gave it away. It was just like such a disgusting experience. [….] After [that], I decided that okay, I will try this vegetarian thing.

While not typical, the following unique narrative magnifies the embodied and emotional aspects of the research participants’ vegan transition

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experiences and the intellectual understanding of exploitative human-­ animal relations that the men arrived at based on these: Hannes, 39, EST: We [refers to his wife] thought that our children should eat well. We ourselves ate quite a lot of like random stuff we bought from the shop, but we thought we should offer clean meat to our children. But where do you get such meat? […] One Christmas, we bought products directly from a colleague’s relative’s pig farm. Straight from the farm. And then we planned to make jellied meat [a traditional Christmas dish in Estonia] at home. Okay then—there were basically the legs of the pig and half a head and something like that. But a whole leg is so long that it doesn’t fit in the pot! So, we needed to chop it up. I then chopped it up myself, and we made the broth together. So basically, during that Christmas, we ate it. And I don’t know how … but then we both started feeling … I was the one chopping and my wife was boiling them. It was our first … no, actually, we had made pâté before, but let’s say that a liver is much more anonymous than an actual leg. The jellied meat tasted good. We ate it all, but at the same time, something started running through our heads […] I  remember that I began to feel disgusted and started thinking … I guess I  started thinking about it much more because of this feeling that developed inside. Then I started wondering why eat meat at all? … And then in February, I became vegetarian for two weeks. Quite abruptly. Then we thought, okay, we won’t eat it. And I realised that if we don’t eat meat, we don’t need milk either. And then I read up something about it and learned what the word ‘vegan’ means.

In this poignant story, Hannes’s path to veganism starts through a very embodied and visceral experience—cutting a dead nonhuman animal into pieces and consuming her body, an act that first produced a sense of disquiet which then propelled a feeling-induced process of thought about the ethics of consuming other animals. Through butchering this nonhuman animal, the absent referent behind meat (Adams, 1990)—an actual being—suddenly became visible and very real. Such experiences highlight how a path towards veganism can begin without any knowledge or conscious reasoning on the ethics of the animal-industrial complex. From Anger to Compassion Among the most typical emotions that the men described experiencing once they learned about the animal industry were anger, frustration, and

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disbelief. As explored in the previous chapter, the role of video clips revealing the treatment of nonhuman animals in the animal-industrial complex, typically in intensive farms and slaughterhouses, was significant in the men’s vegan transition. This is consistent with previous research that has also found that such visual material is effective in facilitating the transition to veganism and taking up animal activism, through moral shock (Fernandez, 2021; Middleton, 2015). Several men spoke of intense affective reactions to seeing these graphic video clips, for instance experiencing sadness, crying, anger, and shock: Ivar, 24, EST: I remember I watched a film; I can’t remember what it was, but it must have been a documentary. I remember watching it and at one point I paused it and just walked back and forth in the room, shook my head in disbelief and thought ‘What?! How is this possible?’ Some free-range meat producers talking about doing what they are doing because they love animals. I started to have some thoughts that I’d never had before. It was wild. It opened a new perspective on things I had never thought about before. And it was quite shocking. At this point, you become really angry at all of this, because you suddenly understand the truth and want to declare it to everyone.

Upon becoming acquainted with the realities of the animal-industrial complex, the men experienced intense disappointment and bewilderment at how this knowledge has been concealed from the public. The feelings that such films invoked were not directed at specific individuals, but at the speciesist society (Nibert, 2003) and its institutions, as the men felt betrayed upon learning how societies are organised around the exploitation of other animals and how this fact has been kept hidden. While this could not have been entirely unknown to them before, it suddenly dawned on them in a very visceral and intense manner. Some men expressed disappointment with social institutions that have failed them as citizens and consumers: Timo, 38, FIN: Where are these departments like the consumer protection department? Hello?! What are they doing there in the consumer protection department? Like are they sleeping there? All day? I am the consumer. I haven’t been protected from this, like they never told me that there was … like that there was an animal slaughtered for me eating this food. Nobody told me that they have been caged and that they have never seen the sunlight. Nobody told me that. Where is consumer protection there? The slaughterhouses should have glass

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walls and then this information should be available and be provided. I’m certainly much more critical due to the fact that I found out that I had been betrayed all my life, not learning, not being told that it’s completely wrong to do what everyone does? […] I feel like I found out that we’ve all been betrayed and I want to go out and scream it out and I’m surprised that we’re not all on the street out there marching against it.

For some, the anger and other intense feelings they experienced towards speciesist social organisation were deepened because they held a self-image of a “rational” and critical person who is not easily deceived. Eino’s narrative illustrates the bewilderment that the men experienced at how the processes and consequences of killing and consuming nonhuman animals have remained concealed from them: Eino, 40, FIN: [I] realised that in our society we are puppets and we have been brainwashed to consume. … The food industry had brainwashed people to eat so much meat and consume [it] without the thought of what it would do to the world and to the animals. … We have been brainwashed not [to] think of butchering, and the real consequences of our consumption have been taken away from us and hidden, so that our ethical challenges and choices do not compromise our willingness to consume. … I felt angry and I felt disappointed. I felt like I have been deceived. I felt that I had been brainwashed. … I’m a person of science. I’m a person of reason and of logical thinking and I started to connect some dots … I started to ask questions and I started to think what are the other things that I have been lied about. So, I kind of I felt deceived and betrayed and brainwashed and at points, very angry towards the establishment.

This image of oneself—as a “rational” and “logical” person—aligns with the ideals of hegemonic masculinity and performances of masculinity by many privileged Western men. Becoming confronted with information on meat production and consumption, however, challenged this self-­ image in a disturbing way. It was typical to experience such intense emotions in the early stages of the vegan transition in particular. However, gradually these feelings subsided, in part because being in a constant state of anger was considered harmful to one’s own well-being and ultimately unsustainable. Also, looking back at their own past as meat-eaters and (in some cases, a quite long) process of going vegan, the men became more empathetic towards omnivores. A calmer attitude was also associated with ageing and maturing as a

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person. It was also practised as a personal coping mechanism and regarded as a prerequisite for successful communication with non-vegans (the latter aspect is explored in Chap. 5): Ivar, 24, EST: I felt intense anger towards everything, towards this system, witnessing this system still running. Anger towards all this stupidity, at how is it possible that still nowadays people believe that it [eating animals] is necessary? How is it possible? I am angry at the ignorance of people. But the more time goes by, the more you understand. I used to be like this for much of my life. […] I have begun to understand much more, I think. This feeling of youthful anger has a little bit subsided and I also understand that it makes no sense to talk to people when angry. [...] If I can remain calm about this topic then I could convey much more of what I want. […] I’m just destroying myself with this [anger].

Here, Ivar expresses an experience conveyed by several men in this study—suppressing one’s justified anger at social institutions that exploit nonhuman animals and at people who participate in it because to allow such feelings to intensify would be self-destructive. Ivar’s reasoning aligns with Stănescu’s (2012, p. 568) suggestion that in such situations, practising disavowal and a refusal of mourning works as a mechanism to maintain one’s functioning as a person. In terms of communicating veganism to omnivores, it was considered ineffective to display such intense negative feelings about nonhuman animal suffering, deeming a calm and collected way of communicating veganism more fruitful. This suggests a discrepancy between the feelings that men experience in the process of becoming vegan and those they communicate to others (for more on this, see Chap. 5): Lukas, 25, FIN: I think like there is not that much anger anymore about the issue […] And also kind of realising, maybe arguing with some people that often this anger or these really strict ideas I had, kind of easily backlashed. That they didn’t really make people take in what I had to say anymore, necessarily. And I feel like if I kind of present veganism as a positive thing and don’t make this big number about it in a way that I would like force other people to do it a certain way. I feel like it’s maybe easier for people to take in or it might make even a bigger impression if I don’t really even talk that much about it and someone I’ve known for quite a long time suddenly hears that I’m vegan and I’ve been vegan for a long time. […] Maybe the anger has changed into a kind of sadness to a great part.

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As explored in the previous chapter, most men in this study considered becoming vegan a profound life change. Beyond particular situations and events involving emotional and affective experiences, some men talked about how they had undergone a deeper emotional development upon going vegan. Some explicitly stated that adopting veganism made them a more empathetic, kinder, and caring person, not only towards nonhuman animals but more broadly: Tanel, 31, EST: I will never eat meat again. I have had nightmares where I’ve eaten meat. I will start to cry about this … If I talk about some kind of emotions and feelings, then, after I decided to go vegan, I … I don’t remember how long it took, but like this empathy or love or understanding towards animals increased a lot. I became much kinder. … The tree that grows here is as important to the world as I am. So yes, I became more caring and loving. Especially towards animals.

A few men related this change explicitly to masculinity, suggesting that veganism encourages emotional responses in men and as such brings positive change to men’s lives in particular, as men have not typically been socialised to cultivate emotional responses to others: Lukas, 25, FIN: I feel like maybe being male and vegan, it has kind of like opened me up more to these softer emotions or these kinds of things that would not be considered like necessarily as masculine features. Because I have been vegan, that is already something that sets me somewhat apart from these things. It has kind of opened up space. And I’ve kind of seen this same thing in a lot of these vegan male friends of mine.

Such alternative ways of practising masculinity, involving more intense engagement with “softer” emotions, that veganism facilitates according to the men, are culturally feminised. It was admitted that given the cultural norms of hegemonic masculinity, it is more difficult for men to express love, empathy, and care towards nonhuman animals: Ilmari, 27, FIN: People talk about, you know, meat being masculine, but I don’t know, I feel like it is also connected to like this image of coming back to stereotypes of vegetarians and vegans, you know, being that kind of like a hippie with the long hair, colourful clothes. I feel like that’s also something that people still have in mind like, that’s not masculine […] Because it is like, it is an emotional thing to care about animals and even to care about, you

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know, the environment. So, of course, there’s still that whole thing about, you know, toxic masculinity and, you know, people … men not showing emotions and some things connected to emotions such as, you know, caring about animals. You shouldn’t do that because then you’re not, you know, manly or something.

Only a few men however had experienced such attitudes directed at themselves. One such situation is illustrated by Lauri, describing an exchange with his mother: Lauri, 28, FIN: I think it would be harder to like just openly say like yes, I am concerned and I have emotions towards other animals. And that could be sort of like an anti-masculine thing. And I have personally … for instance when my mom was like ‘you don’t care about animals’, I think she had this sort of like caring for animals, like care is a feminine thing and you don’t care because you’re a are men. So, I had to like provide some sort of like ‘I have this environmental like sort of thing.’

Overwhelmingly, however, the men in this study claimed not having experienced others regarding them as unmanly due to their veganism. I suggest that the privileged position of the research participants significantly shapes the ways in which others judge their performances of masculinity: privileged men’s masculinity is unlikely to be questioned, even if they engage in practices deemed at odds with dominant ideals of masculinity, such as displaying emotions and care for nonhuman animals. Also, in contrast to less privileged men, it is easier for privileged men to challenge the idea that masculinities are not compatible with displays of care towards other animals. The relationship between vegan men and ideals of masculinity will be discussed further in Chaps. 7 and 8. Health While most men in the study distanced themselves from “health veganism”, several admitted that the potential positive health effects of plant-­ based diets complemented their primary motivations behind veganism. Descriptions of becoming vegan prompted by health motivations did not include such intense emotions as those that emerged in relation to nonhuman animal lives, as discussed above. However, while some of these narratives emphasised rational choice, careful deliberation, and a reliance on

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facts and figures, I suggest that there were underlying concerns and anxieties about one’s own health and mortality at the core of giving up animal products for health reasons, as the following narrative by Paul illustrates: Kadri: Now that you’ve made this change in your life [becoming vegan], how important is this for you, in the context of your entire life? Paul, 44, EST: Yes, it was very significant. I mean I considered it very thoroughly. And it involved many steps. First, I considered whether changing my diet helps to improve my health. When I read this Caldwell Esselstyn2 book, it became quite clear that cardiac patients benefit from a change in diet. And then I thought, what’s the risk for me to undertake this, should I be afraid of dying of heart disease? The other concern I had was, okay, if I change my diet and eliminate my risk of heart disease, and also atherosclerosis, diabetes and cancers, then perhaps I will instead develop some nutrient deficiency. So, I weighed up the pluses and minuses. […] I opened the Estonian deaths database, I copied into an Excel table data by age groups and saw that starting from age 65–70, cancer and heart disease make up 75% of all deaths […] This helped to answer my question of whether this is a risk for me. Yes, it’s a risk. If I eat like all other Estonians then I am likely to end up just like other Estonians. This means, with 75% certainty it will be cancer or heart disease. Then I investigated the causes of death in my family: cancer and heart disease. And then I got my answer—yes, the risk is very high for all of us. So, it seems completely irresponsible to eat meat in such quantities.

In veganism taken up only or primarily because of personal health considerations, the body occupies a central place. Such presentations of veganism for health concerns, as Paul’s account above, do not emphasise relationality with other beings and do not appear to critically address human exploitation of other animals. Indeed, the focus is primarily on the effects of plant-based diets on maintaining and improving the human body, here specifically men’s bodies. This mirrors dominant cultural representations of veganism as a health or dietary practice, including ways in which veganism is promoted in popular culture to men specifically, in films like The Game Changers. The idea of self-improvement aligns with individualist values and neoliberal discourses prevalent in contemporary Western societies, Estonia being a prime example of this. In fact, it has 2  Caldwell Esselstyn is US-based cardiologist who promotes a low-fat whole food plantbased diet.

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been argued that at least one reason behind the cultural relevance of veganism has to do with how it is consistent with cultural discourses of individualism (Christopher et  al., 2018), problematically implying that veganism is (only) an individual lifestyle choice. At the same time, “health veganism” does challenge some dominant practices associated with men and masculinities, namely men’s lesser concern over their health and higher  risk-taking, compared to women (World Health Organization, 2018). The fact that “health veganism” places the body in the centre of attention is significant in the case of white privileged men, who have historically remained disembodied. As Garlick (2016) remarks, Western masculinities have commonly been defined via “the transcendence of life, nature, and the body” (p. 31). However, the distinction between “health veganism” and other kinds of veganisms is not necessarily easy to draw, as health considerations were important in some way or another for most men in this study and were often a starting point to veganism for nonhuman animals. Environmental Concerns In response to the global environmental and climate crises unfolding in recent years, feelings of worry and concern of varying intensity about climate change and environmental destruction are on the rise, including fears about one’s own and the planet’s future, seen as interrelated. These feelings have been termed eco-anxiety (Ojala, 2018; Panu, 2020; Coffey et al., 2021). Key elements of eco-anxiety include uncertainty, unpredictability, and uncontrollability (Panu, 2020). While these feelings are generally considered negative, it has been suggested they could help mobilise people to take action about ecological issues (Ojala, 2018; Panu, 2020; see also Pease, 2021). Learning about the devastating impact of consuming other animals for human food on the environment and climate caused concern and was an intense experience for several men, upon which they were overcome with emotions such as shock, anxiety, and sadness, as well as a sense of urgency: Kalev, 43, EST: It happened totally randomly. It was a Sunday and I was home alone. I didn’t have any plans, so I thought, I have Netflix and I haven’t been watching it much. […] So, I started to watch some documentaries that seemed interesting. I opened Cowspiracy, it seemed interesting. I started watching, and it was really interesting and got even more fascinating. At the

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end of the film, it was said that the biggest thing you can do for the environment is to quit consuming animal products. Become vegan. And then I thought, environmental issues are very important to me. A little bit earlier, perhaps half a year earlier I had this kind of a spiritual experience where I realised how bad things are with the environment. It was a major shift in my worldview. I realised that the fate of humanity is like on the edge of a cliff and this is no small thing. When watching that film, I thought if that’s [going vegan] an important step that I could do, then for sure I will at least try. […] I bought a book in English, I think it was called A Farewell to Ice. I think it was a British scientist writing about the Arctic Sea. I don’t remember how I discovered that book, but it was written in a very interesting way. I became shocked when reading this book. This scientist pretty much said that basically, humanity has played itself into a corner. I was already interested in environmental issues before but I had always imagined that humanity is big and powerful—we are pretty much moving towards the stars, soon we’ll be going to Mars and then beyond that. Everything is going uphill. But this scientist made the point that once the ice in the Arctic Sea melts, then that’s the end of our civilisation. The entire civilisation. And it can happen already in five years. Since then, I’ve read more about this and it seems to be going that way. Unfortunately. Well, since then my worldview changed like 180 degrees. I had terrible stress for something like three months and I fell into a deep depression when I understood what climate change actually means. And when I watched Cowspiracy, I put this all together and I realised how helpful it would be if humanity changed itself. How much it would help in terms of the environment if you become vegan.

As this narrative indicates, veganism was considered by the men as one of the best responses to deal with eco-anxiety. However, some of these accounts, such as Kalev’s, remain rather anthropocentric, as his main concern seems to be about the fate of human civilisation, an argument that has been put forward by some scholars critical of the use of environmental arguments in animal advocacy (e.g., Almiron, 2019). At the same time, deep disappointment in humanity might help to challenge the superior position that humanity has long occupied in the hierarchy of species, thus aligning with a post-anthropocentric worldview. This includes, as Kalev’s narrative illustrates, adopting a critical view on unsustainable masculinised institutions and ecomodern masculinities (Hultman & Pulé, 2018).

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Conclusions Inspired by ecofeminist and critical masculinities frameworks, this chapter has considered men’s veganism as an embodied practice and their paths to veganism as involving various material, emotional, and affective experiences. In the men’s vegan narratives, emotional, embodied, and affective responses to nonhuman animal suffering were typically entangled with rationalisations of consuming other animals as morally wrong. It was common for the vegan men who participated in this study to be deeply affected by the plight of nonhuman animals, which prompted embodied responses of care. These experiences illustrate the entanglement of rationality with emotions and embodiment in moral action in how we relate to other animals, as suggested by several CAS and ecofeminist scholars and feminist care ethicists (Aaltola, 2013; Gruen, 2007; Gruen & Probyn-Rapsey, 2018; Donovan, 1990, 2006; Wrenn, 2019; Nussbaum, 2001; Keller & Kittay, 2017). As Lockwood (2018) puts it, “[i]t is never only our ‘disembodied’ intellectual evaluations that guide action, but always thoughts entangled with bodily reactions that become knowable and nameable as emotions: joy, disgust, anger, fear, etc.” (p. 105). As previous work has not specifically looked at emotions and embodiment in the case of privileged vegan men, the narratives of vegan men examined in this chapter suggest that these conceptual insights also apply to (privileged) men and masculinities, who have previously typically not been associated with emotions and embodiment (for a discussion on this, see de Boise & Hearn, 2017; de Boise, 2015). It was typical for the vegan men to experience a range of intense emotions and affects—such as anger and disbelief, upon learning how the animal-industrial complex operates, commonly through documentary films on how nonhuman animals are treated in this institution. Some of these emotions and ways of relating to other beings—such as compassion, empathy, and care—have not been associated with masculinities, while others, such as anger, are deemed compatible with masculinity, although typically linked with marginalised masculinities. Yet, anger is not an exclusively masculinised emotion, as it could also be associated with performances of femininity. Certainly, vegans of other genders can and do experience anger and related emotions when encountering the realities of the animal-industrial complex. Thus, to associate anger in this context only with the gender performances of vegan men would be misleading. Instead, we could ask what consequences such displays of emotions

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potentially have. Previous scholarship has argued that for white privileged men in particular, constructions of masculinity emphasising rationality have been dominant, and from this position, subordinate masculinities and femininities have been deemed irrational and thus inferior (de Boise & Hearn, 2017; de Boise, 2015). These insights suggest that displays of anger by such men might be seen as more justified and taken more seriously, in contrast to marginalised masculinities and other genders. While emotions were not so explicitly articulated in the context of talking about health and the environment, I suggested that certain concerns and anxieties lie beneath health and environmental reasons behind veganism, the latter encapsulated in the concept of eco-anxiety (Ojala, 2018; Panu, 2020; Coffey et al., 2021). The intense emotions that many men experienced upon going vegan subsided after they had practised veganism for some time. While the research participants claimed that experiencing and expressing emotions in relation to nonhuman animals and their suffering is not incompatible with their masculinity, communicating intense negative emotions related to nonhuman animal suffering to non-vegans was however not considered effective or appropriate. Indeed, efforts were made to distance oneself from the trope of the preachy vegan (see Chap. 5), depicted by some men as an angry vegan. This was not a self-image that the vegan men wanted to adopt. Instead, a calm and “rational” approach to communicating veganism was advocated for, due to its perceived effectiveness and social legibility (see Chap. 5). Masculinity and veganism are always performed in specific social situations which shape these accomplishments. The interview situation itself constituted a particular setting, which was conducive to articulating various emotions that the men had experienced in the course of their veganism. Such narratives were in part made possible and encouraged because already before the interviews, I introduced myself to the research participants as a vegan. This allowed them to perceive me as sympathetic towards their experiences and likely led them to assume that I have felt similar emotions in response to nonhuman animal suffering. Further, it was evident to the men that as a feminist researcher, I contest ideals of hegemonic masculinity that do not encourage displays of emotions in men. These factors certainly facilitated performances of alternative masculinities in the interviews. When talking to non-vegans, including a non-vegan interviewer, vegan men are likely to refrain from or be wary of producing such emotional descriptions of how they relate to nonhuman animals, as these

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may be construed as displays of vulnerability. This demonstrates how “doing” veganism and masculinity is contextual. Indeed, the vegan men’s accounts of communicating veganism to non-vegan others suggest that they typically downplayed the role of emotions and concern for nonhuman animal suffering, to avoid stigmatisation and disrupting social conventions around food (see Chap. 5). Also, suppressing displays of emotions around nonhuman animal suffering could function as a tactic to maintain one’s composure not only in front of others but to cope with the intense emotional pain that engaging with the suffering of other animals produces (Stănescu, 2012). As James Stănescu (2012), writes: Those of us who value the lives of other animals live in a strange, parallel world to that of other people. Every day we are reminded of the fact that we care for the existence of beings whom other people manage to ignore, to unsee and unhear as if the only traces of the beings’ lives are the parts of their bodies rendered into food: flesh transformed into meat. To tear up, or to have trouble functioning, to feel that moment of utter suffocation of being in a hall of death is something rendered completely socially unintelligible. Most people’s response is that we need therapy, or that we can’t be sincere. So most of us work hard not to mourn. We refuse mourning in order to function, to get by. But that means most of us, even those of us who are absolutely committed to fighting for animals, regularly have to engage in disavowal. (p. 568)

The avoidance of showing “excessive” emotions and affects in communicating veganism to non-vegans has implications for constructions of masculinity and how veganism is represented. It risks replicating performances of stoic rationality and belittling the role of emotionally relating to other animals and their suffering. This also does not help to challenge the position of privileged men in gendered and other power relations. It has been suggested that some negative emotions involved in eco-­ anxiety might be productive, as they might lead to action for change (Ojala, 2018; Panu, 2020; see also Pease, 2021). Given this, we might ask if the passing of the initial phase of intense emotions in reaction to nonhuman animal suffering, replaced by a composed sense of understanding and even acceptance, might suggest some resignation or complacency or at least the dwindling of radicalness in the vegan men. The latter emotional states might not be conducive to more active engagement beyond practising veganism, which risks becoming a mere individual food and consumption practice.

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CHAPTER 5

Doing Veganism and Masculinity in Everyday Interactions: Men’s Strategies and Dilemmas in Communicating Veganism

Introduction In speciesist societies where other animals are used as sources of food for humans, various social consequences ensue for those who challenge this norm. Given the still marginalised and contested status of veganism in most cultures, much attention that vegans receive from non-vegans is of a negative kind and stems from prejudiced attitudes (MacInnis & Hodson, 2015; Markowski & Roxburgh, 2019). Indeed, it has been suggested that one of the key reasons why only a minority of people take up veganism is fear of social stigmatisation (Markowski & Roxburgh, 2019). Nevertheless, despite these issues, microinteractions between vegans and omnivores are a key setting where non-vegans become exposed to veganism. In other words, everyday encounters between omnivores and vegans are a site where vegan imaginaries (White, 2022, p. 21) are created and spread, the most basic of which is that for many people in Western societies it is possible to live well without using other animals for food and other purposes. Thus, it matters greatly how vegans communicate veganism. This chapter highlights the importance of the social and relational dimensions of veganism. I examine the strategies that vegan men use and the communicational dilemmas that arise for them in social situations where veganism comes up as a subject matter. By strategies of communicating veganism, I mean discursive and non-discursive ways of conveying veganism that are pursued with varying degrees of intentionality in social © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 K. Aavik, Contesting Anthropocentric Masculinities Through Veganism, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-19507-5_5

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interactions. These strategies are influenced by cultural constructions of veganism and masculinities and draw on the research participants’ experiences of similar previous interactions. Examining how vegan men communicate veganism helps to understand how the social norm of eating nonhuman animals is established and contested in everyday interaction and how masculinity figures in these exchanges. The ways in which veganism is conveyed have implications for social change towards more ethical and sustainable ways of eating and relating to other animals. In exploring how vegans navigate social situations where veganism comes up, I am inspired by relational and symbolic interactionist approaches—the influential idea of “doing gender” originating from gender and feminist studies (West & Zimmerman, 1987) and Goffman’s (1959) analysis of impression management and presentation of the self in mundane interactions. The “doing gender” approach suggests that gender is not a fixed and internal property of individuals but is actively and incessantly produced in various everyday interactions. Similarly, we could talk about “doing veganism”, emphasising the ways it is dynamically constructed in social interactions, and drawing on the properties of a particular situation and its participants. According to Goffman (1959, p.  17), social interaction can be conceptualised as a “performance” that is moulded by the setting in which it occurs. In these performances, social actors construct impressions to their audiences, aimed at meeting the actors’ interactional goals, including maintaining a positive self-image to others. Viewed like this, veganism and the vegan self are constantly “performed” in microinteractions; that is, the meanings of veganism and vegan identities are relentlessly (re)negotiated in social relationships, both in discursive and material dimensions, such as casual conversations with friends and colleagues or sharing a meal at a family gathering with non-vegan relatives. Various reactions that vegans receive from non-vegan others in these interactions—such as subtle and explicit disapprovals, praise, or surprise— expressed in words, gestures, and other discursive and non-discursive actions, shape subsequent exchanges. This chapter considers the gendered dimensions of “doing veganism” and presenting the vegan self. Veganism as performed by men draws on as well as shapes cultural ideals of masculinity in ways that can support or challenge these. The performative and contextual nature of veganism however does not mean that it can assume any meaning; however, the specific ways one pursues and communicates it as well as how it is perceived by others vary in different situations.

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The notion of doing veganism draws on and expands on the idea of “doing vegetarianism” as linked to doing gender, as studied by Ax DeLessio-Parson (2017), based on interviews with vegetarians and vegans in Argentina. DeLessio-Parson (2017) argues that doing gender and doing veganism are intimately intertwined as “vegetarian practices and performance in food spaces call gender into question, which then prompts a response from vegetarians that can reinforce the gender binary, call it into question, or alternatively delink the connections between meat and masculinity” (p. 1731). Thus, gender is always implicit in practices of veg*nism, as any performance of veg*nism is judged through the lens of gender. As Elizabeth Cherry (2006) notes, most studies on veganism use substantialist argumentation; that is, they conceptualise vegans as “static, pre-­ formed entities and rational actors” (p. 156), who act independently and whose veganism is sustained by their individual determination (p. 167). I would argue, expanding on this claim, that such conceptualisation of vegans is shaped by ideals associated with certain masculinities, as it highlights individualism, rational choice, and other masculinised qualities (e.g., mental strength, willpower) while downplaying relational and emotional aspects. Instead, Cherry calls for a relational approach to understanding veganism, demonstrating the significance of social networks and supportive community in maintaining veganism. Drawing on the main tenets of relational sociology, she conceptualises social actors as embedded in “dynamic, processual relationships that shift over space and time” (Cherry, 2006, p. 157). Thus, meaning is developed collectively and relationality is central to how veganism is defined and practised (Cherry, 2006, p. 157). This chapter builds on and adds to previous research that has studied how vegans and vegetarians navigate social situations and communicate veg*nism (Andreatta, 2015; Bolderdijk & Cornelissen, 2022; Buttny & Kinefuchi, 2020; Greenebaum, 2012a, 2012b; Roth, 2005; Stephens Griffin, 2017). Andreatta (2015) argues that being a vegan implies potential confrontation with others in various everyday situations. Greenebaum (2012b, p.  309), drawing on Goffman’s work on impression management, found that in communicating with omnivores, vegans and vegetarians used “face-saving” strategies to prevent hostile exchanges and disapproval, including avoiding conflict and carefully considering when to talk about veg*nism. When doing so, they tend to emphasise the health aspects of veganism and prefer to lead by example. Bolderdijk and Cornelissen (2022) similarly found that in social interactions, vegans and vegetarians preferred to remain silent about their preferences to avoid

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meat and/or dairy, due to the stigma associated with veganism and vegetarianism. They suggest that this “self-silencing” perpetuates eating other animals as a social norm. Stephens Griffin (2017) highlights how vegan identities are performed within structural circumstances constantly posing a challenge to veganism and vegans. Drawing on interviews with vegans, Stephens Griffin (2017) shows how “vegans routinely become the subject of normalising processes. These function to make it harder to be vegan, creating conflict in areas of daily experience that are otherwise unproblematized” (p.  121), emphasising the political nature of veganism. In addition, he found that vegans disclose their veganism depending on how they judge it is perceived in a given situation; in hostile contexts, they might not even do so (Stephens Griffin, 2017, p. 118). He thus concludes that vegan identities are “fluid and contextual” (Stephens Griffin, 2017, p. 123). Buttny and Kinefuchi’s (2020) analysis of how vegans negotiate their (stigmatised) identity and manage difficult situations in communicating with omnivores suggests that vegans are actively choosing between various options of how to frame veganism—as a diet, ethical practice, or a strategy to help mitigate climate change. They found that vegans make efforts to ensure that omnivores do not perceive them as extreme or critical. As one way of accomplishing this, vegans constructed veganism as a personal choice: an approach Turner (2019) has labelled “strategic individualism”. Turner (2019) however argues that the disjunction between vegans’ private moral beliefs and the presentation of veganism as a personal choice suggests that the ideology of individualism is not essentialised but “an interactional strategy to achieve particular goals” (p. 54). Drawing on Ahmed’s (2010) notion of the feminist killjoy, Twine (2014) suggests that this figure aptly describes how vegans become seen as killjoys, due to “their transgression of normative scripts of happiness and commensality in a dominant meat and dairy consuming culture” (p. 623). Twine (2014) suggests that there is an awkwardness associated with the vegan killjoy, due to the “lack of vegan competency amongst omnivores”, having to do with not knowing what foods to offer vegans, among other issues (p. 632). This previous research introduced above highlights the challenges involved in practising veganism in speciesist societies and the communicational effort required of vegans to navigate socially difficult situations around veganism. These studies have not however specifically focused on gender, including masculinities, in exploring this issue. Broadly, the experiences of vegan men, introduced below, align with these findings.

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“The Social Side of It Is the Most Difficult”: Navigating the Social Terrain as a Vegan The narratives of the Finnish and Estonian vegan men I interviewed suggest that interactions with non-vegan others in various everyday situations were typically more challenging for them to manage than the material practice of omitting animal products from their lives: Paul, 44, EST: It’s the social aspect. You immediately stand out in society. I love to go out, sometimes to restaurants and cafes. You automatically become a person with special needs. And you somehow become seen as strange or an outcast among family and friends. […]. The social side of it is the most difficult.

Despite the increasing cultural visibility and acceptance of veganism in Western societies, including in Estonia and Finland, such narratives highlight the primacy of the social and relational dimensions of veganism and attest to the still profound social norm of eating other animals, particularly for men (Ruby, 2012; Ruby & Heine, 2011; Szabo, 2019; Thomas, 2016). The following sections explore how the research participants made sense of and managed socially awkward situations around veganism.

Contextual Communication: Presentation of Veganism and the Vegan Self While the interviewees described a variety of responses to their veganism from omnivores, more negative ones prevailed in the narratives. It was typical that non-vegans would ask them about reasons why they are vegan and, upon hearing these, attempt to discredit veganism in some way in various everyday interactions. These experiences had made the research participants wary of bringing up veganism and led them to carefully consider how to respond. Strategies were chosen depending on the particularities of the situation and the people involved, illustrating the contextual nature of communicating veganism. The men emphasised the importance of first learning what matters to the people they talk to and estimating what information resonates with them, and based on this, determine how it makes sense to talk about veganism to them:

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Sander, 19, EST: I always have to listen to the person, to understand what their arguments are, what perspective they have on veganism. Then I know if it makes sense to tell them about the [animal] ethics, environment or these social issues. Ilmari, 27, FIN: Usually my philosophy with that or any of those kinds of questions is to try to think about what the other person, if I know the person, what they would respond to, cause not everyone responds to, you know, facts—how many litres of water does it take to make a burger or something. So, I try to sometimes, you know, sometimes I’ll talk about the environmental aspect. Sometimes I talk about health. […] But most of the time I find that if people ask why you’re vegan, I think I usually say like … that there’s a lot of different reasons. Or sometimes if I’m feeling that I don’t want to explain it too much for one reason or another, I usually say like I have no reason to eat animals, you know, or yeah, I think the most common answer to that for me is that there’s too many reasons not to eat animals.

This context-sensitivity means that the men did not always necessarily express in social situations what they personally considered the most important aspects of veganism, but what they perceived as appropriate or effective in a given setting: Toomas, 39, EST: If someone asks, and if they are informed, I say I am vegan. If they are not informed and if we talk about food then I somehow navigate … I say that I eat plant-based food. […] I am not interested in defending my vegan ground, I’m interested in impact. […] I do not invest in my vegan identity.

Such selective presentation of veganism and self-presentation of oneself as a vegan requires careful reading of the other participants in the interaction situation, to discern their values, knowledge, and assumptions. This could be argued to require the cultivation of what are typically deemed feminised listening skills. On the other hand, however, this, as part of impression management in microinteractions (Goffman, 1959), tends to be a rather universal activity, practised by all interaction participants, regardless of their gender, to achieve desired interactional goals. It was important for the vegan men to attentively listen to their conversation partners and engage in active and careful management of their (vegan) selves, because the particular impressions they conveyed of veganism and themselves as

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vegans shaped the outcomes of the interactions. Thus, they actively attempted to control how they come across to non-vegans. Such contextuality in terms of how one presents veganism and one’s vegan self means that veganism is presented in different ways, depending on the circumstances, as will be explored in more detail in the next sections.

“It’s Only Them Who Raise the Issue”: Avoiding Talking About Veganism Not surprisingly, the issue of veganism emerged most commonly in social interactions involving food—such as eating out with colleagues. According to the vegan men, it is almost exclusively the omnivore others who initiate conversations about veganism: Kari, 25, FIN: Always, and it’s only them who raise the issue. And then they blame you [laughs], because oh you’re preaching. I was just eating my food and then you started to like ask where I get my protein from […] People really know … in their hearts know what they’re doing is wrong.

The research participants sought to avoid getting into discussions about veganism, especially with people less close to them, such as colleagues or acquaintances, particularly in situations where people consume nonhuman animals, because of the predictable content and outcome of such interactions: Tapani, 35, FIN: If you’re a vegan at a table where there is meat served and you start an argument about what people should eat, you have kind of already lost it. Lukas, 25, FIN: I think like all the vegans, like people who have been vegan for quite some time know this certain sensation when someone pops the question in the table, like it’s just this ‘okay, here we go again’. Like I don’t want to start this, but if you ask me a direct question, I will answer you, type of situation. Like, I feel like there’s this snowball that starts going [laughs]. Like you know the next question and the next question and there’s like a certain pattern that it follows, yeah. […] Like every vegan has heard the same questions and had the same debate a hundred times. It’s always like the first or maybe the second time for some person who actually starts the question. And so, it’s quite uninteresting usually and gets easily very like uncomfortable as well.

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As these narratives indicate, the dining table is by far the most common setting where veganism is negotiated, as in this space people’s food choices—what they do and do not eat—become foregrounded. Yet, as many vegans, including my research participants, have experienced, this is one of the most unsuitable contexts in which to raise the issue of veganism, as contesting the consumption of nonhuman animals while people consume them is likely to produce feelings of guilt and defensiveness. Such interactions were perceived as uncomfortable and unlikely to yield any meaningful outcome in terms of challenging stereotypes about veganism or convincing anyone to become vegan. Most questions and comments that the men had received in such situations were described as ill-intentioned or misinformed. The repetitive nature of such conversations had made the research participants grow weary of them and produced feelings of frustration: Martin, 27, EST: These conversations are usually alike. I tell them why and then they ask. In some conversations, people take an interest and wonder how they could become vegans, in others, people start telling me all these myths and things, like ‘You can’t be vegan, you’ll become sick!’ and so on, and then I gently tell them why they are wrong. But I don’t know, all these conversations suggest that people just don’t care. Humanity’s attitude seems to be like ‘let me just kill time here and do my own thing’.

The frustration of having to explain veganism all over again repeatedly over the years was compared by a few men to the experience of minorities, arguing that it should not be their task to explain themselves, but the responsibility of the majority to educate themselves: Veli-Matti, 34, FIN: For the first years, ‘cause it was a new thing for me, I would bring it up often, but then after a couple of years, less and less. Now I don’t really bring it even up. But of course, when I ask for vegan options, some people might ask and then I happily explain, but I don’t promote it anymore. But at the start, I would promote it a lot, in Facebook, everywhere I would go. […] It gets tiring, repetition of the same facts and arguments over and over again. […] I guess this goes for many minority groups in society that … that it’s very demanding. It should not be the minorities explaining themselves all the time. It should be the majority finding out information and making the changes. […] It takes time to explain all the things and they would ask the same like fundamental questions about that why don’t you drink milk, that the animals don’t die in the production and then you’re like, okay, well, I learned this

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maybe a few months into being a vegan or something around that time and okay now I have to explain it. […] But anyways, examples like these, it takes a lot of time and even then, they might not even believe you, even though you provided that information. They might say, ‘okay, I don’t think you’re right’ and then it was all for nothing [laughs].

Here, parallels are drawn between how vegans and various marginalised groups, such as racialised people, are unjustly expected to perform significant discursive work to explain their perspectives and experiences to dominant groups and counter oppressive ideologies. Despite some parallels perceived by vegans in strategies used by vegans and minority groups, attempts to classify vegans as a minority group in society, akin to, for instance, racialised groups, should be approached critically. While vegans are a numerical minority in society and can face some negative social reactions to their veganism, they cannot be considered a disadvantaged group in the social power hierarchy solely on the basis of their veganism. This is true first and foremost of privileged men in Western societies who might experience discomfort in some social situations due to their veganism and spend energy to explain veganism, yet their advantageous position in the social hierarchy is not contested because of their veganism. A further reason why the men avoided talking about veganism was the feeling that they needed to possess expert knowledge to adequately answer questions that others pose about veganism. This was experienced particularly in the initial stages of veganism when they were still learning about its various aspects. The concern about lack of adequate knowledge was felt by some men most acutely in conversations about the health effects of veganism, a topic commonly raised by non-vegans: Jukka, 30, FIN: I feel like if I start to defend a position, I do have to like be an expert and kind of know everything, and have comebacks to everything. And if I’m uncertain about something it just makes me feel uncomfortable about the situation.

Assuming such a hesitant and humble position, reluctance to consider oneself an expert, despite having years of experience in practising veganism, expressing self-doubt and setting high expectations for themselves in these social interactions are interesting findings with regard to masculinity, as these orientations are at odds with privileged masculinities, associated

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with assertiveness and self-confidence in communication, regardless of actual expert knowledge on a given topic. Also significant in the context of performances of masculinity are concerns, expressed by some men, over how their veganism might make non-­ vegans feel and power hierarchies that might emerge in interactions with non-vegans: Tom, 41, EST: I feel like me being vegan is guilt-tripping them, before I open my mouth. […] They feel guilty because intellectually they kind of feel like veganism makes sense, it’s the compassionate thing to do, but they are not vegan. And so, it makes them look bad. In their own eyes, they look bad, because I’m doing what they think is right and they are not. So, it creates a kind of hierarchy whereby they think because I’m vegan, I must feel superior to them and that they are therefore inferior. And so that makes them feel bad and that makes them resent me and hate me for my presumed feeling of superiority. I’m often aware of this … and at pains to kind of not talk … not show any signs of arrogance and conceitedness around my veganism. […] So that creates the wall in that sense I guess the wall’s kind of created. When anybody feels defensive and feels like they are being made inferior, they are not gonna be very open about forming a relationship with that person. It will only be a kind of an antagonistic kind of … or tense or kind of … yeah … difficult, strange kind of relationship. And I certainly I’m sorry about that. It’s not nice and … so on the one hand I’m keen to talk about veganism, on the other hand, I’m also very keen to talk about it in a way where people don’t feel guilt-tripped, where people don’t feel made inferior, where they don’t feel like I’m talking down to them in any way, or kind of … yeah, talking about my veganism in order to highlight that they are eating animals and they should feel bad about it. Cause I just don’t think that kind of thing in that kind of situation is helpful.

This narrative exemplifies the high self-awareness and sensitivity that the vegan men displayed regarding how they are perceived by non-vegans and how their mere presence might affect them in situations involving food, casting a moral judgement. As expressed by Tom, many research participants were concerned about the impact that their veganism has on building social relationships with non-vegans—which many sought to do, but felt ambivalent about. Tom’s narrative also illustrates the cognitive labour (Daminger, 2019; Hill, 2015), primarily associated with the experiences of women (Morini, 2007) and people of colour (Evans & Feagin, 2015), that the vegan men performed not to be perceived as a vegan killjoy (Twine, 2014), a concern for several research participants. Such

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experiences highlight ethical and emotional difficulties and dilemmas that vegans experience in building and sustaining various kinds of relationships with non-vegans. While the men identified no neat ways to resolve such communicational conundrums, one proposed way to manage such situations was to make a distinction between what is a theoretically ideal or morally correct way of reacting when in the company of people who eat nonhuman animals, versus what is practically feasible, given established conventions of social interactions: Lauri, 28, FIN: But like, technically you shouldn’t be okay with any meat eating or like animal exploitation ever, but in practice it’s … to be really fundamental and like really sort of hardcore, it’s so impractical or difficult to like be with vegetarian friends and really constantly you’re the one who always like ruins that sort of mood by complaining or something. So, it’s … like theoretically, you can never be okay with it. […] I will theoretically be really against it but like in practice I will most likely have to sort of make a compromise and not make a big deal of it.

As these experiences suggest, such situations are emotionally difficult to navigate, as they involve constantly making assumptions about the feelings and perceptions of non-vegans and carefully considering whether, when, and what to disclose about one’s veganism. Such narratives demonstrate concern about the feelings of omnivores and careful efforts not to create and amplify hierarchies in social interactions. The strong sense of not wanting to be singled out because of veganism, particularly in unexpected and negative ways and not to cause discomfort to others, could have delayed the vegan transition for some: Niko, 26, FIN: I keep quiet about my veganism because I don’t want to make trouble. That’s maybe one of the reasons also why I didn’t go full-­vegetarian or full-vegan for a long time. I kind of didn’t want to be the one who’s like, ‘okay, can we order something else?’

According to some men, such discomfort was more present for them in their younger years and when they had less experience as vegans. Becoming more mature through ageing and having accumulated knowledge and experience in practising veganism had made them feel more comfortable talking about veganism to non-vegan others, as they admitted to no longer being so concerned with what others think of them and were less

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disturbed by receiving negative attention. This suggests that difficult social situations around veganism become easier to handle over time, partly also because men gradually acquire more experience in navigating them: Hannes, 39, EST: I think I’m now old enough to live my life the way I want to. I don’t know if it’s related to veganism or if I just care less, but I am now more comfortable saying I’m vegan. I don’t need to hide it or be afraid […] I used to feel like I don’t want to or don’t have the courage to become the centre of attention.

While the vegan men avoided getting into unexpected discussions about veganism when dining with omnivores, they could not escape such interactions altogether. It was typical for them to talk about veganism only when explicitly asked. According to the participants, if someone appeared truly interested, there was a higher likelihood that they are more receptive to the information. Thus, in social interactions with non-vegans, the men made constant judgements about how “ready” their conversation partners are and decided based on this how to present veganism: Martin, 27, EST: If I’m quietly eating my salad somewhere in the corner and someone asks ‘Hey, what’s the deal with that?’ then I tell them […] but initially very little, only when someone is really asking a lot […] if people are interested and come to ask about it, then they are more receptive to this information. […] If I start telling them ‘Hey, don’t eat any more meat!’ then they won’t like it and get a block. […] For me, the solution is to just passively do it and I talk if someone asks.

“I Don’t Wanna Be One of Those Preachy Vegans” The trope of the “preachy vegan” figured prominently in the men’s narratives of relating to non-vegans. By “preaching” about veganism, the interviewees meant initiating conversations about veganism and talking about it persistently, in a style that comes across as aggressive, pushy, and unpleasant to non-vegans. Besides what was considered a rude manner of talking to others, such a way of communication was deemed ineffective in influencing someone to become vegan in face-to-face interactions: Daniel, 34, FIN: I try and like talk about it but not like preach about it, you know, because if they want to find it, they’ll find it. Me talking things, tell them they should do it, it’s going to just push them away […] If someone forces some-

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thing upon you, you’re more likely to repel it than if you sort of find it yourself, you know, embrace it.

The figure of the “preachy vegan” was not however based on the men’s actual experience of having encountered such vegans but was constructed as a negative figure grounded in hegemonic cultural narratives about vegans. The men made discursive efforts to disassociate themselves from this undesirable character: Niko, 26, FIN: There’s a pretty strong stereotype about vegans and I really don’t want to encourage it—this preachy vegan—which I’ve personally never met, a really preachy vegan, but I guess they exist.

Some research participants however talked about having had a “preachy phase” in the initial stages of their veganism when they were in the process of learning about nonhuman animal exploitation and veganism. In retrospect, they provided negative evaluations of this behaviour of theirs, attributing it to simply being young, naive, and self-righteous: Lauri, 28, FIN: So, when you’re like 20 and you are like really righteous and you have this sort of zealousness and … ‘I made the right choices and my ideology is the right one’ and so on, and so I will have to like spread the gospel to others. So, I think others will think that you’re like really annoying. I may have had this sort of like … which may have lasted for like six months or something, this ‘be better than you, meat eater’ sort of this preaching phase in the beginning. And then it just stopped. So yeah, when I think about it, it can’t be just like a personal choice because billions of animals die all the time and the planet is really dying too. So, it can’t be just a personal choice. But it’s so like banging your head against the wall if you try to like convince your friends to make different choices or think about stuff or something like that.

The figure of the preachy vegan is imbued with certain emotions and affects (see Chap. 4 on emotions). This character is depicted as angry, aggressive, overexuberant, persistent, annoying, and pushy and as such violating some basic rules of “decent” communication. In terms of gender, emotions and affective states such as anger and aggressiveness are typically associated with masculinities. Nevertheless, this character does not align with performances of stoic and “rational” masculinity, associated with privileged white men’s ways of doing gender in particular. Further,

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the adjective “preachy” has strong links with religion and practices of some religious groups and individuals, associated with unwelcome and intrusive overzealousness, which is generally frowned upon in the secular cultures of Finland and Estonia. In part, it could be for these reasons that the men in this study sought to distance themselves from this trope. Further questions could be asked about the figure of the preachy vegan. Why is the preachy vegan such a negative figure in the cultural imagination and also constructed as such by the vegan men in this study? I suggest that behind the trope of the preachy vegan is the assumption that one is not supposed to “impose” their veganism on others. What is however considered an imposition of veganism within a speciesist culture could be simply letting omnivores know that one is vegan—an announcement that can be taken to imply immorality of those who eat other animals and thus interpreted as aggressive. There seems to be a very low threshold, as the narratives of vegan men in this chapter suggest, of what can be said to non-vegans about veganism and how. The distinction that omnivores might make between a “regular” vegan and a “preachy” vegan is that the former could condone an individual’s choice to consume nonhuman animals without calling them out, whereas a “preachy vegan” would not. The “preachy vegan” does not allow omnivores space to feel good about eating other animals and indeed makes them feel guilty. Thus, the “preachy vegan” is essentially a vegan killjoy (for a discussion of this concept, see Twine, 2014). However, to remain socially acceptable and maintain one’s social relations, vegans seek to distance themselves from this socially inappropriate figure, as did the men in this study. Certainly, they believed that they have no right to “preach” about veganism.

“It Helps Me to Remind Myself that I Also Have Been Eating a Lot of Meat”: Practising Compassion and Non-confrontational Approaches As discussed in Chap. 4, it was common for the men to experience feelings of frustration and anger in the initial stages of their veganism, after having learned about the systematic mistreatment of nonhuman animals in factory farms and other exploitative spaces. At the same time, witnessing resistance from omnivores to veganism to the urgency of nonhuman animal suffering caused many to perceive the darker side of humanity:

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Sami, 30, FIN: Maybe it’s due to veganism but maybe more like some misanthropic feelings have developed. … Like when you see society that’s not changing as quickly and in the direction you hope it to change like … then you get frustrated about it. Kalev, 43, EST: When you hear all these excuses and explanations from the omnivores and how veganism is religious extremism, some kind of trend and fashion and so on, then you really understand the kind of world we are living in. And then you begin seeing the weak sides of humanity and human nature. You start perceiving more clearly the darker side of humanity.

Yet, these negative feelings were usually not targeted at any specific omnivores, but rather towards a social organisation where the consumption of other animals remains normative: Niko, 36, FIN: Always when I feel the frustration, it’s more directed to like the kind of the world in general, or how things are in general, not to any specific people. I might get angry like at the system—for like, ‘why can’t they just get rid of meat and dairy products?’ Even if things are changing, it often feels like it’s like so slow, really-really feels like sometimes, like it’s one step forward and two steps back.

To preserve a positive image of one’s vegan self to others, research participants avoided expressing such emotions to omnivores. It was however typical for the feelings of anger and frustration to subside and give way to more compassion and understanding, as discussed in Chap. 4. Many men emphasised the need to cultivate empathy towards non-vegans and to understand different viewpoints, which led to non-confrontational communication strategies with non-vegans, deemed the most productive: Ott, 28, EST: I have been raised to prioritise empathy. I don’t blame people. I have always thought that a person is a person and we just live in such a society. It’s not like someone wakes up in the morning and thinks ‘Let me be a bad person today, let me kill an animal and eat them’. […] People are not killing and eating animals because they are bad people, but this is just how the world works.

Such cultivation of compassion and understanding towards omnivores had to do with, at least for some, remembering their own earlier experience as a non-vegan. It was helpful to think back to one’s past food practices and

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subsequent transformation to recognise where people are at and meet them there: Timo, 38, FIN: It helps me to remind myself that I also have been eating a lot of meat and I think if you want to convince someone you have to pick the person up from where they are. Jan-Erik, 36, FIN: I think we are at different points in many aspects of our lives and I think it’s important to be empathetic also towards people, not just the animals.

This emphasis on compassion towards non-vegans also functions as a response to a common (implicit) charge that vegans receive—that they care more about nonhuman animals than people. “Planting Seeds”: Enabling Non-vegans to Reach Their Own Conclusions As part of presenting a positive image of vegans and veganism and an attempt to avoid being labelled a “preachy vegan”, the men considered it useful not to appear “radical” and “dogmatic” in conversations with omnivores: Eino, 40, FIN: I’m not sure if they will change their minds. I am not sure. They have their own opinions and I think that [the] way to approach this is not to try and change the thoughts at all, and the cultural brainwash that the industry and our society have done, and you cannot create changes like that overnight or so on, but it is easier to plant the doubt. And plant the idea, plant the thought into some person—and let that like, work itself out. And if it … if it has a meaning and a person is responsive to that, he will like … it’s okay for me if he doesn’t eat as much meat as before, if he eats as much meat that’s his choice and so on […]. The more extreme we take veganism and food, or our perspective of it, the more radical we become on our viewpoints and more outspoken and condemning we are about other people, [the] more we create the backlash to it.

This strategy was likely shaped by dominant cultural images of veganism and vegans. Eino’s narrative also illustrates the research participants’ hesitance about the capacity of individual vegans to challenge hegemonic speciesist structures and discourses that non-vegans are enmeshed in and that shape their everyday practices.

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It was considered important to encourage critical thinking in people: Ilmari, 27, FIN: It’s really important to make people think for themselves, cause that’s … at least for me that’s how … I feel like what happened to me is I, you know, I saw evidence and I saw, you know, opinions that opened my own mind, you know, I didn’t just follow someone else’s. So, I feel like those everyday conversations are really important in that sense as well.

The task of the vegan was to aid this critical thinking by “planting seeds”, as a particular “non-confrontational” approach of gentle nudging: Timo, 38, FIN: I’ve actually never met a vegan who ran around telling people “Hey, don’t eat meat and I’m a vegan by the way”. […] I really don’t want to go around telling people ‘Hey, what you’re eating is actually wrong’. I also have the feeling that it’s not going to help anyways. When they ask then they are curious. […] Maybe if you give the right answers, you might even maybe like plant a seed of changing habits there. But yeah, I wouldn’t try to spread it or force it on people.

The “planting seeds” approach is an apt illustration of the efforts the men made not to appear as a “preachy vegan” and their beliefs about what kind of communication of veganism is most effective. Behind this tactic are several assumptions about what non-vegans are perceptive to. As the men’s accounts indicate, these beliefs differed somewhat. Some hoped that presenting non-vegans with factual information and evidence about how humans treat other animals will change their values and behaviour, stemming from an idea of people as rational actors. Others, however, did not believe that changing people’s minds with facts is easy or quick, especially in the current post-truth conditions. Non-discursive Communication: Role Modelling and Signalling Veganism While attempting to avoid getting into discussions about veganism that were overwhelmingly experienced as uncomfortable and ineffective, it was nevertheless important for the men to convey vegan messages to people in some ways, to dispel myths about veganism, and to contribute towards a world where veganism would be available to more people, in other words, create vegan imaginaries (White, 2022, p. 21). The research participants preferred and considered it most effective and comfortable to act as quiet

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and relatively passive role models, which involved gently nudging people towards accepting veganism, through non-discursive acts rather than words. It was believed that simply living one’s life as a vegan and participating in everyday interactions with non-vegans, without necessarily talking about veganism, can give people an idea of what vegans are like and thereby normalise veganism: Timo, 38, FIN: I don’t know how many people eat less meat for example nowadays just because they, they figured that ‘Ah, this Timo guy changed so I can also change and why not, and he seems to be so healthy so it can’t be wrong’ […] You automatically become this role model in a way for, for many people that never thought about it before because they thought ‘Okay vegans they are these, I don’t know, these hippies and mostly female’. I’m […] in the IT business and I used to work as a personal trainer and in the fitness business, and I’m physically in relatively good shape. So, people are always curious.

Timo’s narrative relies on masculinised ideals of what a successful person and indeed an appropriate vegan role model should look like and do (e.g., looking fit and working in the IT industry). Narratives of the need to “normalise” veganism in such a way were also shared by some others, as they welcomed the increasing contestation of the narrow and stereotypical depictions of vegans (malnourished, women, “hippies”, etc.) in the mainstream culture. In doing so, while diversifying the image of vegans and veganism, they risk denigrating many vegans by feminising them. A typical non-confrontational strategy of communicating veganism was through introducing plant-based food to people, hoping that it would act as an inviting entry point to veganism for non-vegans: Kasper, 36, FIN: I like to share a lot of pictures and social media about delicious, beautiful vegan foods, and I think that’s been changing people’s world […] Maybe a few years back it was the case that people thought that vegan food means only like raw vegetables or salads or like that, but we usually cook like hearty meals with beautiful colour and stuff. And so, I think people have been inspired by that.

Another example of a non-discursive intervention was to signal veganism in public spaces to those attentive or interested by wearing items, such as T-shirts and bags with vegan messages on them, functioning as an invitation for people to start conversations with them about veganism. This was

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considered a good way to attract the attention of those truly interested in and open to veganism and also to meet other vegans: Ott, 28, EST: I don’t hide that I’m vegan at work. I wear a bag, which says ‘Animal rights march Berlin 2018’ and I also have a water bottle with the same text. So, if someone is interested, they can come and talk to me.

The idea behind such forms of action as role modelling, gentle nudges, and using vegan signs was to avoid confrontation—because of personal discomfort as well as beliefs that more direct forms of communicating veganism are ultimately not conducive to influencing someone to become vegan. This is why the men preferred small, subtle, non-discursive acts that according to them were more likely to receive a positive reception. Yet, it could be argued that such soft and subtle communication remains largely invisible and thus unlikely to foster any substantial social change. Also, at least some strategies introduced here convey plant-based diets rather than veganism.

Explaining Veganism: Animal Ethics, Environmental, or Health Arguments? As outlined earlier, people typically identify three motivations behind their veganism, broadly summarised as animal ethics, environmental, and personal health concerns. This was also the case with the vegan men in this study, as explored in Chap. 2 (see also Aavik, 2021). These themes also came up in conversations that the men had had with omnivores about veganism and were typically used as shorthand answers to questions about why they became vegan. Exemplifying the contextual nature of talking about veganism and the work of constructing a certain image of veganism and vegans considered appropriate for a given situation, some men, who themselves were vegan primarily for ethical reasons, however, preferred to highlight environmental reasons over ethical ones to non-vegans. This occurred particularly in conversations with other men, due to the cultural stigma related to men displaying care towards other animals and the association of this with femininities. This involved foregrounding facts on the environmental impact of consuming nonhuman animals that are more difficult to dismiss on factual grounds, as opposed to points about nonhuman animal suffering, which can be regarded as much more subjective and therefore more easily disregarded:

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Urmas, 45, EST: I have thought that the environmental aspect is more convincing because it’s not so much based on emotion. Well, it depends on whom you are talking to, but usually, the ethical aspect is associated with emotions. Although, protecting the environment can also be very emotional, linked to emotions. But yes, I somehow want to give a rational answer, not an emotional one.

Such narratives suggest that vegan men’s assumptions about what ways of talking about veganism resonate and are effective with non-vegan men, in particular, shape their choices of how to present veganism to them, in ways that downplay emotional aspects of relating to and building relationships of care with other animals. Several ecofeminist scholars have critically noted how masculinised rights-based approaches in animal advocacy, originating from the work of privileged white male scholars such as Peter Singer and Tom Regan, have dismissed and denigrated the role of emotions in relating to and advocating for other animals (Gruen & Probyn-­ Rapsey, 2018; Donovan, 1990; Wrenn, 2019; for a broader critique of rights-based perspectives in animal advocacy, see Curtin, 1991). A few men, however, displayed a critical awareness of their own tendency to dismiss feminised emotions and prefer masculinised rationality in conversations about veganism. They believed it would be beneficial to cultivate emotional responses within men towards nonhuman animal suffering: Ilmari, 27, FIN: I rely on the, you know, all those facts and like numbers and figures just personally because that’s like, you know, that’s kind of me, that’s the things I’m better with. I don’t know if that’s some kind of, you know, masculinity issues that I have [laughs] […]. But I feel like I should also work on that personally, like go to those emotions even with men.

Several men noted that non-vegans tend to be most interested in the health aspects of veganism. Thus, the research participants—even those who were not vegans for health reasons and were critical of “health vegans” (see Aavik & Velgan, 2021) had learned that talking about the negative health impacts of meat and dairy could be a useful way to make people rethink their food practices. Despite having experienced more favourable reactions from non-vegans when emphasising environmental or health aspects of veganism, it was important for some men to bring up issues of animal ethics in conversations with omnivores:

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Niko, 26, FIN: If I refer to the environmental reasons […] then many people are like ‘okay, but I don’t own a car and so I can eat meat, I don’t have to be vegan’. So that’s also why I kind of stopped using the environmental arguments, now I’m saying it’s because of ethical reasons—just because I kind of want to be more honest about it.

Some experiences were shared of how one could bring in nonhuman animals and practise care towards them into conversations about veganism in potentially effective ways, by relating these issues to many people’s everyday experiences with nonhuman companion animals in their lives: Hannes, 39, EST: Ethical reasons come first for me […] Sometimes when people have asked me if I have some health problems, I say no—we simply shouldn’t kill and eat animals. I have not been hiding this. This actually gives a good opportunity for people to relate to their experience, for instance, some have pets at home. I just recently talked to someone about this, we were drinking one evening and they said ‘I’m never gonna become vegan!’. And then they started to talk about their cat whom they loved dearly, saying ‘I can eat whatever animal, but I won’t eat Milly’, or whatever the name of their cat was.

Terminological Dilemmas: To Mention “Veganism” or Not? In considering how to communicate veganism to non-vegans, the men’s narratives featured contradicting opinions and dilemmas about whether or when it is appropriate to use the term “vegan”. As a strategic choice, some avoided referring to this word due to the stigma and misconceptions associated with it, preferring the term “plant-based” instead. While the latter does not equate with veganism, as the men were aware, some were convinced that avoiding referring to veganism may make non-vegans more receptive to information about veganism. The dilemmas involved in using this terminology are captured well by Gordon: Gordon, 48, FIN: For one, the problem with using the word veganism is that people have an already preconceived notion. It’s looked upon as being a bad thing, as being a radical thing, as being an extreme thing. It does not have a good reputation or at least with a lot of people it resonates the wrong way when they hear that word. So, to be throwing the word vegan out there when you’re trying to advocate for animals may turn people off. And it may not be the right

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strategy for helping animals in the end. […] And that to me is a big problem with veganism. And the term anyway, of course, I’m a fully committed ethical vegan, but I do question whether or not from an animal rights movement perspective if it’s the right thing to be throwing out there at people because we’re talking about people and we’re talking about a human diet.

Certainly, the choice of whether to use the term “vegan” was contextual— it was carefully considered where and when to use it. Yet, despite potentially negative reactions, for some it was important to explicitly mention veganism and use the term strategically, to make veganism and vegans more visible: Tom, 41, EST: So, I’ve often felt that, as I’ve mentioned before, I’m very keen to let people know that I’m vegan, that’s important to me because as I keep saying, I feel like … I believe I would have gone vegan if I had met more vegans earlier. So, I’m kind of keen for people to know there are vegans around. So, I don’t like shove it to people’s faces, but I’m quite open about it, if it seems appropriate for me to kind of mention my veganism I do, I’m very open about that. But I often feel that once I do, with some people, it creates a bit of a wall.

Conclusions Veganism can be a controversial topic of conversation in societies where eating nonhuman animals remains a firmly established social norm. This chapter explored strategies that vegan men use and communicational dilemmas they face in everyday interactions where the issue of veganism comes up, drawing on Goffman’s (1959) ideas on impression management and the idea of “doing gender” (West & Zimmerman, 1987) in microinteractions. In applying these approaches to vegan men’s communication with omnivores, I demonstrated how their communication was sensitive to the interactional context, contingent on the situational circumstances and drawing on previous experiences of similar social situations. This illustrates how veganism is constantly (re)negotiated in social interactions and different aspects of it become highlighted. The vegan men in this study found it important to communicate veganism to non-vegans; yet, finding appropriate ways to do so was difficult. As previous research has suggested, vegans are aware of the stigma towards them and their communication strategies are oriented towards avoiding

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this (Greenebaum, 2012b; Markowski & Roxburgh, 2019). The interactions of the vegan men in this study with omnivores were largely shaped by a desire to avoid stigmatisation. Despite overwhelmingly negative experiences of talking about veganism with non-vegans, the narratives of the research participants suggest that these interactions have taught them a great deal about communication with people and practising sensitivity to context in each situation. As the main strategies, the men avoided talking about veganism unprompted and practised empathy and non-confrontational approaches to communication. Similar strategies were also found in Greenebaum’s (2012b) study on how vegans manage impressions. As non-discursive strategies, role modelling and signalling veganism were practised. In communicating with omnivores, vegan men faced dilemmas regarding which arguments to use in a particular situation and whether to invoke the term “vegan”. All strategies involved carefully constructing and managing one’s vegan self, to avoid confrontation, deemed unpleasant and ineffective. The trope of the preachy vegan figured prominently in the men’s narratives and this chapter has unpacked their attempts to distance themselves from this figure. This trope could be linked to the notion of virtue signalling (on this concept, see Levy, 2021), a typically condemned practice of placing oneself on moral high ground and expressing this in social interactions, a behaviour commonly associated with vegans. My findings, however, consistent with previous research (Bolderdijk & Cornelissen, 2022; Greenebaum, 2012b) suggest that vegans avoid such virtue signalling. Yet, in a speciesist culture, their mere presence as vegans in social interactions, particularly in those involving food, can already be perceived as disruptive. Giraud (2021) points out the work that the trope of the preachy vegan does, along with other such representations, such as “vegan police”, noting that these are “frequently deployed as rhetorical tactics to dismiss important ethical concerns out of hand” (p. 145). The “preachy vegan” is essentially a killjoy (on vegan killjoys, see Twine, 2014). In microinteractions, conversation participants jointly work to maintain solidarity (see, e.g., Collins, 2004). Thus, to be a vegan killjoy (Twine, 2014) is a violation of this tacit agreement that grounds social interactions. To appear more socially acceptable and less confrontational and attempt to make veganism more palatable, in many social interactions, vegan men foregrounded the food and health aspects of veganism, for example, the choice of certain products over others and the potential positive health effects of veganism, downplaying concerns over nonhuman

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animals. Thus, they communicated plant-based eating rather than veganism, thereby depoliticising veganism. Emphasising environmental reasons behind veganism, which the men tended to do over animal ethics, has a similar effect. This discourse can remain anthropocentric and not decentre humans. It puts forward the argument that eating nonhuman animals hurts us as humans because it is destroying the environment that we need for our livelihood and future generations of humans, not for nonhuman animals’ sake, as some critical perspectives on applying climate change rhetoric in animal advocacy suggest (see Almiron, 2019). The research participants’ environmental justifications of veganism to non-vegans involved reliance on facts and figures. McGregor (2022) argues that the contemporary environmental movement is increasingly driven by facts, legitimised by science. This implies a masculinised rationality and encourages superficial ecomodernist solutions (for instance, technofixes) to fundamental problems (Hultman & Pulé, 2018), as well as reinforces the dualism of nature and humans. This impedes the development of more emotional and intuitive, care, and empathy-based relations with more-­ than-­human others, the importance of which has been highlighted by many ecofeminists. The findings of this chapter broadly align with those of previous research. It is significant that privileged vegans—such as white middle-­ class men—also practise similar communication styles as other vegans, prompted by the same fears and motivations. The use of these strategies and the impression management techniques are significant from the gender perspective. The men cultivated and engaged in several culturally feminised practices, such as developing empathy and communication skills, being sensitive to how they are perceived in social situations, and displaying concern about the feelings of non-vegans in discussions about veganism. Thus, for men to cultivate and practise these skills might transform constructions of masculinity in positive ways. At the same time, in attempting to identify what resonates with their conversation partners, they tended to use masculinised “rational” arguments and emphasised environmental aspects of veganism, over care and empathy towards other animals, particularly in conversations with other men, deeming these arguments to be more effective in this context. Thus, these performances of masculinity can challenge as well as support hegemonic masculinity. Yet, caution should be exercised as not to construct certain feminised ways of expression as entirely alien to men and consider men as incapable of practising these. Indeed, these are increasingly typical and valued elements of some

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emergent masculinities, such as caring masculinities (Elliot, 2016; Hanlon, 2012) and ecological masculinities (Hultman & Pulé, 2018). The consumption of nonhuman animals as normative makes those who challenge it stand out in unexpected and unwelcome ways in many routine situations and contexts, especially those involving eating and food. Experiences of being rendered deviant as a vegan (Aavik, 2019a) in ordinary situations may be perceived as unexpected, particularly by privileged men who usually remain unmarked and are in a position to control most social interactions. While veganism does not marginalise privileged men, the feeling of suddenly standing out in a negative way can displace their usual sense of comfort and can be unsettling. Crucially, if privileged vegan men find it difficult to navigate social relationships and social pressure as vegans, and have to resort to the kinds of strategies discussed in this chapter, then it is likely even more difficult for vegans from non-normative groups to do so, who might become further marginalised due to their veganism. The findings of this chapter have implications for the spread of veganism and thereby social change towards more sustainable and ethical ways of relating to other animals. An important question to consider here is the effectiveness of particular tactics for communicating veganism—a contested issue in both academic literature and animal advocacy. Effective altruist approaches (MacAskill, 2017) prevalent in contemporary animal advocacy activism emphasise the importance of non-confrontational and less “radical” approaches, such as those practised by the men in this study. This typically translates into messages to reduce meat, rather than to become vegan and communicate veganism as a social justice issue. Yet, it has been pointed out that there is no evidence of the effectiveness of such strategies, and if anything, they can hinder social change towards a large-­ scale vegan transition (Taft, 2016). Yet, such strategies are practised in everyday interaction and deemed effective by many vegans and animal activists (Taft, 2016; Wrenn, 2019), as this chapter has also demonstrated (see also Aavik, 2019b). Thus, a tension exists between theoretical conceptualisations of effectiveness in vegan messaging and the everyday experiences and convictions of vegans. In terms of strategies for communicating veganism to non-vegan men, it might be easier or more effective to promote a plant-based diet for health and environmental reasons, divorced from questions of animal ethics as well as gender and intersectional concerns. However, as my approach to veganism throughout this book suggests and as will be explored in

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more detail in the concluding chapter, I advocate for promoting intersectional veganism, consistent with (pro)feminist politics. While this approach is likely to encounter more resistance from many groups of men whose masculinity is invested in the consumption of nonhuman animals, it is a more sustainable and ethical strategy in the long term. Vegan men’s linking of veganism primarily with environmental issues over others has some other important implications. Since doing veganism and doing gender are interlinked (DeLessio-Parson, 2017, p.  1731), the research participants were simultaneously putting forward certain constructions of masculinity when presenting veganism through environmental concerns. Indeed, these ways of doing masculinity appear to align with conventional masculinity scripts. The findings of this chapter could be useful to consider in the context of communicating other controversial issues of social change, such as climate sustainability and racial equality, which require in particular the privileged majority to change some of their taken-for-granted beliefs and key everyday habits. For example, parallels could be drawn with discussions on climate change, which have been found to “often lead to anger, mocking, denial and other defensive behaviours” (Aaltola, 2021, p. 5) that vegans typically encounter. Aaltola (2021, p.  5) uses the notion of “climate shame” to explain this phenomenon and argues that climate shame could work as an effective method of persuasion.

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CHAPTER 6

Navigating Close Relationships: Vegan Men Relating to Friends, Family, and Intimate Partners

Introduction This chapter continues foregrounding the social and relational dimensions of veganism, as Chap. 5, and argues that a successful performance of veganism is significantly tied to reactions one receives from those that one is surrounded by. Elizabeth Cherry (2006), also highlighting relational aspects of veganism, argues that supportive social networks are more significant in maintaining veganism than personal self-determination. Richard Twine (2014) suggests that the “relational dimensions [of veganism] deserve further research since they can be crucial to the everyday performance of veganism” (p. 632). While Chap. 5 examined vegan men’s general communication strategies, this chapter focuses on their experiences of negotiating veganism in the private sphere, that is, with friends, family members, and intimate partners. Relationships with people in one’s immediate circles—friends, family members, partners—shape the vegan transition and everyday experiences as a vegan in important ways. While supportive attitudes can validate one’s vegan experience and identity, negative reactions can lead to alienation from one’s family or social networks, making it more challenging to maintain veganism. Twine (2014) argues that vegans’ relationships with omnivores “could be an especially important site for examining the tension between meat culture and a counter hegemonic practice like veganism” (p. 631). © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 K. Aavik, Contesting Anthropocentric Masculinities Through Veganism, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-19507-5_6

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Previous research has found that vegans are subject to negative attitudes and stigmatisation, largely because they do not conform to social norms related to food and eating (MacInnis & Hodson, 2015; Markowski & Roxburgh, 2019). A few previous studies have focused on close relationships of veg*ns. Twine (2014), drawing on interviews with British vegans, found that they typically experience negative responses to their vegan transition from those close to them (see also Chap. 5). Drawing on Sara Ahmed’s (2010) notion of the feminist killjoy, Twine (2014) introduces the figure of the vegan killjoy, as posing “a direct challenge to the dominant affective community that celebrates the pleasure of consuming animals” (p. 628) (for a discussion of the figure of the vegan killjoy in the men’s communication practices, see Chap. 5). Despite the overwhelmingly unsupportive attitudes that Twine’s research participants had experienced from the ones close to them, Twine (2014) suggests, more hopefully, that vegans “create new meanings and practices that underline the shared joy in living outside and beyond social norms once thought fixed” (p. 638). Focusing on the negotiation of family relationships over eating meat, Roth’s (2005, p. 197) analysis of interviews with vegetarians also reveals strong responses from family members to the food practices of vegetarians who are rendered deviant and seen as disrupting the stability of the family unit. Roth (2005) suggests that “vegetarianism, like other major life changes, disrupts the status quo of the family structure at a very emotionally laden point—its food traditions” (p. 197). As such, she argues that the practices of vegetarians (and especially vegans, I would add) illuminate “how food behavior and ideology also work to negotiate power, belonging, and exclusion” (Roth, 2005, p. 197). The findings of these studies highlight the centrality of consuming nonhuman animals in building and maintaining social bonds, including and especially familial ones. Building on the previous chapter and the research outlined above, this chapter explores how vegan men negotiate relationships with friends, relatives, and partners and how these experiences are gendered. I argue that close relationships can support or hinder becoming and living as a vegan and have implications for constructions of masculinity. In the context of intimate relationships, the chapter considers vegansexuality (Potts & Parry, 2010; Potts & White, 2007)—sexual attraction towards and a preference for building romantic and/or sexual relationships with other vegans. Potts and Parry (2010) argue that vegansexuality poses a challenge to Western heteronormative masculinities invested in virility and meat-eating.

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As discussed in Chap. 5, it is difficult for vegans to avoid the subject of veganism coming up in social interactions, especially if one is the only vegan in a group of people, despite the research participants’ active efforts to refrain from engaging in such conversations. The same applies to interactions with close others, where veganism can shape relationships in significant ways, as this chapter will demonstrate. What distinguishes encounters one has as a vegan with acquaintances and other more distant people from those with family members and friends is the more intimate and long-term nature of the latter relationships, where veganism has to be negotiated over a longer time, not just touched upon in one-off conversations. While one can choose acquaintances and friends with similar values and break these relationships over a mismatch of politics or for other issues, it is usually much more difficult to cut ties with close family members. Doing so might have more serious emotional consequences. While one’s circle of friends and acquaintances can and usually does change upon going vegan, as will be explored in this chapter, family members remain the same. Thus, it is of great significance to negotiate veganism successfully within one’s more intimate circles, to maintain these relationships. In bonds that are sustained over time, conflicts and ways of resolving these may require somewhat different strategies. It is likely that as a result of and in the course of this ongoing communication, family members’ attitudes and ideas about veganism change and over the course of these relationships, veganism is communicated in different ways, depending on the circumstances. This includes managing conflicts over veganism. Thus, the framework of doing veganism—as a contextual phenomenon involving active impression management and choice of appropriate communication strategies, as explored in Chap. 5, also applies here. This chapter makes use of the idea of everyday activism. Negotiating veganism with family members and friends through conversations and non-discursive interactions could be considered a form of everyday activism, conceptualised as “talk and action in everyday life that is not intentionally coordinated with the actions of others but is (1) to some degree caused (inspired, encouraged) by a social movement and (2) consciously intended to change others’ ideas or behaviour in directions advocated by the movement” (Mansbridge, 2013, p.  1). My findings complicate the distinction between “lifestyle” and “activist” veganism (White, 2018), blurring the boundaries between these two types of veganism. The chapter starts by examining how veganism shapes men’s interactions with friends and acquaintances, then proceeds to consider their

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relationships with their birth families, and finally explores veganism in men’s intimate and romantic relationships. Throughout the chapter, I consider how these interactions are shaped by gender.

Veganism and Community: Friends and Acquaintances The importance of community, including online communities, has been highlighted in previous studies on taking up and maintaining veganism (see, e.g., Twine, 2014; Laakso et  al., 2021). Twine (2014) uses the notion of affective community, highlighting the emotional support it offers in managing potentially difficult relationships with non-vegans. Whether one is surrounded by vegan friends and community or is the only vegan in one’s social circles significantly impacts one’s doing of veganism in everyday interactions. Most research participants considered having vegan friends and being part of a vegan community important. Only a few men admitted not feeling the need or having time (e.g., due to work or family commitments) for cultivating friendships specifically with other vegans. While the social circles of most participants in this study consisted of vegans and non-vegans, some were surrounded mostly by vegan friends and acquaintances and some had none. I start by examining the experiences of those immersed in a vegan community. “I Live in My Little Bubble” It was common that upon becoming vegan, the composition of the research participants’ social circles changed at least somewhat, as they sought to connect to people whom they shared core values with and could exchange information about various aspects of practising veganism. Some had been part of such circles for a longer time, even before going vegan, which had a positive impact on their vegan transition. At the time of the interviews, some men’s social circles consisted mostly of other vegans as well as vegetarians. This community was considered valuable, including for the development of one’s identity as a vegan: Lukas, 25, FIN: It’s definitely like a strong community and like one of the kinds of key communities that I think I have belonged to in my life, which is really nice because it’s also like not tied to a certain place or like school or something like that. So, it has kind of like given a solid background for my identity as well.

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Living in a social circle consisting mainly of other vegans was described as living in a “bubble”, which for several men was pursued as a rather conscious choice: Ott, 28, EST: I’m cutting myself out from the rest of the world a little bit. I live in my little bubble.

The bubble effect, in this case referring to inhabiting a social space consisting mostly or only of other vegans, has been extensively discussed as a major consequence of our social media-saturated lives where we are selectively exposed to people and information validating and reinforcing our ideological beliefs (Spohr, 2017). Particularly for the vegan men living (temporarily) away from their physical mother language communities, a significant proportion of their social interactions with other vegans took place online. This could further exacerbate the bubble effect, due to the nature of social media. The men displayed high awareness of and critical perspectives on inhabiting such a secluded space: Lauri, 28, FIN: In my bubble of social scientists and really like feminist and left-wing people, it [veganism] is not exceptional at all. It’s more like it’s really the standard way. I live in Helsinki, I used to live in this sort of like hipster neighbourhood last summer […] It’s not exceptional at all, but in the bigger picture, it is exceptional. I think this sort of differentiation, the differences inside a country are like, maybe they are like becoming bigger or something like that because if I think about people who live in […] like small cities, they will always have a car and they will drive to work and they will drive everywhere and they will drive to Prisma [one of the main supermarket chains in Finland and Estonia] to buy meat. And the sort of lifestyles are becoming really different between different parts. So, I’m a part of this world where it’s more and more mainstream to be vegan. But the world I live in is becoming more and more distant from the world of the let’s say some sort of like Rovaniemi in Lapland [a small town in Finland’s arctic region] or something.

Particularly amongst the Finnish research participants, in part, because Finland is a larger country than Estonia, geographically and in terms of population, there was a recognition that people who live in more distant parts of Finland, as opposed to the larger cities, do not enjoy the same access to veganism. Beyond material access to plant-based food, this was thought to also be an issue of lack of access to vegan social networks and

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the support that these provide. By recognising this, the men acknowledged their own privileged position, in terms of class and geographical location. Overall, being surrounded largely by vegans was interpreted by several research participants, especially in Finland, as evidence that veganism is increasingly becoming commonplace and accepted, particularly in urban centres: Tapani, 35, FIN: I did feel more like an outsider years ago. These days I don’t actually even think about it so much because almost anywhere you go there is a vegan option. It seems to be a thing now. And that’s like … that’s completely new. And in some sense, I feel like there’s a need to support this. There’s a completely new kind of progress that wasn’t there before, it wasn’t there when I became vegan. It’s something that definitely needs to be encouraged. So, maybe it will spread. These days you see people who aren’t vegan picking these options.

This increased societal acceptance that Tapani talks about gradually normalises veganism and ultimately has positive implications for the self-image of vegans, enabling them to feel less alienated. Both positive and negative aspects of living in one’s “bubble” were recognised. While the men found this advantageous for themselves personally, it was not considered conducive to the spread of veganism more broadly: Lukas, 25, FIN: It’s a good thing and a bad thing. Like I definitely feel much better than I did 10 years ago, like not fighting with people around me. But also, I feel that […] living in this bubble is harmful for veganism because I’m not really reaching people who are not open to these ideas.

Yet, interacting mainly with other vegans can be liberating, as the norm of consuming other animals is no longer governing social interactions. In such circles, it might no longer be vegans who regularly need to justify their choices, a typically difficult and tiresome part of social interactions (see Chap. 5): Lauri, 28, FIN: It’s commonplace to have this sort of like a table discussion over lunch or something, and there could be five vegetarians sitting at the table and one meat eater. And the meat eater has to become defensive and like justify. […] But it’s always that the meat eater will have to provide excuses for themselves rather than the other way around.

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The situation that Lauri describes functions as an inverted microcosm in terms of the normative status of consuming nonhuman animals in society. In such microsettings, power relations between vegans and omnivores can be reversed: it is instead the non-vegans whose practices are questioned and who have to provide justifications for their consumption of nonhuman animals. This normalisation of veganism could have positive implications for the self-esteem of vegans. “I Don’t Really Have Any Vegan Friends” At the opposite end of interacting with like-minded people on a daily basis, experiences of not having such a community around oneself were shared. Not having vegan friends was the result of choice, circumstances, or both. The following narrative illustrates how relating to omnivores can be difficult or undesirable due to a clash in core values. Having no vegan friends can be an isolating experience: Gordon, 48, FIN: It’s become harder for me over the years to understand and connect with people who … I think are supporting animal exploitation and … a really huge injustice. […] My wife says it’s a problem for me because I don’t really have any vegan friends. But I don’t really wanna have non-vegan friends. I find it difficult for me to identify with people that are non-vegan. […] For most people, it’s a really huge perspective change. And most people … it’s too much … all your relatives, all your friends. Everything around you is based on being an omnivore. And for people to sort of really engage the thought of ‘oh my God this whole structure that I’m a part of and that I’ve been a part of my whole life’, to acknowledge that there’s a problem with it, is really problematic for people, because it challenges everything. Challenges your family and challenges your traditions, it challenges everything. So, people can ask questions about it and be curious about it, but ultimately, you know, chances of it going further than that, it’s probably just easier to let it go. And I find that awkward. Anyway, you know, I don’t connect with a lot of people.

In this extract, Gordon invokes the significance of family food traditions and the profound consequences of disrupting them, as vegans do through their food practices (see also Roth, 2005). Gordon’s narrative illustrates the sense of disconnectedness that many vegans experience in close relationships where the other parties—especially the ones close to them—consume other animals. For many vegans, it is not only the physical act of

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eating nonhuman animals in their presence that is difficult to accept but the speciesist values that omnivores hold. After becoming vegan, and the profound shift in identity and values this entails (Giacoman et al., 2021; see also Chap. 2), non-vegans can seem like fundamentally different kinds of people with whom it is difficult to connect. As Gordon aptly notes, a key obstacle to adopting veganism for many people is that this transition profoundly affects one’s social relationships. The presence of vegan friends and community is particularly important in cases where one has conflicts with family members over veganism. Doing Masculinity and Veganism: Interactions with Non-vegan Male Friends This section takes a closer look at how cultural constructions of hegemonic masculinity and eating other animals play an important role in how vegan men negotiate veganism. The interactions with non-vegan men explored here provide insights into how vegan men relate to performances of masculinity invested in the consumption of nonhuman animals. Experiences of feeling alienated from one’s male omnivore friends were shared. Particularly for those men for whom becoming vegan coincided with other major life changes, such as quitting alcohol, a sense of estrangement was especially acute, as they challenged multiple cultural norms of masculinity simultaneously. Critical reflections were shared by some on consuming alcohol and eating meat as culturally prevalent and accepted practices for men in Finland and Estonia1: Hannes, 39, EST: I have been asked ‘Do you at least drink beer? Vodka? Everyone knows that vodka is vegan!’ In some circles, you are accepted if you don’t eat meat, but drink vodka.

If men no longer involve themselves in either of these practices, they can be ostracised by other men who participate in these activities. Distancing from these social circles can occur as a result of experiencing a sense of disconnect and awkwardness from both sides once the core values and 1  In a global comparison, Estonia and Finland are among the countries with high alcohol consumption (Ritchie & Roser, 2018). Drinking remains central to Finnish and Estonian masculinities. See Karlsson (2009) on Finnish alcohol culture and gender patterns in alcohol consumption.

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ways of spending time together are no longer shared. Narratives of change in relating to non-vegan male friends indicate how becoming vegan can lead to profound personal transformation, along with developing a critical perspective on some culturally dominant ideals and practices of masculinity that some used to participate in: Timo, 38, FIN: I had friends who said like, ‘Okay. When I invite you for a barbecue, I have to actually do extra shopping because I have to get so much meat’ because I wouldn’t touch the salad. I would just eat the meat and just loads of it because I thought that’s the way of gaining muscle. […] They had to buy extra meat when they invited me for a barbecue. These same friends told me like, ‘What is—where is my old Timo? I don’t know what has happened to you? You come here and you don’t even eat meat. I don’t even know what to offer you any more’ and they were somewhat proud of being my friend as this huge amounts of meat eater. I don’t know if they somehow identified me a lot with this fact that I eat meat. Although they weren’t may be aware of it. But when that fell away, they didn’t know whom they were dealing with anymore. And I think it also confronted them somewhat with the fact that it’s actually wrong. I don’t know how aware they were, but I think that it plays a bit of a role that they knew deep within that now that I made the change, it’s possible for anyone. I mean, I was the meat-eater of the planet. […] They were actually pressurising, there was … I mean there was a part of me who just wanted to give in and be like, ‘Hey, I’m still this old Timo! You know, I’m still … it’s still me. Come on, just eat the meat, you know, bring it on, this steak, I’ll eat it. I’m still me, you know.’ And it wasn’t easy to say like ‘hey, yeah, I’m still me but I’m not eating meat any more at all’ and they were … because they don’t understand it. […] They even thought that my girlfriend tricked me into it. That I’m like … that I’m a sissy. […] they somehow thought that I’m, in a way, not masculine any more without the meat.

Timo’s narrative demonstrates the difficulties of negotiating veganism in friendships with omnivore  men. For Timo, a transition from a former heavy meat-eater to a vegan constituted a profound transformation in his doing of masculinity. With eating meat no longer central to Timo’s identity and his performance of masculinity, his friends begin to question his masculinity on multiple fronts and are at a loss regarding how to relate to him. This experience illustrates how ways of doing masculinity and bonding between men in which consumption of nonhuman animals occupies a central place can be significantly affected by the vegan transition, leading to mutual alienation. In other words, it demonstrates how doing veg*nism and gender are intertwined (DeLessio-Parson, 2017).

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Experiences such as Timo’s were not necessarily easy for the men to manage. Simply cutting ties with one’s old friends was not easy or desirable for many. Some vegan men expressed concern at how they come across to their non-vegan male friends and acquaintances, aware that they might be perceived as the odd one out. Some, therefore, refrained from bringing veganism up when interacting with non-vegan male friends. This mirrors one of the key communication strategies that the men practised in interactions with non-vegans more distant to them, as explored in Chap. 5: Sami, 30, FIN: I play football, in games, which are set up by our university. So … like me and one of my vegan friends once started talking about veganism there […] and then it felt like very uncomfortable, like being in those football games and like talking about vegan foods when so many men that you don’t know so well are listening too and then you like started feeling that maybe these people think that I’m some kind of a weirdo and they don’t pass the ball me anymore. Yeah, I don’t know, like in masculine environments I like to keep my mouth shut about veganism.

All-male environments where homosocial relationships between men are cultivated are especially pertinent sites for reproducing hegemonic masculinity (see Bird, 1996). As Bird (1996) notes, “[t]hrough male homosocial heterosexual interactions, hegemonic masculinity is maintained as the norm to which men are held accountable despite individual conceptualisations of masculinity that depart from that norm” (p.  120).  As part of maintaining hegemonic masculinity, the speciesist norm of the consumption of  nonhuman animals is also reaffirmed  in these all-male interactions.  As Sami’s experience illustrates, the vegan men whose friends or acquaintances included omnivore men were particularly cautious about disclosing their veganism in such settings, as they sought to avoid having their performances of vegan masculinity judged. Particularly those who were not surrounded by other vegans and continued to interact with their male omnivore friends worried that their veganism might hurt their friendships: Martin, 27, EST: This guy is like in a meat cult, he just loves meat and he feels the need to eat animal products, at least cheese or something. So, he loves eating animal products and he needs them, so if I told him ‘Let’s go to a vegan place’, then I would ruin our good relationship. I don’t want to cause some difficult situations with good friends. This is what they are like and I can’t do anything about it.

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In this extract, Martin displays acceptance of the fact that his friend eats nonhuman animals, even justifying this. Such experiences demonstrate the work that vegans do to appease non-vegans and maintain relationships with them in meat culture (Potts, 2016) where unequal power relations between vegans and omnivores enable the desires of non-vegans to consume meat to prevail and govern social interactions (see also Chap. 5). Men’s veganism can make friendships especially complicated if some masculinised activities involving the killing or consuming of nonhuman animals are involved, such as fishing and hunting, which are more likely to be pursued by men: Timo, 38, FIN: There was a neighbour who had a summer cottage rather close by and he was a fisherman and he managed to catch some special fish that was really rare and then he came and he was so proud that he managed to catch this fish and it was really big and he was so happy about it. And … then I was … I still remember how they were all trying to convince me to try this special fish and they told me really that I’m being rude towards that neighbour, it’s such an honour that he offered this fish to us, you know, and then he also said that he could take me out for fishing and I said, ‘Well, I really don’t want to be a part of this and sorry, but I’m not going’. I told him later, to just be at ease with him, I told him if I would have eaten any fish still at that point, it would have been his fish, but I’m not eating it.

This narrative again speaks of the efforts that the vegan men made to maintain relationships with omnivores, being careful not to disrupt affective communities centred around eating other animals (Twine, 2014, p. 628). As part of interactions particularly with male friends and acquaintances, vegan men had experienced jokes and mocking at the expense of their veganism. This was generally taken well, for instance, some men highlighted the good-spirited nature of these jokes and often went along with them: Panu, 22, FIN: There was a lot of joking and comments about me being a grassroots hippie and … and vegan hippie and world saver and things like that, but I just brushed them off. I didn’t really care because they are my friends and it’s well-intentioned humour.

Such banter is an accepted form of communication especially prevalent among men and in all-male interactions. The legitimacy of such kind

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communication in the context of veganism however enables to disguise non-­vegan men’s condescending attitudes towards (men’s) veganism as simply humour. Becoming offended at such jokes or not participating in these could be seen as a violation of tacit norms of such microinteractions, given the important role of humour in sustaining close relationships, as well as of doing masculinity. This could in part explain the research participants’ dismissive attitudes towards such humour and their attempts to go along with it. In contrast to often rather complicated social interactions with non-­ vegan men, some experiences were however shared where veganism provided opportunities to relate to other men through practices of care, for example, by giving health and nutrition advice based on one’s experience and knowledge as a vegan: Tõnis, 33, FIN: I had a very positive experience. Once I started running this blog, I had a friend, he was an Estonian guy, hundred kilos, bald, full of tattoos, he had spent a lot of time in the gym and how to say … he was a massive guy. He is a friend, a very good friend. At first, he laughed at the [vegan] challenge but then, after I had been doing this challenge for a few months, he saw my results and how excited I was about this challenge. Then he became a vegan for a week and now he eats much more plant-based food, despite the fact that he hasn’t become vegan. I think this is really nice. I hope he will continue this. It gives me a good feeling to know that if he continues this for years then many animal lives will be saved.

As I noted earlier, introducing veganism through aspects of human health and nutrition can downplay concerns about other animals and remain in the realm of anthropocentrism not conducive to reimagining human-­ animal relations. Such communication of veganism essentially conveys plant-based eating, not veganism. However, in many interactions with non-vegan men in particular, the research participants regarded introducing veganism to them through health and nutrition and a focus on the human body or environmental aspects as the only viable options and strategically pursued these. While not bringing questions of animal ethics into these interactions, they however hoped that an exposure to plant-based diets, even if entirely divorced from concerns about nonhuman animals, would help save other animals’ lives and act as an entry point to veganism—a path to veganism that many men in this study had taken themselves (see Chap. 2). Overall, I suggest that despite these limitations, such interactions offer opportunities to nudge male friends towards veganism or at least include more plant-based foods in their diets.

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Relationships with Birth Family and Relatives While both positive and negative experiences were shared with family members’ attitudes towards veganism, the latter prevailed, aligning with the findings of previous studies (e.g., MacInnis & Hodson, 2015; Markowski & Roxburgh, 2019; Roth, 2005; Twine, 2014). The self-descriptions of several men as having always been unconventional or eccentric (see Chap. 2) shaped, according to them, their family members’ reactions to their veganism. Those men who described themselves as such noted that their family members were not very surprised when they adopted veganism, as they had already previously made other alternative life choices. For some, this image that family members had of them helped to ease tensions around veganism within the family: Toomas, 39, EST: I have always been eccentric, so this [veganism] fits in the picture. They just thought of this as the next weird thing! Whom else would you expect this from? First, he quit drinking, then went to … What did he do in Asia? And now he is vegan on top of that?!

Yet, for others, this did not help to improve relationships with family members, but furthered the sense of alienation from family members and tensions with them, as the men were perceived even more eccentric and difficult to deal with: Tom, 41, EST: I felt like an outsider or a stranger. I felt kind of ostracised before being vegetarian or vegan […] Yes, there are particular dimensions of my relationships that are very much governed by my veganism […]. I wasn’t confident in my strangeness, but I would say … going vegan … and since I guess getting older as we all do, we get more confident in our strangeness. So, I think I’ve owned my strangeness in a way that I certainly didn’t when I was younger […] It’s been a divisive thing in my relationships particularly with my father, who’s never quite understood my veganism, still doesn’t really. So that’s been a source of tension, which I am really sorry about.

Tom’s experience illustrates the significance of masculinity in interactions with family members regarding veganism, similar to how it shapes relationships with non-vegan male friends. I take a closer look at the men’s positive and negative experiences with family members below and the ways these are gendered.

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“My Mom Has Always Been Very Supportive”: Positive Experiences with Family Members Some men did not report any problems regarding their family members’ attitudes towards their veganism. These neutral or supportive attitudes were more typical among Finnish research participants, in part reflecting more positive societal attitudes towards veganism in Finland. Other conducive factors for parents to understand and accept their son’s veganism included prior experience with a vegan in the family, typically an older sibling: Eetu, 18, FIN: My brother had been vegan at that time for four years or so, then also my bigger sisters. They have been vegetarian for also three or four years or even more so it was like normal for my parents.

However, some of those whose families were generally supportive of their veganism at the time of the interview spoke of initial difficulties with family members understanding and accepting their veganism. Several men reported having positively influenced family members towards embracing veganism or reducing their meat consumption: Holger, 34, EST: People who are very close to me have gradually decreased their animal product consumption. They have been influenced by us [refers to his partner]. If we talk about plant-based eating and everything related to it, then they start thinking about it. None of them has gone 100% vegan, I mean my parents, grandparents and so on. But they have moved towards this, they have started to add more plant-based foods to their diets. And that has been really nice.

Holger’s experience illustrates how a vegan family member can positively influence the food practices and values of non-vegan relatives. Introducing veganism to family members in subtle and less subtle ways, involving both discursive and non-discursive actions, could be considered a form of everyday activism (Mansbridge, 2013; Sowards & Renegar, 2006; Vivienne, 2016) that vegans engage in. The research participants’ experiences suggest that family members’ acceptance and validation of veganism can make vegans feel more connected to the ones close to them and thus strengthen familial bonds. Such interactions with family members were highly gendered, as particularly mothers and female relatives were observed to be more receptive

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to veganism, although typically being primarily interested in the health aspects of veganism or simply wanting to better understand their son’s choices: Ott, 28, EST: My mom was always very supportive […]. At first, I remember, she said ‘I’ll bring you some juice’ and she had secretly added vitamin D drops in the juice, saying ‘Hey, as a vegetarian you might not get enough vitamin D’. […] And since she is a very caring person, then at some point she came to the conclusion that it was a logical thing to do and became vegetarian herself […] And once I became vegan, she turned vegan herself.

A prominent theme in the narratives was the men’s mothers learning to cook plant-based food and being responsible for providing vegan meals at family gatherings, reflecting prevalent gendered patterns of domestic work and care within families, where the work of feeding the family largely remains part of women’s (unpaid) labour (Allen & Sachs, 2007). Thus, in this context, it was part of the vegan men’s mothers’ care work to familiarise themselves with and take up plant-based cooking: Mika, 40, FIN: Well, actually lately my mom has started to make more and more vegan food also. I think it has maybe something to do with the fact that she found out she has gluten allergy and when she started to find out about how to make gluten-free food, she also like got more interested in how to make it vegan food.

Through this form of gendered care work, relationships between mothers and their vegan children could be strengthened. In this context, however, men’s veganism does not necessarily help to break patriarchal relationship patterns and gendered practices within families. Experiences of the entire family opting for visiting vegan restaurants or everyone ordering plant-based foods were shared,  and regarded as an important indication of care and consideration by family members: Gordon, 48, FIN: Last year, I went back to the US after my dad died and we went on a little road trip, my mom, my brother and I. And they ate almost all vegan. We went to only vegan restaurants and stuff like that. So that was good. But yeah. When this trip [upcoming trip with his mother] came up, I thought oh shit. I’m gonna have to say to my mom … look like I don’t think I can enjoy this trip if you’re going to be, you know, eating meat and stuff. And she’s like, so …. I said, you know, I just wanted to talk to me … but like she said, oh, no,

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I’m gonna be vegan the whole time. I don’t know … I really appreciate that. It’s really great.

Such experiences indicate the relatively low threshold regarding the support and care that vegan men expect from their families. As long as eating nonhuman animals remains a social norm, actions such as family members not ordering meat when eating with their vegan relative or agreeing to dine at a vegan restaurant could seem to vegans as considerable sacrifices that their relatives agree to make for them and can thus be constructed as significant acts of care. Support of family was particularly important for those living with their birth family whom they were financially dependent on, such as some young vegan men: Erki, 18, EST: My mom calls me when she’s grocery shopping and asks which kind of milk I’d prefer, like ‘hey, there is a discount on coconut milk, shall I buy it?’ So, it’s getting better. […] It’s great to have a supportive family.

“It’s Like Banging Your Head Against the Wall Trying to Convince Your Close Ones”: Negative Experiences with Family Members Around Veganism On the other side of the coin, a range of negative experiences with family members around veganism—from scepticism to hostility—were shared. As I discussed in Chap. 5, the research participants often found it exhausting to constantly explain themselves when communicating with omnivores. This also applied in interactions with family members, in cases where family members did not accept their veganism: Lauri, 28, FIN: It can’t be a personal choice, animals are dying, the planet is dying, but it’s like banging your head against the wall trying to convince your close ones.

This section examines these experiences in more detail, focusing on gender and the men’s reactions to such attitudes, including emotions in negotiating these difficult relationships with family members around veganism. Some of these interactions involved good intentions but resulted in unintentional insensitivity or harm by family members while others featured downright hostile attitudes. Family gatherings and celebrations, such as

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Christmas holidays, were particularly challenging to navigate, due to the meat-centric nature of these holidays in Finland and Estonia. As veganism was an important part of the research participants’ identities and lives (see Chap. 2), those who received negative reactions to their veganism were disappointed at the lack of understanding and support from close family members. Broadly, two kinds of experiences were difficult for the men, the first and more crucial one—family members not accepting, understanding, or respecting their veganism and, the second, family members’ own lack of willingness and capacity to change their habits regarding eating nonhuman animals. Most men wished that the relatives themselves would change their diet, beyond just accepting their veganism. The family members’ reluctance to do so was interpreted at least partly as their failure to truly grasp the urgency and significance of becoming vegan and, by extension, failing to fully understand and respect the men’s veganism: Jaagup, 23, EST: I have a feeling that they understand. But I also feel that they somehow don’t. They still won’t make any changes in their own lives.

Expectations towards family members’ practices of consuming nonhuman animals differed. While some (reluctantly) accepted that their family members would not change their eating habits and values, others had higher expectations of them. For instance, some men considered it unpleasant and inconsiderate if their close family members promoted eating nonhuman animals: Lauri, 28, FIN: Last year I told my big sister like stop posting pictures of mozzarella to Instagram. If you have to eat mozzarella you can eat mozzarella, but it’s really like stupid to post pictures and like sort of advertise these sorts of things. And then she just posted more pictures of cheese and I unfollowed her on Instagram because she was just trying to like tease me or like piss me off.

Family gatherings where a vegan is surrounded by omnivore family members are important sites where the social norm of eating other animals is negotiated and as such can cause considerable emotions and tensions between family members, as the following narrative aptly illustrates: Eero, 28, EST: Once, when visiting relatives, there was this situation […] Every time we meet, they give some kind of meat to their two-year-old child: ‘Do you want meat?’ And I’m just like an uncle there, I don’t know what to do. Then, once I tried to gently suggest to them ‘Do you need to give him meat at every

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meal?’ But how do you tell the parents that they have an issue? And so once, we were sitting at the table, having breakfast. And we noticed that Martin doesn’t want to eat anything. His dad tried to offer him a ham sandwich, his grandmother offered him milk, his great-grandfather offered fish and his greatgrandmother offered cheese or something. Everyone just kept offering such things and Martin didn’t want anything. And then, I asked ‘Martin, would you like an orange?’ And Martin wanted it and I gave it to him. And everybody’s mouths dropped open—they had not even thought of offering him an orange. And then I offered him a second orange and made a comment like ‘Look what crap you have on the table, there is no normal and healthy food here at all!’ There were only animal products on the table. And after this, everyone at the table was mad at me. My mom was upset with me, my grandmother was, my brother was [laughs].

Eero’s emotional and affective experience demonstrates how a vegan’s attempt to normalise vegan food can cause ill feelings amongst non-vegan relatives. It also shows how vegans, by challenging the centrality of animal products consumed at family meals, are seen as violating the social norms of good behaviour. Further, they are disrupting the affective community of the family circle centred around the consumption of nonhuman animals (Twine, 2014). Such “disruptive” behaviour has negative consequences for the status of the vegan in the family and subsequent interactions with family members. Some men shared experiences of repeatedly being offered animal products at family gatherings by close family members. This signified to the vegan men their family members’ lack of understanding and lack of consideration of their veganism: Niko, 26, FIN: When I went vegan and I was home for Christmas, I think. They were eating something and I had my own stuff, and I remember my mom, my mother saying ‘Won’t you just take just a small bit of cheese? Just taste it.’

Although often intended as displays of care and concern, the relatives’ repeated questions about the vegan men’s health were interpreted by some as a lack of understanding and unwillingness to learn about veganism: Kalev, 43, EST: Soon after [going vegan] I told my mother and of course, she said ‘Have you gone mad?! What are you doing with your health?’

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While the men would have liked to receive support from parents and siblings, they considered it inevitable that the older generation, such as grandparents, do not understand their veganism and thought that there is no point in convincing them. Thus, in interactions with grandparents, they typically avoided getting into discussions about veganism altogether: Ilmari, 27, FIN: You know, with older people, it would be like, how do you, you know, you need milk for bones or something […] And you know, the soy milk comes from foreign countries, what about that, that’s scary! It comes from, you know, somewhere, Asia or whatever. […] The person I got the most comments from was one of my grandfathers. But even that was … it was more like joking about it. […] He kept asking me if I’ve started eating properly again [laughs]. […] And I said, you know granddad, I’m eating properly, are you? What are you eating now? And then he was just like um like something and then mumbled something and walked away [laughs].

At the most extreme end of negative experiences with close family members around veganism, a few men had stopped communication with their birth families altogether, on a couple of occasions in a very dramatic course of events. While not typical, the following emotional narrative from Kalev magnifies some of the tensions that the vegan men in this study experienced with family members around veganism: Kalev, 43, EST: The most difficult part of being vegan is the attitudes of people around me. Like my parents haven’t approved of it. Although I’m not a very young person any more [laughs]. They just cannot accept it. They think I’ve gone mad and that I should get my act together. Well, this summer things became so bad that I haven’t talked to my mother ever since. I used to be close to her. […] My daughter is vegan at home, but at school eats like the others. […] My mother kept bringing her all kinds of stuff, like cheesecakes and ham and whatever. I kept telling her ‘Stop bringing these things!’ But she kept doing it, she just didn’t care what I said. I put these things somewhere at the back of the fridge, but then she started yelling at me like ‘What are you doing? You are starving …’ I don’t remember exactly, but like saying that my daughter doesn’t get all the nutrients she needs or something like that. And finally, she secretly made some burgers to which she added eggs and sour cream and claimed that these are vegan. And I ate them too …. but when I learned about this, I said ‘Okay, this is the last thing that I let happen to myself!’ […] Then she started yelling at me, like I shouldn’t be able to dictate what my children eat and she doesn’t need to agree on these things with me. And a week before that, she invited her sister, my aunt, to my place, along with her hus-

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band and children. She informed me about this only when they were already on the way and she said ‘They are taking some meat, we’ll do a barbecue’ and I said ‘Can they not take it? Please call them and tell them not to take it! Let’s cook something else! Let’s grill something else!’ She was like ‘No, I can’t call them’. Then they arrived and it seemed like I was expected to go help grill the meat. And just before this, I had been at an anti-meat march … I just left my house. I didn’t go to the garden. Because it’s my home and I should have the right to say what will happen in my home. I didn’t want to make a scandal in front of these relatives, but later when I came back home, they were still there, in a good mood, they were already drinking and I thought everything was fine. But the next day my aunt wrote to me that I had behaved very badly and that I consider myself superior to them and that I am arrogant. Then I wrote back, politely, that I feel bad about what happened, but of course, I don’t feel superior and if you feel like I offended you, I’m sorry. I certainly didn’t mean to offend anyone, but I just don’t like cooking meat. But then she replied, saying ‘If you don’t want to spend time with us, then just be on your own’. Well, not exactly like this, but this was her point. So, in summary, my mother’s side of the family has written me off.

Kalev’s account of sharp tensions with and eventual alienation from his non-vegan relatives aptly illustrates the difficult negotiations that vegans can have with omnivore relatives and power relations and boundaries around veganism. Such struggles are affective and emotional (see Chap. 4), involving displays of intense feelings. Within meat culture2 (Potts, 2016), interactions between vegans and omnivores do not happen on an equal footing because of the hegemony of the meat culture. From this position, veganism and the needs of vegans (such as a desire to keep their homes free of nonhuman animal flesh) are seen as preposterous and their legitimacy is questioned. In the framework of speciesist social norms, it is not Kalev who has the right to become offended by his relatives’ insistence on his daughter eating meat and bringing nonhuman animal flesh to his house, but the non-vegan relatives, for being denied opportunities to “do family” and maintain an affective community (Twine, 2014, p. 628) in an appropriate way, that is, by enjoying the consumption of nonhuman animals together. Instead, his attempts to maintain his veganism are perceived as offensive and breaking the conventions of familial social interactions in 2  The notion of meat culture refers to “the representations and discourses, practices and behaviours, diets and tastes that generate shared beliefs about, perspectives on, and experiences of meat” (Potts, 2016, pp. 19–20).

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a profound way. Within meat culture, Kalev’s mother’s insistence that his daughter consume meat could be construed as an act of care, to ensure her “proper” nutrition, instead of an attempt to exercise control over her diet. Thereby, she also questions Kalev’s parenting. These power relations also shape Kalev’s responses to his relatives’ behaviour, as from a marginal vegan position, it is difficult for him to challenge their values and practices. Indeed, Kalev seems to feel almost apologetic for denying their requests. In the end, it is not he who cut off ties with his family (although he would have legitimate reasons to do so), but his relatives in whose eyes Kalev, simply by being a vegan, disrupted family relationships in a profound and offensive way. “ My Dad Refused to Eat Vegan Food:” Relationships with Non-vegan Male Relatives Overwhelmingly, the research participants experienced the most negative attitudes and the least acceptance of their veganism from fathers and other men in the family. This reflects the gendered nature of consuming other animals, associated primarily with masculinities (see Chap. 1). Illustrating the most extreme experiences in this regard, Eero speaks of his father as feeling betrayed by his veganism, interpreting it as profoundly challenging established ways of living and eating together: Eino, 40, FIN: My father is usually the star—the kind of starting point of these kinds of collisions. […] My father feels that he has been betrayed by the next generations. His principles and ethics are questioned. […] To my father, of course, I am only one of the persons that have betrayed him.

The men whose veganism had produced tensions in their relationships with their fathers felt that their father misunderstands veganism, causing and deepening a divide in their interaction: Tom, 41, EST: I guess it [veganism] is a bit like a lifestyle or a personal choice [for my dad] … this kind of thing—you’re entitled to do that, just don’t let that have an impact on our relationship or on me. So, in this case of the food and my boundaries, I’m pushing my veganism onto him just because I only wanna go to vegan restaurants. So that’s kind of imposing my veganism, my religion onto him.

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Such experiences caused in several cases feelings of disappointment and led to estrangement and disconnect with fathers. An example of breaking this bond was the refusal of vegan men to no longer participate with their father in some pastimes traditionally associated with masculinity, which involved killing nonhuman animals, a theme also explored in the previous section focused on men’s friendships: Lukas, 25, FIN: I remember like maybe the biggest thing was that I used to go fishing with my father during the summers before that, it was kind of like this father-son thing [laughs]. Like very like classical traditional thing. And I remember like when I went vegetarian, it was during the summer and I still wasn’t like quite sure how to handle it. When I went to our summer cottage, he asked if I want to go fishing with him, and I felt like that was maybe cutting that bond a bit when I told my father ‘I don’t want to go fishing anymore’.

A few men sensed that the tensions they experienced had to do with their fathers’ resistance to the label “vegan”, due to what it signified for them, rather than their fathers’ relationship to plant-based food per se: Veli-Matti, 34, FIN: Quietly, if you don’t talk about it, my father will eat vegan food. And if you just don’t make a big deal out of it, there is … no one is complaining. And he gets pissed if you point it out.

Communicating Veganism to Family Members and Managing Difficult Situations In Chap. 5 where I examined vegan men’s communication strategies with omnivores once the topic of veganism comes up, I highlighted how a major strategy was to avoid such conversations altogether. Vegan men were generally more willing to engage in conversations with family members about veganism than with non-related omnivores, even if family members had negative attitudes towards veganism. The likely reasons behind this are that in more close relationships and frequent interactions that often entail having meals together, the issue of veganism is more difficult to avoid entirely than in more casual relationships. In addition, the typically more direct, intimate, and open nature of familial relationships, where the parties know each other very well, means that there is no or less social awkwardness. In cases of very negative reactions from family members, vegan men avoided or minimised contact with family entirely, for

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instance, avoiding family gatherings, which involved eating nonhuman animals. While not happy about it, several men had made peace with the fact that their family members were probably not going to change their eating habits. It was also highlighted that it was simply tiring to hold similar conversations with family members all over again: Lukas, 25, FIN: In the beginning when I had just been vegan like for maybe first few years, I definitely kind of provoked people maybe during dinner or something or I could get really hurt if people around me were eating or cooking meat and didn’t really seem to care about it. It kind of got more under my skin also, but it was also these situations where other people, like some maybe more distant relatives started challenging me in some family meeting: I’m not getting nutrients or it’s not really environmentally the sane thing to do or … I would grow boobs because of oestrogen and soy or something like [laughs] other ridiculous things that I kept hearing from time to time, so, I guess that’s also like contributed to this feeling of being provoked. I kind of had an angrier attitude about it as well at the time.

In many cases, however, role modelling and non-confrontational communication were practised as a strategy of communication with family members (see Chap. 5 for the use of this strategy with more distant people). This typically involved gentle nudges, in the form of introducing vegan foods to family members or giving them recommendations of vegan films to watch: Toomas, 39, EST: My approach was that if I was asked ‘Why are you doing this?’, then I opened up about it. This usually caused tension and so I didn’t pursue it further. I just said at the Christmas table: ‘You eat cheese, I don’t eat cheese. That’s all.’ I tried to avoid pressuring or condemning them. ‘I don’t eat it because I choose not to. You make your own choices.’ This is already a tense situation […] I have practised a non-confrontational approach. The Christmas table had pork and fish, I took vegan blood sausages, vegan potato salad and some chickpeas, which I just placed on the table and said ‘Hey, I brought along these things to try!.’ The vegan blood sausages could be eaten with lingonberry jam. Everyone tasted them and thought how interesting! And at the same time, they ate pork. But they remembered this experience […] As a result, my mother has given up meat […]. If you want change to happen, then you have to respect the person’s intelligence and they have to come to conclusions themselves. […] If you tell people what to do, then you’ll have an adverse reaction. […] If we want sustainable change, then I think a nonconfrontational approach gives the best results. When I explain why I am not

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eating animals, then this already implies conflict. If I start explaining all that stuff about removing a calf from a cow and so on … this is why everyone hates vegans because we imply that they participate in this. […] My starting point is compassion, it’s strongly grounded and has a deep philosophical background. My choice stems from not wanting to be vegan but from compassion and cultivating it. […] I think family members can be positive role models to each other and since I haven’t been nasty to them, I didn’t blame them for anything, I didn’t impose anything, I was encouraging, then yes, I believe that this supported them without any negative emotion. And my mother got a positive experience. […] She told me ‘You know, I haven’t eaten meat for half a year!’ And from there on it’s no longer related to me. I am just this pioneer who shows that this can be done, I provide information and I bring along this can of chickpeas and ask, ‘Do you eat beans?’

In this narrative, Toomas strategically frames veganism as a personal choice in interactions with family members to appear less confrontational and attributes some of his family members’ interest in plant-based diets to his non-confrontational communication of veganism. This is consistent with the findings of some previous research, which found that the use of this strategy by vegans is not so much a reflection of their personal beliefs but a specific approach to achieve certain goals in social interaction (Turner, 2019, p. 54). Presenting veganism as a personal choice aligns well with cultural discourses of individualism (Christopher et  al., 2018) and, as such, resonates with the beliefs and values of many non-vegans. Further, Toomas’s narrative illustrates the efforts that some men made in interactions with relatives to distance themselves from the figure of the preachy vegan (see Chap. 5). His narrative again illustrates the point I made previously on how easily vegans can be rendered “preachy” in meat culture: as Toomas anticipates, a conflict could erupt if he explained to his family members why he has stopped eating animals, without an explicit suggestion that they should. Also, the caution he exercises around negotiating veganism with the ones close to him demonstrates how easily family bonds can be disrupted if animal-based food traditions are challenged or at least how vegans can perceive these relationships as fragile. Those who had been vegan for some years had developed strategies to deal with family members’ negative reactions, including jokes about veganism, mirroring respective experiences with non-vegan male friends that I discussed earlier in this chapter:

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Veli-Matti, 34, FIN: Both brothers and my dad are always mocking it. In a funny way, in a loving way, but still mocking and I don’t think it’s very constructive. […] Kadri: How do you respond to this mocking? Veli-Matti: I guess I don’t do anything anymore [laughs]. At the start, I would lecture them. I would maybe say facts, use the same arguments that I was learning myself at the start. I would say that it’s possible to eat without meat, I would say about mass production, industrial production of meat and the living conditions of livestock and stuff like that, but … I don’t know, there is some kind of obstacle that they are not ready to cross. So, any information you provide to them until they make a decision, they just ignore it, like I did for a very long time. But this mocking, I don’t know … I just don’t care anymore [laughs].

The health aspect of veganism often came up in interactions with family members who displayed worry about vegan men’s health. Several vegan men claimed to have educated their family members a lot about vegan nutrition: Mart, 26, EST: I’m happy to talk to them about different nutrients that people need and I know where to get them from vegan food. It seems that this has made them calm down about my veganism and I intend to pursue this strategy. So, if there is some misunderstanding or worry, then it’s good to show my knowledge on balanced eating and let them know where I get my nutrients from.

A specific strategy for navigating difficult family gatherings, particularly holidays, was to make sure that separate vegan dishes are available, either prepared and brought along by the research participants themselves or by their non-vegan relatives. The separate dishes strategy was extended in some cases to sitting in a physically separate space from non-vegan family members: Markus, 40, EST: I have felt those misanthropic feelings most strongly about family. For example, at Christmas celebrations. One year, we got into this big conflict, because we [referring to his vegan wife] were eating upstairs and they were downstairs at their own table. We just couldn’t join them, there was all this meat and stuff. I already told them in advance that I’m not going to participate in this.

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Physical separation from one’s family at a holiday meal can be an alienating experience for vegans and can further exacerbate non-vegan relatives’ hostile attitudes towards vegans, given the significance of eating together as a practice of “doing family”. It also violates the social expectation of upholding a pleasant atmosphere at the dinner table, expected of all participants in these interactions, and reaffirms to non-vegans the perceived “extreme” nature of veganism and vegans, as anti-social, to the point of constructing them as deviant (on constructions of vegans as deviant, Aavik, 2018a). The research participants’ attempts to avoid being put in the spotlight as a vegan in situations involving food, as explored in Chap. 5, also applied to family gatherings: Petri, 43, FIN: Sometimes it’s quite annoying because especially in larger family gatherings, like my grandmother’s birthday, some years ago or something like that, there was … they had marked some food as ‘for Petri’. So, the table with vegan pastries, a whole bunch of them, it was something like 30 or 40 of them, I can’t eat them at all, but they were marked for Petri. So that was really annoying because they are for everyone anyhow so […] Making a sort of number that … this is something special, because of the centre of my grandmother’s birthday is my grandmother and it should be, and now that I come there and I have special food prepared for me, it sort of brings me into the centre of the party, so … I don’t like that, especially because it’s other people’s party.

Petri’s narrative illustrates that despite family members’ good intentions at providing suitable food for a vegan relative, this kind of singling out can cause uncomfortable feelings and place the vegan in the centre of attention in an undesirable way. Several men pointed out that if there was more or entirely vegan food at family gatherings, everyone would be able to eat it and thereby participate in doing family in a way that does not alienate vegans and make them stand out to such an extent.

Intimate and Romantic Relationships The issue of romantic relationships and partnerships was not discussed in all interviews. While I gently probed how veganism shapes the research participants’ intimate relationships, inspired by the notion of vegansexuality (Potts & Parry, 2010; Potts & White, 2007), this topic was pursued only with those who felt comfortable talking about how they negotiate

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veganism with their intimate partners or preferences regarding their potential partner’s veganism. The experiences shared concerned heterosexual relationships. A variety of experiences and views were presented regarding a (potential) partner’s veganism. For those who were in a relationship, broadly three kinds of experiences were shared: (1) the men had a partner who had become vegan before them and influenced them to take up veganism, (2) becoming vegan together with their partner, and (3) the men were in a relationship with an omnivore partner, whom they in some cases influenced to adopt veganism. From a gender perspective, the first and third kinds of experiences are the most significant and will be explored below. Female Partner’s Influence in Men’s Vegan Transition Some research participants’ paths towards veganism were influenced by their female vegan partners. In these narratives, the men recognised their female partner’s role in their vegan transition as significant (see also Chap. 2): Lauri, 28, FIN: Then I started a relationship with like a really convicted vegan. And then my sort of like half lazy vegetarian thing like became more intense and more like committed vegan sort of like thing. So, I had really big influence, I had considerable female influence on my path from vegetarian to vegan, in that transition. Veli-Matti, 34, FIN: It all started, I hadn’t even thought about it in my whole life except maybe a few hints here and there but not really, until I met a girlfriend who was a vegan [laughs]. I think I was 26 years old. So, until then I hadn’t even considered being vegan. I would even laugh if people would say they are vegans. I would be pretty toxic about it probably. And … she inspired me to look at things, just very basic things … that we would go to the shop and I would see that she would look at the products and look at what the shop has and what it doesn’t have is vegan or vegetarian sometimes, she was a bit flexible but mostly vegan. And I would admire her. And then she challenged me into one month of vegetarian diet, not even vegan. And that would kind of launch me into looking for things.

It was typical that their partners applied gentle pressure and used positive encouragement. In some cases, the men initially omitted animal products

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from their diets out of respect for their partner’s values and preferences or for practical reasons of not wanting to buy and cook separate meals in the house: Niko, 26, FIN: basically, I became ‘home vegan’.

These narratives highlight considerable support from female partners regarding cooking vegan meals and providing information on nutrition. Some men acknowledged the importance of this support: Olavi, 33, FIN: I know basically next to nothing about nutritional science. I have no idea what vitamins I should eat and my girlfriend is just like ‘eat these’. Sven, 24, EST: Because my partner orders all kinds of things, like soy products, nutritional yeast and things like that, I believe that it’s easier for me compared to … if I was some other man who did not have this opportunity, then it would have been more difficult for me.

These accounts speak of gendered power relations in heterosexual relationships. Such everyday practices that vegan women perform to support their male partner’s vegan transition could be thought of as part of their domestic care work. This relates to the notion of mental load (Faircloth, 2021, p. 43) or cognitive labour (Daminger, 2019) that several scholars studying the gendered division of household work  in heterosexual  intimate relationships have documented. Such kind of work, performed overwhelmingly by women, involves the significant labour of planning and managing household tasks, beyond just executing them, and often remains unnoticed and thus unappreciated by their male partners. Vegansexuality: Negotiating Intimate Relationships Vegansexuality refers to sexual and intimate relationship practices of vegans where vegans are more likely to be attracted to other vegans or even experience physical disgust of intimacy with non-vegan bodies (Potts & Parry, 2010, p. 55). As such, it highlights the embodied nature of veganism. Vegansexuality is not a fixed and static category but a preference or disposition (Potts & Parry, 2010, p. 55). As I demonstrate below, based on the interviewed men’s perspectives, two dimensions of it—as an ideal

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and as a practice—can be distinguished, with the latter sometimes experienced as unattainable. Previous research (Potts & White, 2007) has explored vegansexuality from the perspectives of vegan women, whose preferences generated misogynist reactions in online spaces, fuelled by men invested in masculinities involving the consumption of nonhuman animals (Potts & Parry, 2010). Almost all the vegan men in this study with whom I touched upon this theme indicated a preference, of varying intensity, to form intimate relationships with other vegans. However, the ability to practise vegansexuality was limited for many, as I explore below. At one end, an intimate relationship with a non-vegan partner was not deemed acceptable under any conditions, due to either mismatch of core values or physical disgust or both of these reasons. Practising vegansexuality was of key importance in particular for those men who considered veganism as a core part of their identity: Tom, 41, EST: Being vegansexual, which is part of my boundaries and things, and talking about only wanting to kiss somebody that was vegan was important to me pretty much since I was vegan, as much as I could articulate to myself. […] I couldn’t fathom not being with a vegan that way, it just … I can’t imagine kissing somebody that had just eaten a slice of bacon or something, a pig. Yeah, on the one hand, you’ve kind of got the basic values, intellectual thing, but on the other, it’s the visceral thing again for me that … even if I could respect a difference of opinion or something, I can’t obviously, the veganism thing is a core thing intellectually, but also visceral. It’s embodied for me, it’s something who I am.

It was difficult to imagine a relationship with a non-vegan partner, because by not practising veganism themselves, their partner would not be able to truly understand what it means to be vegan, according to the men. Therefore, a non-vegan would not fully comprehend and deeply connect with their vegan partner’s experience, considered an insurmountable obstacle to forming an intimate relationship: Lukas, 25, FIN: I kind of feel like it [a relationship with an omnivore] couldn’t work out, because I do feel like it’s such a key belief in my life and just all the practical things of what you actually do when you’re in a relationship and you go eat somewhere or make food at home. It kind of wouldn’t make sense if the other person wasn’t vegan. I kind of feel like if you’re really close to some person and they don’t get it, it can feel kind of insulting in a way that

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it doesn’t with some colleague or some person in the university, for instance. Like, if you know me that well, you should kind of get where this thing comes from as well.

Some of those whose partner was initially not vegan had influenced them to adopt veganism, a process sometimes termed “veganising” in vegan communities. This included gentle nudging, but also more direct pressure, which in hindsight was considered by some as unhelpful and unkind: Tarmo, 36, EST: [After I became vegan], I right away set up a policy that we only have vegan food at home […] I then needed to start cooking [for the family]. This fit well in my life at that point, because up to the age of 30 I could not cook anything. Ivar, 24, EST: I pressured her pretty aggressively, I did not hide how wrong it [eating animals] is. And then she stopped eating meat and doesn’t eat until this day. But the way how I did it was not very empathetic. I wouldn’t want anyone to do this to me.

Some men suggested that due to the close nature of intimate relationships, convincing a partner to go vegan might be easier than persuading other family members or friends, as in Tanel’s perspective, who considers “veganising” a partner a form of activism that vegans should engage in: Tanel, 31, EST: Of course, I would like my friends to be vegan, but I can’t change them. I can’t change my mother, my grandmother or whomever. But the people I can influence are the ones most close to me—like my partner. […] You have the power, this is your mini activism. You should at least be able to convince your partner to go vegan!

However, veganising a partner, or meeting another vegan with whom to start a relationship in the first place, was not always attempted or successful. Thus, at the other end of the spectrum were experiences where the men accepted that their (potential) partner eats nonhuman animals and is unlikely to adopt veganism (soon). Whether and how the men accepted this, however, had to do with how important veganism was in their lives and identities, their views on “imposing” veganism on others (see Chap. 5), and with practical reasons, or all of these.

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Some men explained their willingness to form a relationship with an omnivore partner with practical reasons, having to do with the low odds of finding a suitable vegan partner: Martin, 27, EST: I don’t have a partner, but I’ve thought a lot about this. So, yes, I would be okay being with someone who is not a vegan, because if I set that limitation, things would be f**** for me. […] I’ve even made calculations. I set an age limit, for example, well, I’m 27 right, so I set the limit of nineteen to thirty-five. And then I checked from the National Statistics Office how many women of that age there are. There are about one hundred thousand. Then I multiplied this with two numbers. Anyway, the final number was very small. And if I multiplied this number by the likelihood that she is vegan, then there would be no suitable women in Estonia. […] I would likely remain alone forever if I set that criterion.

Martin’s reasoning on this issue exemplifies the experiences of the research participants whose circles of friends and acquaintances included no or only a few vegans and/or those who did not consider veganism to be a central aspect of their identity. Martin’s narrative also indicates how vegansexuality is contextual and suggests a distinction between vegansexuality as an ideal versus its practical application, where the latter can be challenging. Those who had accepted their partner’s continued consumption of nonhuman animals did not necessarily find this easy to manage, as it tended to cause disagreements and required constant negotiation of the relationship. For some, such incompatibilities had led to an eventual break-up: Ott, 28, EST: When we were eating out and at home, then she never ate meat, but when we visited her family, then I knew that she would eat meat at the same table while sitting next to me! This was quite difficult for me.

Even those who did not consider their potential partner’s eating other animals as a dealbreaker highlighted that the person must be open-minded and accept their veganism, in hope that their partner will go vegan in the (near) future: Marek, 26, EST: It’s really important for me that the person would be open. This would be my criterion. If she is not open, then there is no point in trying. This also means that she is open to veganism. In that case, I see no problem. It would likely be just a matter of time before she goes vegan.

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Some mentioned the importance of at least maintaining a vegan home, even if their partner consumed nonhuman animals outside the home. This was important first and foremost for practical and material reasons, such as a sense of disgust about having animal products in the fridge and the inconvenience of needing to cook separate meals. Symbolically, this indicates the importance for many vegans of the construction of the home as a vegan space, an attempt to create a vegan world on a small scale in the private sphere, to where the meat culture does not extend. A non-vegan partner was expected to support these efforts.

Conclusions This chapter has examined how vegan men negotiate veganism in close relationships with friends, relatives, and intimate partners, how these relationships are moulded by their veganism, and the significance of masculinity in this context. In these diverse narratives, mainly negative experiences dominated, with omnivore friends and family members displaying a lack of support for and misunderstanding of the research participants’ veganism. These findings broadly align with those of previous research (e.g., MacInnis & Hodson, 2015; Markowski & Roxburgh, 2019; Roth, 2005; Twine, 2014). Despite these negative experiences, however, the men’s narratives indicated a desire and effort to maintain relationships with omnivores, although many preferred to interact with vegans. Breaking off close friendships and family bonds can be a difficult and alienating experience. Also, given the still small numbers of vegans in society, it is difficult to surround oneself only with other vegans. Gender significantly shaped the men’s interactions with those close to them. Relationships with non-vegan male friends and relatives were the most difficult to manage, indicating the significance of eating nonhuman animals in most constructions of masculinity. Despite these experiences, the vegan men in this study did not feel that their masculinity was ultimately questioned by their non-vegan male friends and family members. These interactions were first and foremost considered annoying or uncomfortable. Women’s gender practices are less invested in consuming animal products, which in part explains why the vegan men had experienced overall more positive responses to their veganism from women family members. As part of the domestic care work performed by mothers in particular, the vegan men whose mothers cooked plant-based meals for them

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considered this as a form of support for their sons’ veganism. In this aspect, men’s veganism does not appear to challenge patriarchal gender relations within families. Although the men were more open to discussing veganism with family members and close friends, including confronting them, in contrast to people they did not know well (see Chap. 5), several similar strategies were used—such as non-confrontational communication and role modelling. These activities in close relationships—such as nudging their partner to go vegan, for instance by maintaining a vegan home, can function as forms of everyday activism (Mansbridge, 2013; Sowards & Renegar, 2006; Vivienne, 2016). These small acts of resistance help to challenge the hegemony of the meat culture (Potts, 2016). Veganism can shape intimate relationships and one’s preference for a partner in significant ways. The research participants’ experiences with vegansexuality (Potts & Parry, 2010; Potts & White, 2007) were diverse— while some men were not willing to enter into a relationship with a non-­ vegan, due to physical disgust, mismatch of core values, or both of these aspects, others were more open to dating and living with a non-vegan, illustrating the vegan men’s different boundaries. The embodied nature of veganism becomes highlighted in the context of vegansexuality. To a significant extent, particularly for some men in the study, the desire to have a vegan partner had to do with the bodily aspect—driven by a sense of revulsion of sharing one’s intimate space with someone who consumes nonhuman animal flesh. The findings highlight how vegansexuality is a contextual phenomenon, not a fixed ideal, as previous research also suggests (Potts & Parry, 2010). Vegansexuality as an ideal and as a practice can be distinguished, with the two aspects not always overlapping, as it was difficult for the research participants to always put vegansexuality in practice. Those men who had become vegan while in a relationship with a vegan had important influence from their partners on their paths to veganism, in the form of gentle nudging, and relied on their female partners’ cooking and nutritional knowledge. I suggest that such everyday material support provided by vegan women is a form of gendered care work. Contrasting the narratives of Finnish and Estonian participants, the latter experienced more negative attitudes and more difficult communication around veganism with the people close to them. This reflects different popular attitudes towards veganism in these two societies, as veganism is a newer social phenomenon in Estonia (Aavik, 2018b) and less accepted on the institutional level (Aavik, 2018a).

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References Aavik, K. (2018a). Nonhuman animals as ‘high-quality protein’: Insistence on the consumption of ‘meat’ and ‘dairy’ in the Estonian nutrition recommendations. In D. Nibert (Ed.), Animal oppression and capitalism. Volume 1: The oppression of nonhuman animals as sources of food (pp. 140–165). Praeger Press. Aavik, K. (2018b). The animal advocacy movement in the Baltic states: Links to other social justice issues and possibilities for intersectional activism. Journal of Baltic Studies, 49(4), 509–527. https://doi.org/10.1080/01629778. 2018.1473263 Ahmed, S. (2010). The promise of happiness. Duke University Press. Allen, P., & Sachs, C. (2007). Women and food chains: The gendered politics of food. International Journal of Sociology of Food and Agriculture, 15(1), 1–23. https://doi.org/10.48416/ijsaf.v15i1.424 Bird, S. (1996). Welcome to the men’s club: Homosociality and the maintenance of hegemonic masculinity. Gender & Society, 10(2), 120–132. https://doi. org/10.1177/089124396010002002 Cherry, E. (2006). Veganism as a cultural movement: A relational approach. Social Movement Studies, 5(2), 155–170. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 14742830600807543 Christopher, A., Bartkowski, J. P., & Haverda, T. (2018). Portraits of veganism: A comparative discourse analysis of a second-order subculture. Societies, 8(3), 55. https://doi.org/10.3390/soc8030055. Daminger, A. (2019). The cognitive dimension of household labour. American Sociological Review, 80(1), 116–139. DeLessio-Parson, A. (2017). Doing Vegetarianism to Destabilize the MeatMasculinity Nexus in La Plata, Argentina. Gender, Place & Culture, 24(12), 1729–1748. https://doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2017.1395822 Faircloth, C. (2021). Couples’ Transition to Parenthood. Gender, Intimacy and Equality. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Giacoman, C., Alfaro, J., Aguilera Bornand, I. M., & Torres, R. (2021). Becoming vegan: A study of career and habitus. Social Science Information, 60(4), 560–582. https://doi.org/10.1177/05390184211049933 Karlsson, T. (2009). Alcohol in Finland in the early 2000s: Consumption, harm and policy. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/12360991.pdf Laakso, S., Niva, M., Eranti, V., & Aapio, F. (2021). Reconfiguring everyday eating: Vegan challenge discussions in social media. Food, Culture & Society, 25(2), 268–289. https://doi.org/10.1080/15528014.2021.1882796 MacInnis, C. C., & Hodson, G. (2015). It ain’t easy eating greens: Evidence of bias toward vegetarians and vegans from both source and target. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 20, 721–744. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 1368430215618253

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Mansbridge, J. (2013). Everyday activism. In D.  Snow, D. della Porta, B.  Klandermans, & D.  McAdam (Eds.), The Wiley-Blackwell encyclopedia of social and political movements (pp. 1–2). Blackwell Publishing. Markowski, K. L., & Roxburgh, S. (2019). “If I became a vegan, my family and friends would hate me”: anticipating vegan stigma as a barrier to plant-based diets. Appetite, 135(1), 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2018.12.040 Potts, A. (2016). What is meat culture? In A.  Potts (Ed.), Meat culture (pp. 1–30). Brill. Potts, A., & Parry, J. (2010). Vegan sexuality: Challenging heteronormative masculinity through meat-free sex. Feminism & Psychology, 20(1), 53–72. https:// doi.org/10.1177/0959353509351181 Potts, A., & White, M. (2007). Cruelty-free consumption in New Zealand: A national report on the perspectives and experiences of vegetarians and other ethical consumers. New Zealand Centre for Human - Animal Studies. Ritchie, H., & Roser, M. (2018). Alcohol consumption. https://ourworldindata. org/alcohol-­consumption Roth, L.  K. (2005). Beef. It’s what’s for dinner. Food, Culture & Society, 8(2), 181–200. https://doi.org/10.2752/155280105778055272 Sowards, S., & Renegar, V. (2006). Reconceptualizing rhetorical activism in contemporary feminist contexts. Howard Journal of Communications, 17(1), 57–74. https://doi.org/10.1080/10646170500487996 Spohr, D. (2017). Fake news and ideological polarization: Filter bubbles and selective exposure on social media. Business Information Review, 34(3), 150–160. https://doi.org/10.1177/0266382117722446 Turner, R. (2019). Veganism: Ethics in everyday life. American Journal of Cultural Sociology, 7, 54–78. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41290-017-0052-8 Twine, R. (2014). Vegan Killjoys at the Table—Contesting Happiness and Negotiating Relationships with Food Practices. Societies, 4(4), 623–639. https://doi.org/10.3390/soc4040623 Vivienne, S. (2016). Digital identity and everyday activism: Sharing private stories with networked publics. Palgrave Macmillan. White, R. (2018). Looking backward/moving forward. Articulating a “Yes, BUT…!” response to lifestyle veganism, and outlining post-capitalist futures in critical veganic agriculture. EuropeNow (20). http://shura.shu.ac.uk/22661/

CHAPTER 7

Veganism and Social Justice: Vegan Men’s Gender and Intersectional Politics and Practices

Introduction The question of how men’s veganism links to cultural constructions of masculinity and gender equality has been central to much research on veganism, men, and masculinities. The findings of previous research on vegan men and ideals of masculinity suggest that veganism offers potential for men to do masculinity differently (Aavik, 2021; Adewale & Harper, 2021; DeLessio-Parson, 2017; Greenebaum & Dexter, 2018; Hart, 2018; Mycek, 2018; Oliver, 2021; Potts & Parry, 2010; Rothgerber, 2013; Sumpter, 2015). Yet, this does not mean that vegan men always or fundamentally challenge gendered (and other) power relations; they may sometimes even reinforce traditional masculinity norms (Greenebaum & Dexter, 2018; Hart, 2018). For instance, in her research on the connections between hegemonic masculinity and veganism, Catherine Oliver (2021, p. 2) studied performances of masculinity by vegan men online and offline, focusing on how vegan men in the UK perceive what she calls redemption narratives of male vegan influencer-activists online. By these, she means vegan men’s transition narratives in which going vegan is presented as rescuing men from violent lives or where strength and virility are idealised and moral leadership and the role of a saviour are highlighted, aligning with performances of hegemonic masculinity. The vegan men whom Oliver interviewed were however critical of such hypermasculine ways of doing masculinity and © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 K. Aavik, Contesting Anthropocentric Masculinities Through Veganism, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-19507-5_7

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veganism. They considered themselves as doing more progressive forms of masculinity that involved feminist concerns. Yet, as Oliver argues, their narratives at times supported the same ideals  they were critical of, for instance, by attempting to normalise veganism by setting muscular and athletic vegan men as role models. Jessica Greenebaum and Brandon Dexter (2018), drawing on interviews with vegan men in the US, argue that vegan men perform hybrid masculinity (Bridges & Pascoe, 2014). On the one hand, they disassociated veganism with femininity and reconfigured it as compatible with masculinity, as well as challenged the ideal of hegemonic masculinity. Yet, simultaneously, in depicting veganism as a masculine practice, they emphasised masculinised qualities that it presumably  requires, such as self-control and courage, and idealised physical strength and muscular bodies. The research participants in Greenebaum and Dexter’s study also highlighted the importance of men in boosting the cultural legitimacy of veganism (Greenebaum & Dexter, 2018, p. 9). The authors (Greenebaum & Dexter, 2018, p.  9) conclude that vegan men do not fundamentally challenge gendered power relations. Thus, existing scholarship has identified various ambiguities in the gender performances of vegan men in terms of contributing to gender and social equality. Such contradictions in men’s practices of veganism found in several studies are sometimes used in popular culture and in some academic work to altogether dismiss men’s veganism and its transformative potential for reconfiguring gender and human-animal relations. This chapter aims to contribute to these debates by focusing on vegan men’s gender and intersectional politics and practices, as well as ideals of masculinity. I explore the relationship between (privileged) men’s veganism and ideals and practices of gender equality. This is important because privileged white men continue to dominate over other groups in the social hierarchy. It is easier for those in a privileged position to establish their own practices and meanings as normative. The previous chapters considered links between veganism, men, and masculinities within specific themes, such as emotions in the context of men’s veganism and the ways that men communicate veganism to others. Typically, when presenting their experiences of becoming and living as a vegan, the men did not specifically talk about themselves as vegan men and, thus, gender and masculinity remained mostly more implicit in their narratives. However, veganism, as practised by men, and masculinity in relation to veganism were also specific topics covered in the interviews. This chapter unpacks the men’s more explicit articulation of issues related

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to gender relations, masculinity, and veganism. This discussion addresses gendered power relations and cultural ideals of masculinity. I will be making use of the notion of hegemonic masculinity (Connell, 1987; Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005), a cultural ideal of masculinity associated with authority and social power, dominating over other masculinities and all femininities in the gender system (for a more detailed discussion of hegemonic masculinity in the context of men’s veganism, see Chap. 8). My findings suggest that several discourses and practices of vegan men have the potential to contribute to more egalitarian gender relations and challenge hegemonic masculinity. A distinct group of animal rights-­ oriented Finnish men stood out by embracing an intersectional approach to veganism (see also Chap. 2). However, I also identified aspects of men’s doing of veganism and gender that do not support these ideals or do so in a more ambiguous way.

Ideals and Practices of Masculinity Broadly, two major and somewhat contrasting ways of associating veganism with masculinity could be identified in the men’s accounts—first, seeing veganism as compatible with hegemonic masculinity and, second, contesting this ideal altogether, through veganism. These sometimes co-­ existed in the same narrative, suggesting a more complicated relationship of vegan men to hegemonic masculinity than previous literature has argued. I take a closer look at these below. (Re)framing Veganism as Compatible with Hegemonic Masculinity On the one hand, there were attempts to (re)frame veganism as a practice fully compatible with masculinity. As such, veganism supports some more positive attributes associated with hegemonic masculinity, such as protecting the “weaker” others and having the courage to defy social norms: Martin, 27, EST: Actually, veganism is a very masculine thing to do. […] It’s not easy to do the right thing. You say f*** you to everyone and declare ‘I’m doing things differently! I’m not eating meat.’ You need to swim against the flow. You need to cope with the social pressure. Well, I think this is true for both men and women. If you did the easiest thing at any moment, you wouldn’t be a vegan. To stand up for those weaker than you and recommend that others do this as well, is in my opinion very masculine.

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Such conceptualisations seeking to make veganism compatible with dominant cultural ideals of masculinity rely on and reinforce a distinction between masculinity and femininity and appear to do little to challenge gendered power relations. Previous research (Greenebaum & Dexter, 2018; Hart, 2018; Oliver, 2021) has also come to similar conclusions about some discourses of vegan men. Yet, while highlighting compatibility between veganism and masculinity, Martin admits that the qualities and practices he mentions are not exclusive to men and masculinities, but could also apply to women, thus implying that all vegans, no matter their gender, display the courage to defy social norms. I suggest that at least in part, vegan men’s attempts to stress the alignment of veganism with hegemonic masculinity functions as a discursive strategy to challenge dominant cultural assumptions about the incompatibility of these categories and normalise veganism amongst men. As part of attempts to fit veganism with hegemonic masculinity, the embodied aspects of veganism were foregrounded (see also Chap. 4). While women’s veganism is culturally typically associated with a desire to lose weight, an opposite concern—how to maintain or gain weight and muscle—is articulated in the case of men who become vegan. This concern was also reflected in the accounts of some men in this study. Upholding the ideal of a muscular male body appeared in some narratives as an ideal to aspire for in one’s practice of veganism. Some men, especially those who became physically (more) active after becoming vegan or had been playing sports before the vegan transition, were specifically interested in the links between veganism, masculinity, and sports. They searched for information about male vegan athletes online, in particular, famous bodybuilders in an attempt to establish whether becoming vegan as a man would even be possible (several men doubted it initially) in terms of the impact of veganism on one’s body (such as maintaining and/or gaining weight and muscle). They followed the YouTube channels or blogs of these athletes and drew inspiration from their experiences in their vegan transition. Some particular vegan athletes, such as the German bodybuilder and strongman competitor and winner Patrik Baboumian, as well as the documentary The Game Changers (2018)1 depicting veganism as 1  This film has been critiqued from gender and feminist perspectives. Oliver (2021) notes that “the documentary presents an aesthetic of masculinity that is muscular, militarized, and mobilized to engage young, male watchers to envision the possibility of their own enhanced masculinity on a plant-based diet” (p. 4).

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positively impacting men’s health, athletic performance, and virility, were mentioned as positive sources of inspiration. Some of these athletes, including those featured in The Game Changers, perform hypermasculine vegan or “hegan” masculinity (Wright, 2015, p. 126). In online spaces, such performances of vegan masculinity tend to be overemphasised. Oliver (2021, p.  3), for example, has found that for vegan men who work as influencer-activists online, health and virile bodies were of central importance. In discussing barriers to men’s veganism, it was frequently mentioned that non-vegan men lack positive role models. This statement holds certain assumptions about gender and the performances of gender in the context of veganism. It implies that (vegan) women (and other genders) cannot be appropriate role models for men. I suggest that behind this opinion are normative assumptions about men’s (and other genders’) bodies. When talking about potential barriers to veganism for men, concerns about the effects of adopting a plant-based diet on men’s bodies were voiced, specifically on the impact of giving up meat and dairy on men’s muscle mass. This highlights how veganism is a gendered embodied practice. Thus, as appropriate role models particularly for men, male vegan bodybuilders were typically mentioned: Kasper, 36, FIN: I think vegan men or men who are interested in veganism […], I think they need some kind of role models. And … so that they can make the effort for transitioning. I think it’s important for men and shows that it is possible to make muscle without eating meat.

Notably, different and seemingly somewhat contradictory practices and ideals of masculinity sometimes co-existed in the same narrative. The same research participant could be challenging conventional gender norms in some aspects, for example, emphasising the need for men to cultivate and display empathy, but at the same time idealising or pursuing a muscular male body, a quest culturally associated more with masculinity. The co-­ existence of these ideals and practices was however not seen as incompatible by the men themselves. Indeed, the narratives suggest that these associations could be rethought. Linking pursuits of a muscular or fit body only with masculinities or concluding that such quests are always a manifestation of hegemonic masculinity could be problematic, including for the reason that cultural ideals increasingly favour fit bodies for all genders.

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It is more interesting to think of the possible reasons why several research participants emphasised that vegan men can be athletic and muscular. This discourse reflects and contests some of the key stereotypes that vegan men face, as cultural images of vegans and in particular of vegan men suggest lean bodies and concern about the loss of physical strength. Such focus on the fit vegan body in the men’s narratives could have been produced as a counternarrative to contest these cultural representations. Indeed, depictions of vegan men as “weak” are being challenged more broadly, with the rise of “hegan” masculinities (Wright, 2015, p. 126). Contesting Hegemonic Masculinity Through Veganism: Performing Alternative Masculinities In contrast to attempts of making veganism fit into existing norms of masculinity, some men explicitly challenged ideals of hegemonic masculinity, which they regarded as hindering men from adopting veganism and problematic in other ways. Typically, these were men who explicitly positioned themselves as pro-feminist and for whom veganism was part of a broader social justice agenda (see Chap. 2). Such men tended to talk about gender and links between veganism and masculinity through an expert lens, attesting to their knowledge of and interest in the politics of gender and intersectionality, and critical attitudes towards some practices of men and cultural ideals of masculinity: Gordon, 48, FIN: I think toxic masculinity is damaging not just for animals but also for women, for you know, people of different sexual preference. I see these all connected and you know, it’s a big problem for a lot of different beings on this planet when men think that they have to be this way and are raised to be this way. That’s I think harmful to a lot of different creatures.

Eating nonhuman animals was considered a practice central to constructions of hegemonic masculinity which were seen as inherently problematic, with some men critically looking back at their own past, to the time when they ate meat. From their current perspective as vegan men, these ways of doing masculinity were condemned: Niko, 26, FIN: I just remember like back in high school, also with my group of friends, we used to do this like really horrible kind of fool things—like whatever bacon bits are, greasy things, and that was kind of almost like a value in itself: like eating really unhealthy.

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An interesting way to contest the culturally popular idea that veganism is a threat to men’s sense of masculinity was through framing non-vegan men as having issues with their masculinity instead: Tapani, 35, FIN: I have this feeling that meat-eating, traditionally masculine men are the ones with the strongest identity politics. It’s not us, it’s them. They are the ones who have very strict ideas about how they are supposed to perform masculinity and they are the ones who feel very threatened.

Counteracting some popular criticisms of men’s veganism, Tapani suggests that omnivore men’s investment in eating nonhuman animals renders them vulnerable and constrains their performances of masculinity, in such a way that alternative practices like veganism seem threatening. This perspective attempts to displace non-vegan men and their performances of masculinity from their neutral and unmarked status, exposing contradictions and vulnerabilities inherent in ideals of hegemonic masculinity. Some men identified and critically reflected on gendered power relations around eating nonhuman animals in the context of intimate relationships. This was most typical amongst the Finnish research participants espousing egalitarian gender politics (see also Chap. 2): Lauri, 28, FIN: I think it’s really like this sort of common thing for the … it’s a heterosexual couple, like CIS-man and CIS-woman and the woman is like excited: ‘I got my meat-eating man to like try vöner [a vegan döner kebab] and he was like, it’s good.’ So, it’s really more common for like a heterosexual couple where the woman is more like interested in veganism and she introduces the thing to the man and she will write [in social media] that ‘I even got the man to like try something’, so … And then again, I have heard many friends who are women, who have been like ‘I would like to become a vegetarian or vegan, but my partner needs to have meat’, which is like no, he doesn’t. But this sort of idea that some sort of like male has to have his meat sort of thing is preventing me from becoming vegetarian. That’s like a really patriarchal like sort of a situation, where the sort of male dominance over what we eat prevents the woman … in the heterosexual couple is more ready to like give in. I’ve heard like these stories often, that I would be interested in buying some Nyhtokaura [a popular Finnish oat-based vegan protein] and cooking at home, but Jarkko or Ville or whatever CIS-male has to have this meat. That sort of thing is something I’ve heard many times. […] And that’s like really patriarchal and really from the 18th century.

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Such situations, which Lauri critically discusses, arise because most men and masculinities remain heavily invested in the consumption of nonhuman animals. Given that men make up a numerical minority among vegans and vegetarians, it is difficult for many heterosexual veg*n women to find male partners who do not consume nonhuman animals. Consequently, some accept a non-vegan partner. In this narrative, Lauri’s critical remarks are in fact primarily directed at women who do gender and veganism in such ways, and he regards them as enabling and even supporting men’s meat consumption through conventional performances of femininity. Such support is both material (preparing meat for their male partner, as a form of domestic care work done by women) and ideological (reaffirming the idea that men should consume meat). In contrast to some men’s idealisation of a muscular vegan body, other men—particularly those who highlighted animal ethics reasons behind their veganism and displayed opposition to “health veganism”—explicitly denounced the ideal of a muscular male vegan body. However, this did not prevent some from regarding male vegan athletes as role models. In the following narrative, Veli-Matti, while critical of associating (his) veganism with health or bodybuilding pursuits, drew considerable inspiration in his vegan transition from the vegan bodybuilder Patrik Baboumian who for him represents a move towards more positive masculinities which denounce violence: Veli-Matti, 34, FIN: I really admire [Patrik Baboumian]. I think I have a sticker in the fridge door also about him, I bought it, the vegan T-shirt he has, some years ago. And when I started being vegetarian, I found these PETA ads. It came to my mind from PETA that this is Patrik Baboumian walking in a field and talking about, very gently, about his power, that the responsibility that comes through power and so on. And that I remember had a very big influence on me and that made me like also question this power through violence and toxic masculinity and how masculinity is fragile in the sense that it always comes to the threshold of threat of violence that keeps up men as men. And he really like breaks this … this like illusionary wall of the need to be violent or the threat of violence to be a man, which exists in this society, especially through the alcohol culture, that especially, and so on. And he just very gently in the ad talks about power and responsibility, that we don’t have to kill in order to be powerful. […] Like I said, I don’t care about health. I don’t care about muscles. I’m a small guy, I’m a skinny guy and so on, so, I couldn’t care less but still this

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Patrik is an example, an idol for me because of the way … more about the philosophy. I don’t really care about the muscles that much, but how he speaks about power, how he speaks about using muscles and so on. So, even though I’m not a fitness guy, he has made a very big impact, a very positive.

As this narrative demonstrates, seemingly conflicting views and practices can be compatible for vegan men: while they can embrace pro-feminist politics, contest hegemonic masculinities, and distance themselves from athleticism and muscular bodies as personal pursuits, they can at the same time look up to ultramasculine vegan male celebrity bodybuilders. However, what makes the rhetoric of denouncing violence impactful by such male vegan celebrities like Patrik Baboumian is the very fact that they possess ultramuscular bodies conveying physical strength. In speaking about using their power and strength in alternative ways, these men assume the position of a powerful and benevolent protector, a role associated with men and masculinities. The research participants constructed vegan men as not representing hegemonic masculinity but performing masculinity in alternative ways that in important aspects challenge this ideal, beyond denouncing the consumption of nonhuman animals: Lukas, 25, FIN: I feel like veganism, especially with men, it very often goes hand in hand with kind of critical ideas about gender or politics as well. Like it’s not the most obvious thing or like the easiest thing to do as a man in a way. So, someone who comes from like a really kind of macho background probably doesn’t go vegan. And I noticed this also in this kind of hardcore punk community that I grew up in, there were a lot of these people who were into this kind of aggressive music for this kind of aggressive mentality that they had in general as well, that I kind of felt was toxic and I could relate with the people who were vegan in that community, because I felt like they were coming or they had this different take on the aggression, that it was like more political in a way. It wasn’t about being angry and showing that you’re really like macho, like giving a more positive medium to this these feelings that could be connected with masculinity as well, that you can turn them around for something good. That has been what kind of inspired me at that point. I don’t know, it might be like generalising but I often feel like some friends who are not vegetarian, like male friends in my community, they were like a bit more likely shittier boyfriends, for instance, or kind of like had these other beliefs that I have found harmful as well or that they’re as trustworthy.

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Kadri: That’s really interesting. If you think about yourself, like those critical ideas about gender and other critical ideas, […] when did they develop? Lukas: I think they’ve kind of gone together with veganism. Maybe I’ll become more and more aware of it over the years how this is actually related to gender as well. Maybe because I’ve been with my girlfriend who is also vegan and is kind of really interested in these radical feminist ideas as well. So, she has kind of taught me or given me a lot of these things as well, but just … I feel like maybe being male and vegan, it has kind of like opened me up more to these softer emotions or these kinds of things that would not be considered like necessarily as masculine features. Because I have been vegan, that is already something that sets me somewhat apart from these things. It has kind of opened space. And I’ve kind of seen this same thing in a lot of these vegan male friends of mine.

In this narrative, Lukas, drawing on his personal experience and observations of vegan men around him, constructs them (at least the ones with similar profiles to him) as a distinct group, standing out in a positive way in terms of their gender politics and practices. In this view, veganism is seen as encouraging more progressive ways of doing masculinity for men. He particularly highlights the development of men’s emotional literacy which veganism supports (see Chap. 4). As discussed in Chap. 2, a typical element in the vegan men’s narratives was a presentation of the self as always having been unique and standing out in some way, in a way that facilitated their vegan transition. In some narratives, the men emphasised this specifically in terms of gender, in how they relate to non-vegan men, constructing themselves as different and assuming a critical view of hegemonic masculinity. At least some of these accounts implied the research participants’ own moral superiority, even if not admitted explicitly: Olavi, 33, FIN: Many of the CEOs I know are maybe guilty of being machos, eating a good steak is a sign of masculine power and money. […] Many of them use their spare time to like optimise their company’s profits and so on. I use my spare time to study and read and educate myself. I’m not saying that I’m better in any way, but I have like different fields of interest.

In this excerpt, Olavi draws a rather profound distinction between himself as a vegan man and his non-vegan male colleagues who for him represent hegemonic masculinity as an undesirable ideal. Beyond the vegan-­omnivore

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divide, other significant incompatibilities are highlighted, such as the more materialist and capitalist masculinities that the men described in this narrative signify. While veganism gave the men in this study a general sense of well-being (see Chaps. 1 and 2), a few men expressed concern about an overemphasis on vegans and their identities in representations of veganism, adopting a critical attitude towards what veganism has become, referring to privileged men in particular: Kadri: Do you feel like [going vegan] is a positive change that you made in your life? Lauri, 28, FIN: Yeah, and then I will feel it and then I will start thinking about it. It’s not about me and my life. So, it has to be less sort of like egocentrical thinking about me and my identity. I’m just one person among millions and millions. It’s a bit similar to like … when … these sort of men who will claim that ‘I’m a feminist’. So, that’s great, but it shouldn’t be about a white man’s identity and that sort of ‘I’m a good person’. It’s more like communication to others, like ‘I’m a good … yeah, you should like me, I’m great’, but I think it should be at all times the sort of really examining your privileges and trying to be better and trying to be less toxic and that sort of thing, instead of like showing an identity to others. So, it should be more like political and less like psychological, or something, because … I don’t think I’m interesting at all. I’m just a regular sort of person, so I’m not important. I think animals are much more important than my identity.

Here, Lauri condemns a shift of focus from veganism for nonhuman animals to the identities of vegans, in cultural representations of veganism as well as in self-perceptions of vegans themselves. As he suggests, the latter can easily turn veganism into a performance, a “feel-good” project for human beings. A number of scholars from critical race and decolonial perspectives rightly argue that the identities of vegans and their location in the social hierarchy matter and should be examined. However, in the case of privileged men, an uncritical focus on their veganism can elevate them further, as privileged men who become vegan might be presumed to be “good people” whose views and practices (including of veganism) no longer warrant a critical perspective. However, as Lauri aptly notes, privileged men’s discursive declarations such as “I am a vegan” and “I am a feminist” might not necessarily align with their actual practice and are not enough to foster positive change. Instead, merely their visible performances of veganism are lauded.

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Cultural Ideals of Masculinity as Barriers to Men’s Veganism Typically, the interviewed men were of the view that in contrast with other genders, it is more difficult for men to become vegan. This perspective focused solely on gender, not taking into account other social categories shaping people’s position in the social hierarchy. As I noted earlier, the privilege of the research participants, in terms of race, class, and various other categories, helps to offset the gender disadvantage they might experience in the context of veganism. In part, the claim that it is more difficult for men to adopt and maintain veganism was based on their own negative gendered experiences with family members, friends, and acquaintances, most of which involved non-­ vegan men (see Chap. 6) as well as cultural narratives associating veganism with femininities. While some men took a more essentialist stance to gender, attributing different characteristics to women and men, others referred to gendered socialisation, believing that cultural ideals of masculinity prevent most men from adopting veganism: Toomas, 39, EST: It’s all this attitude that has been cultivated in men since young age in most cultures. That you are not in good contact with your emotions […] And the result of this is that as a man, you have to learn to cry at the age of twenty-nine. […] The problem is men saying ‘F*** off, I can do it, I am my own man!’ It’s the gender roles cultivated in the society.

It was considered challenging for men to become vegan because this move would contest their masculinity on multiple fronts, since doing veganism and doing masculinity are interlinked (DeLessio-Parson, 2017, p. 1731), as Paul summarises some hegemonic cultural narratives on men’s veganism: Paul, 44, EST: If you become vegan, you are different, you are likely also gay, you eat grass, you look somehow withered, your face looks strange, you are protecting some animals. … Real men have always eaten meat and you are not— what kind of a man are you? I think that in such circumstances it’s more difficult for an average man to become vegan than an average woman.

One particular barrier to veganism that men face, according to the research participants, was associated with empathy and emotions (see also Chap. 4). It was believed that cultural ideals of masculinity do not enable men to cultivate care, empathy, and emotional responses to the suffering of other beings or that these qualities are not innate to men. This was seen as a

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major reason why veganism and masculinity are largely incompatible and why men are less likely to go vegan: Martin, 27, EST: The question of why there are so few of us is a very good one. I think it has to do with women being generally more empathetic. Because to become a real vegan requires empathy. Pretty strong empathy. And it seems that women tend to have more of it […] I think they are born with it. Like when you give birth to a child, you have to …. Well, I think motherhood requires more empathy than fatherhood and genetically women are provided with more empathy. For example, many women who have been in these farms have said that they totally understand these cows after they had the breastfeeding experience themselves. Tanel, 31, EST: My wife’s friends drink coffee only with plant milk. And my sister is vegan. […] The reason why more women get on this path or why they do it faster is that women are like … more emotional and more receptive to this information. Men are maybe more something like ‘I’m at bit tough! I won’t absorb this new information, I have been taught differently, you won’t shake my foundations.’ That’s like their main motto. Well, women are more willing to change.

However, others were reluctant to associate these qualities primarily with women and considered empathy as a general human attribute, increasingly expected from men and seen as compatible with masculinity: Peeter, 33, EST: Generally, the whole world is going towards being more empathetic, so I think cultivating these skills could be useful anyway. And when you also consider what is generally useful for people, like health and other things, then I don’t see a reason why it should be somehow different for men.

As these quotes suggest, the research participants’ views differed on how they approached gender. As evident, some men’s views on gender were essentialist, aligning with how gender is often represented in popular culture. However, whether one takes an essentialist or a constructionist view in arguing that it is more difficult for men to become vegan might not matter significantly in terms of the implications of this discourse for the spread of veganism amongst men. According to the essentialist view, it is believed that men inherently lack the capacity to cultivate emotional awareness, empathy, care, and other orientations associated with women’s

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lives and practices. The constructionist perspective, on the other hand, allows for men’s practices to change, yet the social norms that constrain men (and other genders) are typically seen as too pervasive and beyond individuals to contest. Thus, in the first case, it is “nature”, and in the second, the ubiquitous gender system and ideals of masculinity in society that act as barriers for men to become vegan. Neither view however encourages men to adopt veganism. While it was considered difficult for men to go vegan in general, the research participants had not typically encountered these difficulties themselves. Going vegan was broadly experienced as easy, including in terms of successfully negotiating masculinity in this process. While many men had experienced somewhat complicated interactions with non-vegan male relatives and friends over veganism, these were at most considered frustrating but not fundamentally perceived as undermining their masculinity (see Chap. 6). In part, this was because the men in the study typically constructed themselves as exceptional, notably also in terms of doing masculinity, in alternative and more progressive ways (see Chap. 2). Further, the critical attitudes that many held towards conventional gender norms helped them to successfully identify as men and vegans. Also, as I noted earlier (see Chap. 2), their privileged social status facilitated a relatively comfortable vegan transition process. Some research participants considered the social contexts that they were embedded in as conducive to their vegan transition, because of the acceptance of non-conventional gender practices in these settings: Petri, 43, FIN: Some people are afraid to become or to eat vegan or vegetarian food. It’s a threat to their masculinity. … Sort of going the sauna2 and having a sausage, it’s a thing or so. … But I haven’t experienced it myself nor really experienced it in my circles also. I believe nobody has ever told me that it would be unmanly to not eat meat. I have been in sort of protected environment, I think.

Yet, some men who had interactions with omnivore men in conventionally masculine settings had experienced negative attitudes in such environments, mirroring some described situations involving non-vegan male friends and relatives (see Chap. 6): 2  In Estonia and Finland, the sauna is a culturally significant setting where people relax and socialise. Meat and alcohol consumption are typically part of the sauna culture. The sauna also functions as a space for men’s homosocial bonding.

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Jaanus, 35, EST: I’ve had other kinds of experiences too. Especially in these motorcycle circles where the masculinity factor is really big. When there is an event like opening or closing the motorcycle season or moto-­orienteering, then they haven’t really been very friendly when I’ve asked about plant-­based or meat-free options. They’ve basically said to me ‘We are not serving some vegan grass here! If you’re looking for that kind of stuff then you can look elsewhere!’ Kadri: Not a very friendly thing to say? Jaanus: Yeah. But it wasn’t said with aggression, it was said in this masculine style. I didn’t take it personally or as an insult or anything like this. It was just this tense banter between men or how to call it. Like who has a hairier chest. This kind of macho stuff.

Such experiences, as described by Jaanus, were however exceptional and easily dismissed by the research participants, as they did not constitute major obstacles to the research participants’ veganism. As outlined earlier, it was typical for the vegan men not to become offended at jokes or critical comments on veganism produced by non-vegan male friends or acquaintances. As the narrative of Jaanus illustrates, such behaviour by other men was considered standard practice, especially in all-male environments. In part, the research participants’ own socialisation as men might have normalised for them such ways of communicating amongst many men, enabling them to take lightly non-vegan men’s disparaging attitudes towards veganism, often disguised as humour. Veganism as a Separate Issue or Part of Interlinked Oppressions? The issue of whether veganism should be seen as a standalone issue or part of other social justice causes concerns definitions of veganism and thus is a continuation of the discussion in Chap. 3 on the meanings that the men attributed to veganism. Broadly, two positions were put forward in the vegan men’s narratives in terms of whether veganism should be seen as linked to other issues of social justice. According to the first stance, veganism should be seen as one amongst many social justice causes and not be separated from these, due to conceptual similarities identified between the treatment of nonhuman animals and some humans by other (privileged) humans:

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Markus, 40, EST: Veganism makes you very sensitive to injustice towards animals. It is a thing of privilege. We are in such a privileged position in relation to animals that we have taken the right to call them things …. This idea of superiority has been unpleasant to me since I was a child. Someone taking a position of authority not because of their worth, but for some other reason. For example, in relations between men and women—I have already observed this before my veganism—often men want to show women their place. Veli-Matti, 34, FIN: Basically, it’s the same thing: racism, violence, speciesism, veganism like they all go together. I don’t see a difference being violent to humans or animals.

These perspectives mirror the conceptualisations of veganism informed by intersectional approaches (see Introduction and Chap. 3). This discourse stems from the men’s broader political views which contest various social hierarchies and inequalities, characteristic first and foremost of explicitly pro-feminist men. The vocabulary used by some indicates their immersion in these discourses, in several cases related to their educational or professional backgrounds. This suggests that it might be easier for men with prior knowledge of feminist and intersectional politics to connect veganism to these causes. The second major way of making sense of veganism did not involve explicitly making these links. In fact, they were even dismissed in some cases: Kadri: What’s your attitude towards associating veganism with different social justice issues, such as LGBT rights, feminism and so on? What do you think about that? Peeter, 33, EST: I would totally keep them separate. I somehow understand this connection, but … I think it’s a thing that would alienate men [from veganism] … I mean, if you put them all together, then if you are vegan, you always have to be a feminist and to support gay rights etc. It would be great if people were like this, but even if someone wants to be all that and agrees to all this, but if you ask them to commit to all this, they would say ‘Hey, this is too much for me’. … I see this connection and why there is a synergy there, but I think these should be thought of as separate issues.

Such views were put forward by men less familiar with feminist politics and the concept of intersectionality, beyond their exposure to feminist issues in

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popular representations which typically simplify and distort feminist perspectives. Dominant in Peeter’s narrative are practical concerns over what happens in terms of everyday activism if one simultaneously deals with other injustices alongside nonhuman animal exploitation. This question aligns with the findings of my previous research indicating that animal advocacy activists deal with similar dilemmas in their everyday work (Aavik, 2018b). Vegan Men’s Material Practices in Support of More Egalitarian Gender Relations In this section, I briefly discuss vegan men’s two practices related to food and care work which have the potential to contribute towards more egalitarian gender relations, particularly in the private sphere: household cooking and fathers’ responsibilities regarding their children’s nutrition. While the previous sections focused on the research participants’ discourses on gender and masculinities, paying attention to their material practices is equally (or even more) important when considering the transformative potential of men’s veganism, within the material-discursive approach to men’s veganism that I take in this book.  reater Involvement in Household Cooking G Reflecting dominant patterns of masculinity and gendered domestic care work, men have traditionally been and remain less involved in household cooking than women (Szabo, 2019), a feminised and undervalued activity (Allen & Sachs, 2007). Upon becoming vegan, many men in this study claimed to have become more interested and more involved in cooking at home as well as having taken a greater interest in nutrition. This was true also of the men who did not consider themselves “health vegans”: Panu, 22, FIN: When I went vegan, it was tough to make the food in the beginning. It was quite odd like … thinking of a sandwich … not putting cheese or any kind of meat on it. […] In the beginning I just put cucumber or tomato on my sandwiches. But … the cooking wasn’t hard. If I had the ingredients, I was able to make myself a meal and I haven’t really eaten those ready-made meals or anything.

Panu’s experience illustrates how meanings associated with food in the meat culture are centred around products made from nonhuman animals

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and how they undergo a change in the process of becoming vegan. It was typical for the research participants to feel at a loss regarding meal preparation upon becoming vegan, as they lacked knowledge and creativity about adequately replacing the foods that had been central to their diet. Many however described their learning process as enjoyable and satisfying. The men’s narratives suggest that becoming vegan encourages creativity in the kitchen and involved for several men a new-found passion for food and cooking, including preparing meals for their families.  egan Fatherhood: Concerns over Children’s Nutrition V The second practice that I highlight concerns an aspect of parenting. The theme of parenting and fatherhood as a vegan came up in thirteen interviews, initiated by the men themselves, suggesting that veganism in relation to being a father was an important issue for these men that they felt should be discussed in an interview about their vegan experience. In speciesist societies, an adequate parent nourishes their children with animal products. Indeed, feeding children other animals is considered a form of proper care. This role is typically assumed by and expected of mothers, who remain primary carers of children in most societies. This is true in the contexts of Estonia and Finland as well. In some societies, there is immense institutional pressure to feed animal products to children, as in Estonia. Indeed, the country’s nutrition recommendations centre on meat and dairy and veganism is denounced as dangerous for health (Aavik, 2018a). Also, vegans are constructed as deviant in the medical system (Aavik, 2019). This hostile social and institutional context shapes vegan parenting, as it brings up concerns in vegan parents about how to ensure proper nutrition and how to negotiate stigmatisation. These concerns were expressed by a few Estonian men in this study who performed involved fatherhood and wanted to take equal responsibility regarding their children’s nutrition: Mart, 26, EST: I’m becoming a father in one and half months […]. In relation to this, I have many questions of course: what’s gonna happen? On the one hand, I will be responsible for this other person. … I will decide about this other person’s eating and all these disagreements and problems, which I had with my parents, relatives, friends about this [veganism], are now coming to the surface again. Like ‘What kind of decisions are you now making for our grandchild?’

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and so on. But for a long time already we have had this nice book Tiny Vegans3 at home, which is very encouraging. I have not focused on this further after the first read, but there are some doubts. I know that we still have some time before our child starts eating different things, but that’s something I have some fears about.

Cultural and institutional settings where offering animal products to one’s children is part and parcel of “proper” parenting make it difficult for vegans to manage relationships with a non-vegan co-parent or relatives (recall Kalev’s narrative in Chap. 6 highlighting conflicts with his close family members regarding his daughter’s nutrition): Urmas, 45, EST: There’s the issue of the children of course. I’ve been talking to several people about children needing to have a choice what to eat. But well, I cannot … in my previous relationship I had the same issue … we had a lot of fights about it, but I couldn’t bring myself to buying foods with meat to my partner’s children.

The narratives of vegan fathers in the study suggest their active involvement in raising children, and desire for decision-making particularly in the realm of food and nutrition, traditionally managed by women. For vegan fathers, issues around children’s nutrition are often more acute than for non-vegan fathers, particularly in cultural and institutional contexts not supportive of veganism. At the same time, vegan parenting can complicate relationships with partners, parents, and other relatives and cause difficulties for vegan parents and children in institutional settings. Even if such negative reactions have not occurred (yet) but are anticipated as potentially occurring in the future, as in Mart’s narrative, such fears shape the everyday practices and relationships of vegans.

Conclusions This chapter has explored vegan men’s gender and intersectional politics and practices. Previous research has found that there is an ambiguous relationship between men’s veganism and more egalitarian gender relations 3  This book, published in 2017 (Väikesed veganid in Estonian) and authored by a FinnishEstonian vegan Anniina Ljokkoi, is the first and thus far the only book in the Estonian language on vegan parenting and vegan nutrition for children. The book has played an important role in the community of Estonian vegan parents.

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(Greenebaum & Dexter, 2018; Hart, 2018; Oliver, 2021), with vegan men not always contributing to this ideal. I identified two major and opposing positions on how veganism relates, or rather, should relate, in the research participants’ perspective, to the ideal of hegemonic masculinity. On the one hand, some men attempted to frame veganism as compatible with this cultural ideal, for instance, by highlighting practices typically associated with masculinity such as protecting the “weaker” ones, having the courage to challenge social norms, and drawing inspiration from hypermasculine muscular vegan men bodybuilders. These insights are similar to what Mycek (2018) found in her research on veg*n men who reframed veganism as masculine, thereby upholding the gender binary and hierarchical relationship between genders. Similarly, Greenebaum and Dexter (2018) found that while vegan men expand definitions of hegemonic masculinity, they do not ultimately contest gender equality. According to the other view I identified, men’s veganism was seen as contesting hegemonic masculinity, a cultural ideal regarded as preventing omnivore men from adopting veganism and harmful in other ways. The men who took this position on hegemonic masculinity were critical of how this ideal shapes unequal gendered and speciesist power relations. They emphasised their own alternative and more progressive constructions of masculinity and regarded themselves as having successfully surpassed the constraints of hegemonic masculinity, seen as an obstacle for other men in adopting veganism. This aligns with Oliver’s (2021) findings from interviews with vegan men in the UK who performed alternative kinds of masculinity, oppositional to hegemonic masculinity. The men’s views on whether and how veganism is or should be related to various social justice causes differed. While for some research participants—in particular, a group of pro-feminist Finnish men—veganism was part of a broader social justice agenda, others did not explicitly make these links or outrightly dismissed them. Thus, seemingly, two different groups of men seem to emerge: those who are well-informed and concerned about social justice issues and those who are not. Despite these seemingly opposite discursive positions, however, as I have argued before (Aavik, 2021), juxtaposing vegan men based on their discourses on gender and intersectionality could be problematic, due to contradictions in discursive and material practices, among other reasons. For instance, some men who did not display an overtly intersectional understanding of veganism or pro-feminist views claimed to have become more caring and empathetic and more sensitive towards intra-human inequalities, through practising

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veganism. It is important to note that men can engage in pro-feminist practices without necessarily declaring themselves pro-feminist. Indeed, a focus solely on discursive declarations in identifying which men make a positive impact towards more egalitarian gender relations risks neglecting men’s material practices and tends to elevate the already more advantaged men whose educational and class backgrounds have provided them with more resources to produce the “correct” identity talk. Indeed, as previous research has indicated, considerable disparities are evident between ideals and practices, or talk and action, notably in the case of privileged men in the context of gender equality in the domestic sphere (see Faircloth, 2021; Hochschild & Machung, 1989; Lamont, 2014). Within the framework of understanding men’s veganism as a material-­ discursive practice (on material-discursive approaches on men and masculinities, see Hearn, 2014; Garlick, 2019), I have highlighted in this chapter two material practices that becoming vegan shaped in positive ways for the men in this study—their greater involvement in household cooking and their performances of involved and caring fatherhood, with a particular focus on taking (co-)responsibility for their children’s vegan nutrition. Household cooking and parenting are culturally highly feminised and remain typically performed by women, however, with evidence of men’s increasingly greater participation (on men’s increased involvement in parenting, see Faircloth, 2021). Within contemporary intensive parenting cultures (see Faircloth, 2014, 2021), feeding children “properly” is a central concern, especially for mothers, who have remained in charge of this aspect of childcare (Faircloth, 2021). For vegans, these pressures around feeding children are heightened, given the often hostile and suspicious cultural attitudes towards vegan parenting, particularly around children’s nutrition. Thus, intensive motherhood (Hays, 1996) becomes even more demanding for vegan mothers. As the narratives of vegan fathers in my study indicate, the greater involvement of men in the practice of feeding children upon becoming vegan might help to break these gendered patterns in heterosexual relationships. I suggest that these material practices involving food that veganism appears to encourage in men—greater involvement in household cooking and providing for their children’s nutritional needs—might contribute to doing masculinity in more involved and caring ways, particularly in the domestic sphere. The latter contributes to the emerging ideals of more engaged fatherhood (see, e.g., Dermott, 2008). Yet, further research is warranted on these aspects of men’s veganism that seemingly support these more egalitarian ideals, to examine, for

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instance, possible disparities between men’s narratives and material practices of performing such activities (see Faircloth, 2021). Also, there is a difference between occasionally cooking new and interesting plant-based dishes and feeding the family, including children, on a daily basis. Based on my findings, I challenge some of the conclusions that have been drawn in previous research about the relationship between vegan men’s values and practices, masculinities, and gender relations. I suggest that it could be problematic to associate orientations and qualities such as self-control, courage, and athleticism primarily or only with men and masculinities or necessarily supporting hegemonic masculinity. It might be more productive to examine how such ideals emerge, what they mean for men, and how they use them in their performances of masculinity and veganism. At least for some men in this study, there were no contradictions between drawing inspiration from vegan male bodybuilders and pursuing fit bodies while simultaneously embracing pro-feminist views and intersectional social justice approaches to veganism. It is worth considering why it was important for the research participants to emphasise the compatibility of veganism with masculinities. I suggest that, in part, this has to do with the need to reconcile the culturally perceived disjunction between veganism and masculinities. To reject their masculinity and identification with the category “man” altogether in order to embrace veganism would likely seem a too radical step for many, without perceived viable alternatives in the existing gender system. Thus, vegan men attempt to either reconcile veganism with hegemonic masculinity, by foregrounding the more positive elements of this ideal, or reinvent the content of what being a man should involve, however, retaining the categories of masculinity and men. This enables them to reconcile their identities as vegans and as men, which remain largely incompatible in cultural narratives.

References Aavik, K. (2018a). Nonhuman animals as ‘high-quality protein’: Insistence on the consumption of ‘meat’ and ‘dairy’ in the Estonian nutrition recommendations. In D. Nibert (Ed.), Animal oppression and capitalism. Volume 1: The oppression of nonhuman animals as sources of food (pp. 140–165). Praeger Press. Aavik, K. (2018b). The animal advocacy movement in the Baltic states: Links to other social justice issues and possibilities for intersectional activism. Journal of Baltic Studies, 49(4), 509–527. https://doi.org/10.1080/01629778. 2018.1473263

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Aavik, K. (2019). Institutional resistance to veganism: Constructing vegan bodies as deviant in medical encounters in Estonia. Health, 25(2), 159–176. https:// doi.org/10.1177/1363459319860571 Aavik, K. (2021). Vegan men: Towards greater care for (non)human others, earth and self. In P.  Pulé & M.  Hultman (Eds.), Men, masculinities, and earth: Contending with the (m)anthropocene (pp.  329–350). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-­3-­030-­54486-­7_15 Adewale, O., & Harper, B. (Eds.). (2021). Brotha vegan: Black men speak on food, identity, health, and society. Lantern Publishing & Media. Bridges, T., & Pascoe, C. J. (2014). Hybrid masculinities: New directions in the sociology of men and masculinities: Hybrid masculinities. Sociology Compass, 8(3), 246–258. https://doi.org/10.1111/soc4.12134 Connell, R. (1987). Gender and power. Allen and Unwin. Connell, R., & Messerschmidt, J. W. (2005). Hegemonic masculinity: Rethinking the concept. Gender and Society, 19, 829–859. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 0891243205278639 DeLessio-Parson, A. (2017). Doing vegetarianism to destabilize the meat-­ masculinity nexus in La Plata, Argentina. Gender, Place & Culture, 24(12), 1729–1748. https://doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2017.1395822 Dermott, E. (2008). Intimate fatherhood: A sociological analysis. Routledge. Faircloth, C. (2014). Intensive parenting and the expansion of parenting. In E. Lee, J. Bristow, C. Faircloth, & J. Macvarish (Eds.), Parenting culture studies (pp. 25–51). Palgrave Macmillan. Faircloth, C. (2021). Couples’ transition to parenthood. Gender, intimacy and equality. Palgrave Macmillan. Garlick, S. (2019). The return of nature: Feminism, hegemonic masculinities, and new materialisms. Men and Masculinities, 22(2), 380–403. https://doi. org/10.1177/1097184X17725128 Greenebaum, J., & Dexter, B. (2018). Vegan men and hybrid masculinity. Journal of Gender Studies, 27(6), 637–648. https://doi.org/10.1080/0958923 6.2017.1287064 Hart, D. (2018). Faux-meat and masculinity: The gendering of food on three vegan blogs. Canadian Food Studies/La Revue Canadienne Des études Sur l’alimentation, 5(1), 133–155. https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-­rcea.v5i1.233 Hays, S. (1996). The cultural contradictions of motherhood. Yale University Press. Hearn, J. (2014). Men, masculinities and the material(-)discursive. NORMA: International Journal for Masculinity Studies, 9, 5–17. Hochschild, A., & Machung, A. (1989). The second shift: Working parents and the revolution at home. Penguin Books. Lamont, E. (2014). The limited construction of an egalitarian masculinity: Collegeeducated men’s dating and relationship narratives. Men and Masculinities, 18(3), 271–292. https://doi.org/10.1177/1097184X14557495

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Mycek, M.  K. (2018). Meatless meals and masculinity: How veg* men explain their plant-based diets. Food and Foodways, 26(3), 223–245. https://doi. org/10.1080/07409710.2017.1420355 Oliver, C. (2021). Mock meat, masculinity, and redemption narratives: Vegan men’s negotiations and performances of gender and eating. Social Movement Studies, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/14742837.2021.1989293 Potts, A., & Parry, J. (2010). Vegan sexuality: Challenging heteronormative masculinity through meat-free sex. Feminism & Psychology, 20(1), 53–72. https:// doi.org/10.1177/0959353509351181 Rothgerber, H. (2013). Real men don’t eat (vegetable) quiche: Masculinity and the justification of meat consumption. Psychology of Men & Masculinity, 14(4), 363–375. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0030379 Sumpter, K. (2015). Masculinity and meat consumption: An analysis through the theoretical lens of hegemonic masculinity and alternative masculinity theories. Sociology Compass, 9(2), 104–114. https://doi.org/10.1111/soc4.12241 Szabo, M. (2019). Masculinities, food and cooking. In L. Gottzen, U. Mellström, & T.  Shefer (Eds.), Routledge international handbook of masculinity studies (pp. 404–413). Routledge. Wright, L. (2015). The vegan studies project: Food, animals, and gender in the age of terror. University of Georgia Press.

CHAPTER 8

Conclusions: Towards Post-anthropocentric Masculinities Through Men’s Veganism

In this concluding chapter, I summarise and discuss the main findings of each chapter. Based on these findings, I then explore the potential of men’s veganism to contribute towards contesting anthropocentrism, as well as support more egalitarian ways of doing gender and fostering ideals of social and ecological justice (on ecological justice, see Baxter, 2004; Nussbaum, 2006; Schlosberg, 2014), combining these two aspects. I do so by introducing and examining the notion of vegan masculinity. Finally, acknowledging the limitations of this study, I offer ideas for possible future research directions on veganism, men, and masculinities. This book has aimed to study links between veganism, men, and masculinities, drawing on 61 qualitative interviews with privileged vegan men in Estonia and Finland. In the Introduction (Chap. 1), I outlined the urgency of dealing with multiple interlinked global social and ecological crises that humanity is amidst and the consequences of these crises for human and nonhuman beings and the entire planet: unethical and exploitative human-animal relations, climate change, and other environmental issues, as well as profoundly unequal gender and other social relations. While men and masculinities—in particular, privileged white Western men—are key drivers of these problems, more hopefully, they could and indeed should be part of the solution. I have argued in this book that men’s veganism could make a positive contribution towards addressing these crises and foster new ideals of masculinity. Yet, as I have also demonstrated, this relationship is not straightforward and without complications, © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 K. Aavik, Contesting Anthropocentric Masculinities Through Veganism, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-19507-5_8

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as privileged men’s veganism alone could fall short of these ideals and needs to be coupled with an awareness of one’s privileges, as well as doing masculinity in more caring and egalitarian ways beyond veganism, including in material practices. Further, as I will argue at the end of this chapter, such individual-level practices need to be accompanied by institutional reforms, to achieve any meaningful change, given the pervasive reliance of human social institutions on the use of nonhuman animals. Each of the thematic chapters in this book has focused on a particular aspect of men’s veganism. In some chapters, issues of gender and masculinities are explicitly central themes, while they figure more implicitly in others. Chapter 2 explored men’s narratives of becoming vegan. These were typically constructed around three major motivations having to do with nonhuman animals, environment, and health, with the first dominating in the narratives. In part, it is the broader cultural legibility of these themes in the context of taking up veganism that makes them easily available narrative resources for the men to draw on in making sense of their own vegan transition and identities. I argued in the chapter that in understanding men’s paths to veganism, focusing simply on the reasons that men name as the main drivers behind their veganism is not sufficient and produces a limited or even distorted picture of this process. There is a need to examine these motivations in context as well as consider various biographical, interpersonal/relational, social, cultural, and material factors (including emotions, affects, and embodiment, as explored in Chap. 4), circumstances, and power relations, including gender and class, that enable and facilitate (or hinder) men’s adoption of veganism—which were present in more explicit or tacit ways in the narratives. Notably, some transition experiences did not begin with an intellectual or moral awareness and condemnation of nonhuman animal suffering, but with the material practice of transitioning to a plant-­ based diet first—an embodied experience, without any initial (strong) ethical commitments or discursive reasoning of this act. In looking beyond discursive and social factors to understand men’s vegan transition experiences, and considering also materiality and embodiments, I was inspired by feminist new materialist approaches, especially those theorising masculinities (see, e.g., Garlick, 2019). The research participants’ experiences of becoming vegan challenge strict boundaries between the material/embodied and discursive, reason and emotion (see also Chap. 4) and suggest that the vegan transition should be understood in material-discursive terms

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(for a discussion of a material-discursive approach to studying men and masculinities, see Hearn, 2014). In Chap. 2, I identified some conducive elements and circumstances to men’s veganism on the individual, relational/community, and macro (social, cultural, and institutional context) levels (for a summary, see Table 2.1, p. 62), based on the interviewed men’s vegan transition narratives. These demonstrate the importance of interpersonal, cultural, and social resources, including power relations such as gender and masculinity, facilitating the vegan transition and highlight the contextuality and relationality of the process of going vegan. The findings contest the idea that adopting veganism is the individual pursuit of an isolated rational actor—a typically masculinised figure. Different social and cultural settings help to explain the somewhat different paths to veganism for men in Estonia and Finland, as the chapter underscored. Although typically not acknowledged, except occasionally in some narratives, the vegan men’s educational, age, class, and other privileges facilitated their vegan transition—for instance, their proficiency in English, enabling easy access to information about veganism, feeling comfortable in their local vegan communities composed of similarly positioned people, and easy material access to vegan food. In fact, the almost absent or only minimal references to social categories when talking about themselves are in itself an indication of their privilege. Veganism and masculinity are seen as largely incompatible in cultural representations, and also indeed in the research participants’ own accounts, feeding the popular narrative that it is difficult for men in particular to go vegan. Significantly, however, the privileged men who participated in this study did not generally experience this incompatibility personally, yet they considered this incongruity to be a difficulty for other, non-vegan men. I suggest that the intersectionally privileged position of the research participants helped to mitigate any mismatch between veganism and masculinity for them. I suggest, based on the findings, that masculinity does not hinder privileged men’s transition to veganism, but, on the contrary, might boost their masculinity in some contexts. The findings presented in Chap. 2 complicate the divide between “ethical”, “environmental”, and “health” veganism somewhat, a distinction often drawn in popular discourses about veganism and indeed by many vegans, including the research participants themselves. Personal health concerns and initially adopting a plant-based diet typically led to ethical veganism and those condemning “health veganism” demonstrated

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knowledge of nutrition and health benefits of veganism and paid attention to their health (for more on this, see also Aavik & Velgan, 2021). Yet, it could be argued that men’s veganism motivated only or primarily by their own health concerns aligns with anthropocentric ideals of masculinity, whereas those who were driven by concerns about other beings help to foster post-anthropocentric masculinities—a notion that I will return to in the later sections of this chapter. At the same time, a focus on one’s body and health not involving goals of reimagining human-animal and human social relations challenges dominant ideals of masculinity, which do not encourage men’s self-care. Similarly, veganism taken up for environmental reasons initially could be an entry point to veganism for nonhuman animals. The findings raise some conceptual and methodological issues related to studying (men’s) vegan transition experiences. First, the findings suggest that it is difficult to establish an exact beginning or even an end point of the vegan transition, if we are to understand veganism as more than a food practice, as I do in this book: one can always expand awareness of various forms of exploitation in the food production system and accordingly make different consumption and other choices. Second, given that personal narratives always necessarily involve retrospective meaning-­ making from the particular point of time where the narrator is located, they remember the past selectively and attach significance to some events in particular. For instance, a meaningful encounter with a nonhuman animal and an unpleasant bodily experience of eating meat in the past were recurring themes in the narratives. Given that these events become significant only in light of experiences of having become vegan, it is difficult to establish the exact contribution of these incidents to the vegan transition. In Chap. 3, I was interested not only in how the men define veganism, but what veganism means for them more broadly, given the multiple (including clashing) ways of understanding veganism in academic, activist, and popular accounts. How vegan men conceptualise veganism shapes how they practice it. The meanings that the research participants attributed to veganism stemmed in part from their own paths to and motivations behind veganism. Given that most men in this study highlighted animal ethics as the main motivation behind their veganism, it is not surprising that most typically, veganism was conceptualised as an effort to reduce the suffering and killing of nonhuman animals. It was also common for veganism to be part of a larger worldview seeking to minimise harm and treat all beings with compassion. Most men considered

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veganism as a positive intervention to the world, having the capacity to address various issues at once, notably, exploitative human-animal relations, environmental problems, and human health issues. On an individual level, becoming vegan was considered an effective way of being part of positive change. Some men explicitly placed veganism among other social justice struggles, such as gender equality. Although more atypical, some meanings remained almost entirely anthropocentric, focusing primarily on the potential of veganism to increase individual human well-being, for instance, as a way to improve one’s health. As such, they align well with contemporary neoliberal discourses and practices of self-enhancement. I argued in this chapter that the men’s ways to understand and practise veganism could be thought of through ecofeminist approaches to care (typically not associated with men’s practices)—care for other beings, and the planet, but also for some, self-care (see also Aavik, 2021). I suggest that the relational care-oriented meanings of veganism offer the potential to do masculinity in more alternative ways. Yet, some meanings attached to veganism suggested a desire to be in control—of one’s health and body, as well as having the capacity to exit an exploitative system—available primarily to the privileged (especially men), a fact that remained unacknowledged in these meanings. The latter ways of understanding veganism do not align with ecofeminist approaches to care. The meanings attached to veganism presented in this chapter however differed from what the men expressed when communicating veganism to others, notably to non-vegan men, as explored in Chap. 5. This has implications for constructions of masculinities. Chapter 4, drawing on ecofeminist approaches to human-animal relations and new materialist and posthumanist work on men, masculinities, and emotions, focused on emotions, affects, and embodiment in the men’s vegan experience. While the body figures (more implicitly) also in other chapters, as veganism tends to be manifested mainly through food practices, this chapter paid specific attention to the embodied dimensions of men’s veganism. Men’s relationship to emotions, affects, and embodiment has remained undertheorised and misconceptions about these links abound in cultural discourses as well as in some academic work, as de Boise (2015) and de Boise and Hearn (2017) have noted. Drawing on work in ecofeminism and critical masculinities studies, I approached emotions as both embodied and discursive, as well as contextual, acknowledging the impossibility of disentangling rationality and emotions (de Boise, 2015; de Boise & Hearn, 2017). Historically,

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“rational” masculinity devoid of emotional expressions has been associated with white Western middle-class men’s gender performances and is a source of their privilege (de Boise & Hearn, 2017, p. 3). In the context of ecological masculinities, men’s emotions and affects have been recognised as important aspects of connecting to nature (Naess, 2005, see also Hultman & Pulé, 2018, p.  109), including to nonhuman life (Pease, 2019, 2021; Twine, 1997), also as a way to begin to remedy the mostly destructive relationship of masculinities with the environment and nonhuman animals. Thus, it is important to analyse whether and how privileged vegan men challenge this dominant masculinity script. My analysis suggested that emotions and affects play an important role in privileged men’s transition to veganism and in their lives as vegans. In the process of adopting veganism, factual knowledge and moral deliberation were entangled with emotional, visceral, affective, and other embodied experiences and forms of knowing in relation to nonhuman animals. Thus, the narratives demonstrate how rationality and emotions are deeply entangled in men’s veganism. The findings thus challenge the dualisms of emotions and rationality, mind and body in men’s practices. Various intense emotions and affects were experienced typically upon learning about institutionalised nonhuman animal abuse, in the early stages of the vegan transition. Some of these are culturally associated with masculinities, such as anger, whereas others, such as empathy, are more linked to women’s lives and practices. I suggested that the concept of eco-­ anxiety (Coffey et al., 2021; Ojala, 2018; Panu, 2020) captures well the research participants’ concerns over climate and environment in relation to eating nonhuman animals. Also, embodied elements and emotions were, however more tacitly, important drivers behind veganism for health motivations, where the men typically relied on facts about the health effects of eating nonhuman animals. Implicit in these narratives were concerns and anxieties about one’s body, health, well-being, and mortality. Exemplifying the contextuality of men’s displays of emotions and how these link to doing masculinity, the men considered it ineffective and inappropriate to display negative emotions when communicating veganism to non-vegan men in particular, in efforts to distance themselves from the negative figure of the “preachy vegan” constructed in popular culture and in the men’s vegan narratives (see Chap. 5). They instead advocated a “calm” and “rational” approach, compatible with performances of privileged masculinity. I suggest that such ways of doing masculinity and veganism can replicate performances of stoic rationality and reproduce the

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gendered binary of emotionality-rationality. Downplaying the role of emotions in relating to nonhuman animals is both unhelpful in efforts to challenge their exploitation as well as contest the position of privileged men in the social hierarchy.1 Given that it was typical for intense negative emotions, such as anger, to subside after the men had been vegan for some time, replaced by a calm resignation, the chapter concluded with critical questions about this transformation for the spread of veganism. Chapter 5, drawing on symbolic interactionist perspectives, namely Goffman’s (1959) work on impression management in microinteractions and the microsociological notion of “doing gender” (West & Zimmerman, 1987), examined vegan men’s strategies and dilemmas in communicating veganism to non-vegans. The findings suggest that communicating veganism was sensitive to the interactional context; that is, what and how men talked about veganism depended on the communicative situation and its participants, as well as the men’s previous experiences of similar social interactions. Thus, we could speak of “doing veganism” as an interactional accomplishment. The narratives of the vegan men in this study suggest that they consider it important to talk about veganism to non-vegans, yet finding socially acceptable ways to do so is difficult, given the dominant perceptions of veganism as a depoliticised personal choice not to be imposed on others. The main strategies used included avoiding talking about veganism altogether and practising what was deemed as non-confrontational communication, consistent with previous work on how vegans manage impressions (Greenebaum, 2012b). Some less “imposing” and non-discursive strategies, such as role modelling and signalling veganism, were also used. To avoid confrontation, in communication with omnivores, the vegan men carefully constructed and managed their vegan selves. This included dilemmas about whether to use the term “vegan”. The men attempted to highlight how they were never aggressive in their advocacy, keen to distance themselves from the trope of the “preachy vegan”. Not to violate some basic norms of social interactions, such as maintaining solidarity and avoiding confrontation with others, as well as 1  At the same time, it cannot be assumed that men’s increased displays of emotion necessarily have positive effects. It has, for example, been pointed out that this does not always contribute to gender equality; indeed, there is evidence to the contrary (see de Boise, 2015, pp. 57–58, 60–62; de Boise & Hearn, 2017, p. 5).

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attempting to make veganism appear more palatable, the vegan men tended to emphasise food, environmental, and health aspects of veganism over animal ethics. It could be argued that in many situations they communicated a plant-based diet instead of veganism, thereby depoliticising veganism. These communication strategies do not convey the core idea of veganism, at least according to the Vegan Society’s definition used in this book, of avoiding the exploitation of other animals. These communications styles, misrepresenting and downplaying some core aspects of veganism and essentially focusing on promoting a plant-based diet, thus present a distorted picture of veganism and vegans and do not “create new vegan imaginaries” (White, 2022, p. 21). These communication strategies are also gendered and linked to masculinities in particular ways. In acquiring experience in communicating veganism, the men cultivated empathy and sensitivity towards their conversation partners’ feelings and awareness of how they come across to others. Such skills are culturally feminised. At the same time, in emphasising environmental aspects of veganism, the men relied on facts, downplaying animal ethics and relational aspects, such as practices of care towards nonhuman animals, particularly in conversations with non-vegan men. Thus, there is some ambiguity in terms of whether and how these performances of masculinity challenge hegemonic ideals of masculinity. The findings in Chap. 5 highlight tensions between what is understood as effective vegan messaging and the personal convictions of vegans. Communication with non-vegan others was identified by the research participants as one of the greatest sources of difficulty in practising veganism. This highlights the social and relational nature of veganism. The fact that most men identified tiresome and uncomfortable interactions with non-­ vegans as the most difficult aspect of their vegan experience indicates their privileged social position. Chapter 6, in large part sharing the conceptual framework with Chap. 5, also dealt with negotiating veganism in social interactions, but with a focus on close relationships in the private sphere (with birth family, partners, and friends), and how these are negotiated and shaped by masculinity. Veganism presented minor or major difficulties for most men also in this context, especially in situations involving non-vegan men. Given the less formal interactions amongst close friends and family members, it was not surprising that the men were more open to discussing veganism with the people close to them, as opposed to those more distant from them, as highlighted in the previous chapter. Some similar strategies were used, including non-confrontational communication and role modelling.

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In discussing intimate relationships, the chapter used the notion of vegansexuality (Potts & Parry, 2010; Potts & White, 2007). Broadly, two kinds of positions and practices were represented: first, being in or potentially being willing to enter into an intimate relationship with an omnivore and, second, not being open to this, due to physical disgust and/or conflict between core values. A distinction can however be drawn between vegansexuality as an ideal and men’s capacity to practise it. The influence of female vegan intimate partners was important in several men’s vegan transition, including their support in providing nutritional knowledge and cooking plant-based meals at home as a form of gendered care work typically performed by women, suggesting rather conventional gender dynamics in this context. This chapter demonstrated how the broader cultural, social, and institutional settings shape the experiences of vegans. It was typical for the Estonian research participants to report more negative attitudes towards their veganism from their birth families and friends, compared to the Finnish men in the study. This reflects popular attitudes towards veganism in these two societies: veganism is a newer social phenomenon in Estonia (Aavik, 2019b) where it is less accepted culturally and institutionally (Aavik, 2019a). In Chap. 7, I focused on how the vegan men articulated their gender and intersectional politics and practices as well as their views on links between masculinities and veganism. I found two major and opposing ways of relating veganism to hegemonic masculinity: on the one hand, attempting to fit men’s veganism with this ideal and, on the other hand, taking a critical stance towards hegemonic masculinity altogether and regarding men’s veganism as challenging it. The men ultimately did not reject identification with the categories of men and masculinities, but attempted to make veganism compatible with these. This enables them to reconcile their identities as vegans and as men, which remain rather incompatible in cultural narratives. Some research participants—particularly a distinct group of Finnish men whose veganism was firmly grounded in animal ethics (see Chap. 2)— explicitly declared themselves pro-feminist and concerned about various power hierarchies besides gender, linking their veganism to these struggles. Yet, many other men did not explicitly make these links or did not consider them important; a few even challenged these. As I have argued elsewhere (Aavik, 2021), despite this seemingly profound divide, drawing a distinct boundary between these groups of men is not necessarily easy or meaningful. For one, the narratives of the men who did not define veganism in intersectional terms and did not connect it to other social justice

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issues suggest that veganism shaped their values and practices in significant ways: they claimed to have become more caring and compassionate, also towards other humans and more attuned towards injustice generally. Also, this distinction tends to glorify the most privileged men who have class, educational, and other resources to produce “proper” talk. I briefly explored two material practices of vegan men related to food and care work which hold the promise to foster more egalitarian gender relations particularly in the private sphere—their increased involvement in household cooking upon becoming vegan and vegan fathers’ significant participation in planning their children’s adequate nutrition. * * * To summarise, I highlight the following broader points about vegan men and masculinities. Men’s veganism is contextual, situational, and relational, captured by the ideas of doing veganism and masculinity and their interplay, drawing from microsociological and symbolic interactionist traditions, which emphasise active meaning-making in social interactions. The contextuality of veganism is exemplified in how the vegan self is presented to others, including communicating veganism, significantly shaped by the particularities of specific interactions. This means that veganism and masculinity are performed somewhat differently in each situation. Some of these performances contest anthropocentrism and gender norms, including in more profound ways, yet others do not or only marginally do so. Men’s veganism is relational, drawing inspiration and meaning from men’s embeddedness in various relationships, including difficult negotiations over veganism with non-vegan others. Veganism (including the process of going vegan) cannot be thought of (just) as an individualised practice of an atomised rational actor who becomes vegan after moral development and careful deliberation. Such understandings of veganism not only produce a limited or even distorted picture of it, but also prioritise logic, rationality, individualism, the mind, and the discursive, neglecting embodiments, materiality, and care, among other elements. Thereby, such representations reproduce a masculinised mode of being, which has historically been associated with privileged men in particular. The narratives of vegan men analysed in this book strongly suggest that veganism is both a material and discursive phenomenon, with these two dimensions entangled. Men’s veganism is an embodied practice in which the body

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occupies a central place. Through practising veganism, the embodied dimensions of doing masculinity are highlighted. Also, becoming and living as a vegan involves emotional, affective, and embodied experiences for men, notably, related to witnessing the suffering of nonhuman animals. These insights contest binaries such as emotionality-rationality, body-­ mind, and human-nonhuman. Since these binaries are gendered and constructed through other social hierarchies, men’s veganism helps to contest these power relations. Men’s veganism is enacted within and shaped by ideals and practices of masculinity. Becoming vegan shapes men’s identities and transforms the ways in which they do masculinity to a lesser or greater extent, indicating how doing gender and doing masculinity are interlinked (DeLessio-Parson 2017, p. 1731). The intersectionally privileged position of the men studied in this book enables particular ways of doing veganism and shapes the men’s experiences as vegans. Based on my findings, I argue that going vegan and living as a vegan does not pose a threat to privileged men’s masculinity, despite some experiences of complicated gendered interactions with non-vegan men in particular. In other words, privileged vegan men appear to be successfully negotiating their identities as men and vegans and do not perceive others as questioning their masculinity, at least not in a threatening way. As I suggested, reasons behind this include at least the following: (a) vegan men’s self-image as different from others already before veganism, including in their practices of masculinity, (b) critical attitudes towards established gender norms in society, including hegemonic masculinity, and (c) their privileged social status that supported their veganism. If anything, privileged men’s veganism might boost their masculine capital, at least in some situations, enabling them to be seen as performing caring masculinity (Elliott, 2016; Hanlon, 2012), as an emergent and increasingly valued kind of masculinity. The men’s gender and intersectional politics ranged from explicitly pro-feminist positions, where veganism was seen as interlinked with various causes of social justice, to not making or even denying these links. However, practising veganism, as the men’s narratives suggested, encourages relationships of care and compassion, also towards human beings. This complicates a neat division of vegan men into these two categories. I will continue the discussion of men’s veganism from gender and critical masculinities perspectives in the next section.

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Beyond individual practices and microinteractions, broader social, cultural, and geographical factors are also significant in shaping men’s veganism. For example, as I have suggested, the Finnish society (in contrast to Estonia) with its more egalitarian gender norms, including greater acceptance of alternative masculinities, and a longer tradition of subcultures supportive of (men’s) veganism, such as the straight-edge punk movement, facilitates men’s veganism and has helped to produce a particular set of pro-feminist gender-sensitive animal rights-oriented vegan men in Finland. If men’s alternative practices of gender, such as pursuing feminised educational and career paths, involving care work, become more socially acceptable and seen as compatible with masculinity, this facilitates men’s adoption of other unconventional practices, such as veganism. Given that doing veganism is contextually specific, research on vegans in different social and geographical spaces might yield somewhat different findings. For instance, in other contexts, religion might play a role in the vegan transition process for many people, as Stephens Griffin (2017) identified in his study with vegans based in the UK, which is not the case in the rather secular Finland and Estonia. As a particular feature of this research, the men’s vegan narratives explored in this book are based on the experiences of a specifically situated group—privileged vegan men in Finland and Estonia. As such, caution must be exercised when attempting to apply the findings presented in this book to all vegans. Conversely, however, making sense of men’s veganism through a lens of masculinity, as I have done in this book, might suggest that the insights gathered from this empirical analysis apply just to vegan men and not to other vegans. This is an equally problematic conclusion. Certainly, some findings may not be unique to privileged vegan men and could also apply to differently situated vegans. For instance, previous research has found that vegans, irrespective of gender, find it difficult to negotiate social situations with omnivores where veganism comes up as a topic of discussion (Andreatta, 2015; Bolderdijk & Cornelissen, 2022; Buttny & Kinefuchi, 2020; Greenebaum, 2012a, 2012b; Stephens Griffin, 2017). Conversely, however, some findings and conclusions may apply primarily or only to privileged vegan men—for instance, the suggestion that veganism does not undermine their masculinity in any significant way. Research on differently positioned vegan men, as well as with vegan women and other genders, would be needed to identify possible differences in doing veganism and gender and their implications.

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Men’s Veganism, Vegan Masculinities, and Gender Equality An important question throughout this book that I have touched upon in each chapter is how men’s veganism (and specific aspects of it) relates to and could contribute towards (a) changing ideals and practices of masculinity and (b) social justice, especially more equal gender relations, beyond challenging anthropocentrism. In this section, I tackle these questions further by introducing and examining the notion of vegan masculinity and how this relates to other masculinities. This concept has occasionally appeared in existing work (e.g., Oliver, 2021), but thus far has not been discussed in more detail. Various kinds or types of masculinities have been theorised, mainly in the field of critical studies on men and masculinities (CSMM), a subfield of gender and feminist studies. Undoubtedly the most influential of these has been the notion of hegemonic masculinity—culturally the most idealised form of masculinity and an ideal associated with authority and social power over other masculinities and all femininities in the gender system (Connell, 1987; Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005).2 It would be more accurate to speak of hegemonic masculinities in the plural, to recognise the co-existence of several such ideals, even within the same culture (Beasley, 2008). In its original formulation, hegemonic masculinity was not defined through its substance (it is not a list of fixed traits or behaviours of men), as it is in constant transformation. Instead, it should be primarily thought of as a power relation—vis-à-vis other, marginalised, and subordinated masculinities and femininities. Yet, several scholars have attempted to identify concrete elements of hegemonic masculinity—such as aggression and homophobia. In recent years, various kinds of “new” masculinities have been theorised, which challenge hegemonic masculinity and point to certain orientations towards specific values and practices, indeed even in their naming—such as caring masculinities (Elliott, 2016; Hanlon, 2012), inclusive masculinity (Anderson, 2010), ecological masculinities (Hultman & Pulé, 2018), post-anthropocentric masculinities (Mellström & Pease, 2022), and egalitarian masculinities (Lamont, 2014; Pajumets, 2012). 2  The concept of hegemonic masculinity is a useful analytical tool in understanding masculinities and remains a central concept in gender studies and its subfield of CSMM, despite critical feedback from various perspectives (see, e.g., Beasley, 2008; Garlick, 2019; Hearn, 2004; Moller, 2007).

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Could we then talk about vegan masculinity/masculinities in a similar way? I suggest that there are some good reasons why the concept of vegan masculinity might be useful to make sense of men’s veganism, but at the same time, critical engagement with it is also warranted. Thus, to begin this discussion, I tentatively propose the notion of vegan masculinity. This involves thinking, amongst other issues, what its defining elements are and how it relates to other masculinities, as well as femininities in the gender system and what the relationship between vegan men and vegan masculinity is. A common denominator between vegan men is that they do not consume other animals. This could be considered the core ideal of vegan masculinity—ways of practising masculinity that exclude the use of nonhuman animals in one’s life. While different motivations behind veganism shape men’s doing of veganism in important ways, as I have shown, refraining from consuming other animals as a material practice is also significant by itself. As I have discussed in this book, veganism inevitably comes up in social interactions and, thus, vegan men demonstrate through their vegan praxis that it is possible to live well without using other animals for food and for other purposes, thus acting as role models, significantly, for non-vegan men. Contesting the idea that other animals are objects for human consumption remains radical in current societies. The ideal of vegan masculinity imagines a different way for men to relate to nonhuman animals and, in doing so, puts forward alternative ideas about what it means to be a man. It thus contests and reimagines constructions of masculinity invested in the consumption of nonhuman animals. The narratives of my research participants suggest further commonalities in vegan men’s constructions of masculinity: becoming vegan and practising veganism encourages in men an orientation towards ideals and practices of greater care, empathy, as well as sensitivity towards various intra-human injustices. While identifying these key elements that characterise vegan masculinity, simply conceptualising vegan masculinity as a “fixed character type” or a collection of traits should be avoided, as this would result in problematic essentialism (Connell & Messerschmidt 2005, p. 854). Just as hegemonic masculinity is theorised as a dynamic ideal in relation to which men position themselves against, within a particular social context, it would useful to think of vegan masculinity as a similar kind of cultural ideal (albeit currently very marginal). This approach helps to consider its relationship to other masculinities and femininities in the gender system. If a defining element of vegan masculinity is the ideal for men to refrain from and

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contest (men’s) consumption of nonhuman animals, then it would be safe to say that this ideal is currently not part of hegemonic masculinity. In other words, veganism is not currently a cultural ideal that most men aspire to and indeed, given the investment of most men in eating other animals, appears rather oppositional to it. Thus, vegan masculinity in this respect seems a marginalised masculinity, a point I will return to. Another way to ascertain whether a masculinity is hegemonic or not is to consider whether and how it is supported by institutional power (Yang, 2020). Veganism is currently not supported by major social institutions; indeed, there is considerable institutional resistance to it (Aavik 2018, 2019a). Speaking of vegan masculinity in singular becomes complicated when examining it through the lens of intersectionality. There is considerable diversity among vegan men, in terms of race, class, sexuality, geographical location, and so on, despite the commonalities outlined above. Even the relatively homogeneous group of privileged vegan men who participated in this study exhibits considerable diversity in their ways of doing veganism and masculinity. As I have demonstrated in this book, men’s paths to veganism and their main motivations to remain vegan differ—some of these, such as concerns over the fates of nonhuman animals, are more oriented towards the well-being of others, while personal health reasons and preoccupation with one’s own body align more with individualistic3 pursuits which, if anything, (re)centre the human. Thus, such plurality makes it difficult to speak of a universal vegan masculinity. Consequently, we should rather talk about vegan masculinities in the plural, to acknowledge the multiple possible ways in which men can and do practice veganism. A discussion on vegan masculinities should address the question of how vegan men relate to this ideal, as this relationship is not necessarily

3  Individualism has been used in a variety of meanings (for an overview, see Lukes, 1971). When using the term in the context of men’s veganism in this book, I mean forms of individualism that prioritise individual action (indeed, imagine isolated individuals freely shaping their own lives without constraints), self-sufficiency, and self-interest over relationality, solidarity, vulnerability, care for and dependency on others, and collective action, and thus I take a critical stance towards such individualism. Such kind of individualism could be seen as aligning with and supporting capitalism and hegemonic masculinity. However, I acknowledge that the boundary between these two orientations is blurry; that is, the vegan men and their discourses studied in this book cannot be neatly grouped into individualistic and non-individualistic.

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straightforward.4 While veganism was central to the lives of most men in this study and shaped their identities and practices in other realms of life as well, there were multiple other values that the men aspired to and practices they engaged in. Also, in some contexts, their veganism or vegan identity might not be central, with other dimensions of their identities becoming highlighted. Vegan masculinity is not the only ideal that vegan men aspire towards, especially given its still marginal status. Men with different experiences and motivations behind veganism can aspire towards different and at times conflicting ideals of masculinity. For instance, the vegan men in this study who linked their veganism specifically with social justice issues and identified as pro-feminist could be said to aspire towards egalitarian masculinities. How might vegan masculinity relate to ideals of masculinity, such as hegemonic masculinity and other masculinities? This question is important, as it has implications for the position of vegan men in the hierarchy of masculinities and in the entire gender system and, consequently, for the spread of veganism. Masculinity is relational—it is shaped by and takes its meaning in relation to femininities,5 other genders, as well as other social divisions beyond gender. Thus, vegan masculinity should be examined in the context of these power relations, not as a standalone category. One of the key questions to ask is whether and how vegan masculinity challenges gendered and other power hierarchies. There is no straightforward answer to this. On the one hand, by not consuming nonhuman animals, vegan men, regardless of their views and practices of masculinity beyond veganism, already contest one key aspect of hegemonic masculinity—its investment in eating other animals (on hegemonic masculinity and eating nonhuman animals, see Oliver, 2021, p.  3). Indeed, hegemonic 4  The broader question of the relationship between men and ideals of masculinity is also complicated; see for instance, Hearn (2004). 5  The question of how vegan men and vegan masculinity relates to women and femininities (and other genders) is important, but remains out of the scope of this study. Given that women are still mainly responsible for household shopping and cooking, as forms of unpaid domestic work, buying and cooking animal products are performances of femininity that support hegemonic masculinity. Indeed, given the strong links between masculinity and eating meat, it is not unthinkable that some vegan women cook meat for their non-vegan male partners or at least are expected to do so. I suggest that in vegan communities, vegan masculinity is a valued ideal by heterosexual vegan women and can boost vegan men’s masculine capital. I also propose that many heterosexual non-vegan women, especially those with feminist views, might perceive privileged men’s veganism in a favourable way and do not see veganism as emasculating them.

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constructions of masculinity rely on men’s domination over nature, including other animals (Garlick, 2019). Vegan masculinities contest this domination. Even if vegan men consciously or inadvertently challenge unequal gender and other social power hierarchies, through veganism as a practice of care, as I have suggested in this book, it is not clear to what extent this results in large-scale changes in the current gender system and in cultural ideals of masculinity. This relates to the question of how changes in individual practices translate to cultural and institutional transformation, both in terms of contesting anthropocentrism and current hegemonic ideals of masculinity. As long as men’s veganism remains an individual practice enacted primarily through alternative consumption choices and not supported by institutions and cultural narratives, it is difficult for vegan masculinity to exit its marginal status. Several scholars have questioned whether and to what extent some seemingly positive changes in men’s doing of gender lead to more egalitarian social relations and contest men’s privileged position in the gender system. For example, Bridges and Pascoe (2014) have argued that some emerging apparently profound cultural changes in patterns of masculinity, such as constructions of softer and more egalitarian masculinities, do not necessarily result in more equal gender relations.6 Hearn (2016) and Pease (2021) have stressed a similar point and as Pease (2021) notes, “you can change masculinities without transforming men’s privileged and dominant position” (p. 549; see also Pease, 2023). In other words, even if the content of masculinity changes, men remain privileged by being associated with the category “man”— occupying a superior status over women and other genders.7 Thus, despite changes in constructions of masculinities, power hierarchies where white privileged men occupy the top position, including ongoing material inequalities, have remained largely intact. Pease (2021) suggests that to fundamentally change this, men must disidentify with the category of masculinity altogether, as it is not enough just to change the content of masculinity. As Pease (2023) asks: “can we disrupt the hierarchical superiority of men over women, non-binary people, non-human others and the earth without moving beyond masculinity?” (p. 222). This certainly remains a 6  This idea is encapsulated in the concept of hybrid masculinities (Bridges & Pascoe, 2014), which refers to privileged men (young, white, heterosexual) selectively incorporating elements of marginalised masculinities and femininities into their gender practices (e.g., rejecting homophobia, using beauty products) in a way that does not ultimately challenge their privilege and gender inequalities in society, but conceal these systems of power. 7  See Hearn (2004) for a discussion on the “hegemony of men”.

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challenging task, as the binary gender system is being reproduced in virtually all realms of social life. Although several men in this study were critical of cultural ideals of masculinity, they rather comfortably identified with the category “man”, with only a few exceptions. Thus, their doing of veganism occurred within the categories of men and masculinities, which they sought to retain. Ultimately, my findings suggest that while privileged vegan men might not profoundly reimagine ways of doing masculinity, their constructions of masculinity nevertheless contain significant alternative elements, which have the potential to contest anthropocentrism and unequal gender relations. Thus, I suggest that vegan men act as agents of change in everyday settings, helping to transform how we relate to other animals as well as challenge some existing gender norms in a small but critical way, as a form of everyday activism (Sowards & Renegar, 2006; Vivienne, 2016). It is important to clarify that although veganism is not part of dominant ideals of masculinity, this does not mean that veganism disempowers or marginalises men, in particular, privileged men, despite the fact that they also might experience difficult social interactions due to their veganism as I discussed in Chaps. 4 and 5. The men in this study occupy a privileged position in the social hierarchy, at least in terms of gender, race/ethnicity, able-bodiedness, educational background or professional status and class simultaneously.8 Indicative of their privilege, these vegan men had not experienced having their masculinity challenged due to their veganism. On the contrary, I suggest that veganism may even enhance their masculine capital, at least in some contexts. For instance, several men shared experiences of acting as role models to non-vegan men. In addition, in vegan communities where men are a minority in terms of gender, heterosexual vegan men might find it easier to practise vegansexuality (Potts & Parry, 2010; Potts & White, 2007) in contrast to heterosexual vegan women. Also, it is easier for privileged men, compared to less privileged ones, to navigate uncomfortable social situations due to their veganism, particularly those involving non-vegan men. Thus, the ability to deploy their masculinity to spread veganism varies for different men—it is easier 8  As a number of scholars have demonstrated, an intersectional approach to studying veganism and the animal advocacy movement helps to understand how the experience of vegans and animal advocates is shaped by social divisions such as race, class, and gender. On veganism, race, and whiteness, see Bailey (2007), Harper (2010), Ko & Ko (2017), and Polish (2016).

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for intersectionally privileged men to challenge normative masculinities, which call for eating nonhuman animals. In contrast to women, less privileged men, and other genders, privileged men are better able to present veganism as a legitimate ideology and practice to others, as their perspectives are taken more seriously in society. This advantageous position in the social hierarchy afforded by masculinity and other intersecting categories should be kept in mind when setting vegan men as role models for others, as going vegan is often regarded as something exceptional and difficult for men to undertake, due to prevalent cultural masculinity scripts. Vegan Masculinity and Changing Ideals of Masculinity in the Anthropocene In this section, I place vegan masculinity in a broader context, by considering changing masculinities amidst the current multiple social and ecological crises and discuss how vegan masculinity could align with some “new” or emerging masculinities. The ideal of hegemonic masculinity has received considerable critique, in and beyond academic discussions. Amongst other issues, it has been pointed out that hegemonic masculinity has been mainly described as a negative masculinity, associated with practices such as homophobia, sexism, and aggression (Yang, 2020). This has resulted in many men, especially young men, seeking to disassociate themselves from this ideal (Bridges & Pascoe, 2014). Influenced by feminist ideas and ecological thinking, several “positive masculinities” have been theorised that “contribute to legitimating egalitarian relations between men and women, masculinity and femininity, and among masculinities” (Messerschmidt & Messner, 2018, p. 32) and reimagine men’s relationship to nature. These new masculinities include the notions of caring masculinities (Elliott, 2016; Hanlon, 2012), inclusive masculinity (Anderson, 2010),9 ecological masculinities (Hultman & Pulé, 2018), and egalitarian masculinities, as “men face increasing expectations that they engage in egalitarian relationships” (Lamont, 2014, p.  271; see also Pajumets, 2012) and act more responsibly towards the environment.

9   Inclusive masculinity exhibits acceptance of homosexuality by heterosexual men (Anderson, 2010).

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These emergent ideals of masculinity that centre care, inclusivity, egalitarianism, and environmentalism could become increasingly important in the context of the current global ecological crises in which humanity’s destructive and unsustainable ways of life and relationship to the more-­ than-­human world are increasingly becoming visible. Consequences of this are already evident in human-induced climate change, leading to large-scale social disruption. This is likely to bring about change in gender relations, including transformation in the ideals of masculinity and men’s practices. In this context, I suggest that men’s relationship to the more-­ than-­ human, specifically, with nature and nonhuman animals, could become an increasingly important element in conceptualisations of hegemonic masculinity 10 Hultman and Pulé (2018) have proposed ecological masculinities as important contemporary ideals of masculinity to address various ecological and social crises in the Anthropocene. The concept of ecological masculinities refers to practices and ideals of masculinity that are aligned with ecological sustainability and support gender equality, with these two aspects intimately intertwined (Hultman & Pulé, 2018). While ecological masculinities are not (yet) hegemonic, environmental concerns are likely becoming more important aspects of hegemonic masculinity. There is a need to foster masculinities that reject anthropocentric ideals in a way that brings about material change. I suggest that men’s veganism may help to move towards this. I suggest that amidst the current environmental crisis and humanity’s unsustainable ways of life, along with more flexibility in gender practices, veganism as well as environmentalism practised by men is no longer seen as threatening their masculinity, as found in earlier research (see, e.g., Rothgerber, 2013; Twine, 1997). This applies particularly to privileged men, who may even benefit from veganism to reinforce their masculinity, as I have emphasised in this book. This suggestion is in line with some recent research arguing that “new” masculinity 10  Since the more-than-human also includes technology, there is a strong association of men and masculinities with this sphere. Masculinities in tech entrepreneurship, for instance, geek masculinities, are argued to be new hegemonic ideals, exemplified, for example, by Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk (Mellström et al., forthcoming). Some powerful businessmen associated with tech and geek masculinities, such as Elon Musk, are engaged in addressing ecological and climate issues; however, they do so primarily using technofixes, which do not address the core issues that have led to ecological crises in the first place. Such masculinised practices have been critically analysed through the notion of ecomodernism (see, e.g., Hultman & Pulé, 2018).

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involves men’s lesser attachment to meat consumption, along with critical attitudes towards cultural associations of meat with masculinity (De Backer et al. 2020). I suggest that men’s veganism aligns with and supports the emerging ideals of masculinity that increasingly value care and egalitarianism. The realm of care is particularly relevant in discussing men’s veganism as I have done in this book, drawing on feminist approaches to care. The concept of “caring masculinities” has been developed to theorise men’s relationship to care (see Elliott, 2016; Hanlon, 2012). Elliott (2016) conceptualises caring masculinities as “masculine identities that reject domination and its associated traits and embrace values of care such as positive emotion, interdependence, and relationality” (p.  240). She suggests that “caring masculinities constitute a critical form of men’s engagement and involvement in gender equality and offer the potential of sustained social change for men and gender relations” (Elliott, 2016, p.  240). Elliott’s (2016) model is practice-based, focusing on “men’s actual practices of care work” (p. 241). In my earlier work, I have identified care towards nonhuman life and ecosystems as an important part of vegan men’s motivations and practices (Aavik, 2021). The empirical insights in this book provide more support to vegan men’s caring orientations, through cultivating empathy and exhibiting practices that might lead to greater gender equality, such as increased participation in home cooking. As such, some of vegan men’s practices contribute to the emerging ideals of more positive masculinities, challenging some key features of hegemonic masculinity. Vegan Masculinity as an Ecological and Post-anthropocentric Masculinity As noted earlier, the conceptualisation of hegemonic masculinity as primarily a power relation means that it is defined as superior to other masculinities and all femininities. Some scholars, for example, in the tradition of feminist new materialism, have been critical of hegemonic masculinity’s focus (solely) on gender relations and patriarchal control (see, e.g., Garlick, 2019; Grosz, 2010). Garlick (2019) has argued that “patriarchal domination over women is only a subset of a wider range of actions that are directed toward gaining control over nature and, ultimately, of the world that is an outgrowth of nature” (p. 395). The critique of men’s domination and control over nature is also central in conceptualisations of ecological masculinities (Hultman & Pulé, 2018). These masculine ideals

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contest anthropocentrism and human—in particular, privileged men’s— control over nature and nonhuman life. I propose that vegan masculinity could be thought of under the umbrella of ecological (Hultman & Pulé, 2018) and post-anthropocentric masculinities (Mellström & Pease, 2023). Vegan masculinity challenges this domination and the association of men and masculinities with eating nonhuman animals in particular—an element that makes it unique amongst other ecological and post-­ anthropocentric masculinities not specifically focused on nonhuman animals and human-animal relations. Throughout the book, I have emphasised the significance of the embodied dimensions of veganism in the context of men’s veganism and masculinities. Even if not always explicitly articulated in the men’s narratives explored in this book, veganism highlights men’s bodies, as the main manifestation of veganism is through the bodily practice of eating. The body becomes even more foregrounded in veganism for personal health reasons. Men’s veganism should therefore be understood in material-­ discursive terms. Privileged Western men’s bodies in particular have historically been sidelined, as they have been associated with mind and reason, also in some academic research. Jeff Hearn (2023) suggests that “[i]n distancing from deterministic biologistic explanations, many studies on men and masculinities have employed certain, rather disembodied or scarcely embodied, and arguably still individualistic and (social) psychologistic interpretations of masculinities, rather than of embodied, fleshly men” (p.  159). In particular, Hearn (2023) notes that there has been scarce attention to theorising unmarked privileged white men’s bodies in relation to nature. With the element of embodiment as well as attempts to challenge the human-animal binary, in important ways, vegan masculinity aligns with conceptualisations of feminist new materialist and post-anthropocentric masculinities. These approaches to masculinity emphasise embodied dimensions of masculinities and critique not only men’s desire to dominate over women (patriarchy), but, more fundamentally, over nature, including all living beings. New materialist approaches foreground various relationalities, including between human, nonhumans, and environment (Hearn, 2023). They challenge the separation of nature from humans, arguing that “nonhuman nature, as well as a natureless human, do not exist. Instead, humans and nonhumans are always entangled in inseparable knots” (McGregor, 2022, p. 199). Within this framework, Garlick (2019) conceptualises masculinity “as a technology of embodiment that limits

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and channels the potentials of men’s bodies through the invention of habitual ways of being that aim to dispel ontological insecurity through achieving and maintaining control over nature” (p. 394). New materialist and posthuman approaches to masculinities envision new ways of relating to the more-than-human. They seek to address “vital questions around how to displace (hu)man exceptionalism and move beyond anthropocentric masculinities” (Mellström, 2023, p.  169). This involves rejecting what Garlick (2023) calls sovereign masculinities, a type of hegemonic masculinity, which entails a desire to control and dominate nature, stemming from shame at one’s own vulnerability, uncertainty, and insecurity, and thus an attempt to perform invulnerability. Instead, he suggests, the emergence of non-sovereign masculinities must be encouraged who are deeply affected by human and nonhuman others. As Pease and Mellström (2023) put it, “[a] profeminist posthuman approach to man-­ animal relationships and carnism would move beyond humanist and masculinist framings of human beings as essentially separate from non-human animals and embrace human-animal entanglements and multi-species relations” (p.  5). The goal is to move towards posthuman futures, where humanity’s relationship to nature is less exploitative and dominating (Mellström, 2023). This involves embracing and cultivating vulnerability in men and incorporating vulnerability into ideals of masculinity. As Pease and Mellström (2023) write: “[v]ulnerability and intimacy offer alternative forms of gendered subjectivity for men. Such a shift would encourage men to explore their entanglements with nature and their embodied and affective experiences” (p.  9). On a more fundamental level, this requires adopting an embodied relational ontology (Pease & Mellström, 2023, p. 15). Garlick (2016) suggests that we must embrace our entanglement with nature, which necessitates an awareness of our embodiment. Drawing on Ahmed and Butler, Mellström (2023) understands vulnerability as a way in which bodies relate to the world. Vulnerability is something not to be avoided, but embraced, in particular for men, as “[o]ur common condition, humans and non-humans alike, is a shared helplessness, and men do experience vulnerability, fear, and trauma much like any other gendered being” (Mellström, 2023, p. 175). In addition to vulnerability, within feminist new materialist frameworks, embodiment, relationality, and empathy are core elements of post-­ anthropocentric masculinities, drawing on thinkers who have complicated common understandings of the body, and solely discursive approaches to

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it. Donna Haraway (1997) for instance argues that “the body is simultaneously a historical, natural, technical, discursive, and material entity” (p. 59). In this framework, masculinities are also approached as complex entanglements of the material and discursive. Bob Pease (2023), drawing on Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of assemblages, puts forward an understanding of masculinity as involving “the psyche, the body, culture and institutions” (p. 225). In moving beyond anthropocentric masculinities, “[m]en must move from the centre of privilege and power that grants them supremacy and to open themselves to the decentred, embodied, affective, vulnerable, ethical and relational self that is necessary to embrace the posthuman” (Pease & Mellström, 2023, pp. 10–11). Such a move involves challenging men’s superior position in the gender hierarchy and affects privileged men in particular. As Pease and Mellström (2023) point out, “[w]hite heteronormative class-elite men will be most challenged by posthuman interrogations because they will have the most to lose by reframing what it means to be human in the context of acknowledging gender, race, sexuality, class and species equality” (p. 8). These insights suggest that vegan masculinity fits well into this broader framework. However, much posthumanist work does not tend to engage specifically with human-animal relations from a critical perspective and take an explicitly political position such as CAS. To summarise, central to vegan masculinities, the way that I conceptualise this ideal, is the reconfiguration of human-animal relations both in material and discursive dimensions, along with a simultaneous and equally important pursuit of challenging gendered and other intra-human power hierarchies.

Limitations of This Book and Possible Future Research Agendas This book has explored the lived experiences of vegan men, most of whom did not identify as activists. Critics have pointed out that veganism is an individualistic lifestyle movement involving people choosing certain lifestyles, in contrast to pursuing collective action (see Giraud, 2021, pp. 45–54). However, despite important limitations, the contribution of so-called lifestyle movements to social change is not insignificant (Giraud, 2021, p.  45). For instance, vegans introduce veganism to non-vegans through discursive means and material practices in various everyday settings, which is conducive to the spread of veganism. In addition, with

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increasing numbers of individual vegans in the population, there is a growing demand for more plant-based alternatives to meat and dairy. The availability of these products helps to create vegan imaginaries (White, 2022, p.  21), demonstrating that it is possible to eat well without consuming other animals. In material terms, veganism nevertheless remains primarily manifested as an alternative consumption practice, available first and foremost to more privileged people. To bring about social change to the ways we treat other animals, individual efforts alone are not sufficient. Collective action to advocate for nonhuman animals, as manifested in vegan and animal advocacy activism, is crucial for rethinking human-animal relations. These social movements have been studied by a number of scholars from various perspectives (see, e.g., Cherry, 2006; Giraud, 2021; Harper, 2010; Ko & Ko, 2017; Polish, 2016; Wrenn, 2016, 2019). Less attention has been given to the significance of institutions in transforming how we relate to other animals. On the macro level, the role of institutions is substantial in enabling or hindering a large-scale societal shift towards nonhuman animal, social, and ecological justice. This also necessitates engagement with men’s practices and ideals of masculinity. Despite the work of animal advocacy organisations worldwide, the exploitation and killing of nonhuman animals remain ubiquitous in human societies. The consumption of meat and dairy is deeply embedded in our social institutions (Nibert, 2003). States, industry, the education system, medicine, and other key institutions are directly using or relying on the use of nonhuman beings for enormous profits. Since other animals continue to be predominantly used for human food, it would be productive to look at the role of institutions and institutional resistance to veganism in this realm. Institutional support for de-­ animalising the food system (Donaldson & Carter, 2016; Morris et  al., 2019) and transition to plant-based diets in Europe and elsewhere is poor, despite ample scientific evidence suggesting the urgency of this transformation. Indeed, in many countries there is significant institutional resistance to this transition (Aavik 2018, 2019a). This is attested for instance by the dietary guidelines of major countries recommending animal products in amounts that do not meet climate targets (Ritchie et al., 2018),11 extensive national meat and dairy subsidies (18–20% of the entire European 11  The new Nordic Nutrition Recommendations, to be published in 2022, aim to focus on sustainability (Helsedirektoratetet, n.d.).

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Union’s annual budget is used to support nonhuman animal farming (Greenpeace, 2019)), and lack of taxation of meat consumption in most countries (Jarka et al., 2018). Over 71% of all agricultural land in the EU is used for farming nonhuman animals (Greenpeace, 2019). Between 2016 and 2020, the European Commission spent over 252 million euros on meat and dairy advertising (Eräjää, 2021). According to the European Green Deal (European Commission, 2019)—EU’s policy initiative aimed at achieving a climate-neutral Europe by 2050—EU countries are to cut at least 55% of greenhouse gases (compared to 1990 levels) by 2030. With the continued use of other animals for food on the same levels presently, there is little chance of meeting this goal. While the Green Deal includes a policy area on food, this lacks any mention of a transition to plant-based diets or reduction in animal farming. In the urgency of the global crises in animal ethics and climate, these are serious institutional shortcomings. They reflect the privileged decision-makers’ own unsustainable values and practices. Institutions are gendered (Acker, 1992; Connell, 2009) and speciesist (Nibert, 2003), in which masculinities play a key role. The animal-­ industrial complex12 (Noske, 1989; Twine, 2012) is upheld and supported by governments, private business, and individual consumers as key actors. Masculinity plays a central role in institutional arrangements and policy-­ making (Connell, 2009; Hearn et  al., 2018; Robertson & Williams, 2007). Most governments, prominent transnational organisations such as the EU, and polluting industries are led overwhelmingly by privileged white men. National governments and their various agencies are among the key entities that endorse eating other animals through various policies and heavily subsidise this practice. Seemingly gender-neutral policies are gendered (Hearn et al., 2018; Robertson & Williams, 2007): “much policy is about men yet not recognized as such” (Hearn et al., 2018, p. 56). Thus, it is important to consider whose needs and interests policies promoting the consumption of other animals serve. I suggest that they ­primarily support the privileged human subject, especially white middleclass men in the Global North. Thus, studying institutional barriers and 12  The animal-industrial complex is “a partly opaque and multiple set of networks and relationships between the corporate (agricultural) sector, governments, and public and private science. With economic, cultural, social and affective dimensions it encompasses an extensive range of practices, technologies, images, identities and markets” (Twine, 2012, p. 23).

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opportunities towards veganism and the significance of men and masculinities in this constitutes an important avenue for future research on men, masculinities, and veganism. It would be truly transformative if current institutions, shaped by hegemonic masculinity, would embrace postanthropocentric ideals, including veganism. Further research could, in line with feminist new materialist and posthumanist frameworks, pursue the understanding of (men’s) veganism as a material-discursive practice, as I have proposed in this book. Such an approach would pay further attention to embodiment and other materialities in the context of men’s veganism and vegan masculinities. The centrality of the body in studying men and masculinities raises methodological difficulties about how to access embodiments and material dimensions of life, such as bodies and their agency (Garlick, 2019). As Hearn (2023) notes, “what seems/is material is only partly accessible” and “what is known as material is accessed/mediated through/by discourses” (p. 163). This limitation also concerns this study, based on interviews, meaning that access to the material, embodied, and affective dimensions of men’s veganism has been obtained only through discourses. Future research could consider ways to overcome these methodological dilemmas related to studying men and masculinities beyond the discursive realm. This is important because of potential contradictions between people’s discourses, values, and material practices. In other words, there can be a stark contrast between “talking the talk” and “walking the walk”, especially regarding gendered power relations and gender inequalities, as previous work has indicated, especially concerning privileged men’s discourses and practices on equality (see, e.g., Faircloth, 2021; Hochschild & Machung, 1989; Lamont, 2014). As Lamont (2014) argues, “egalitarian narratives serve as a form of identity work that allows men to think of themselves as better than the average man without having to fully challenge gender inequality” (p. 287). Future research on vegan men and masculinities should continue to tackle the important questions of how and to what extent men’s veganism and vegan masculinities challenge anthropocentrism and various intra-­ human power hierarchies—issues that are relevant for veganism more broadly. As this book has demonstrated, answers to these questions are not straightforward. White (2022) draws a clear boundary between what he calls plant-based consumerism and veganism. This book however has complicated such a sharp distinction between these two phenomena. The lived experience of vegan men suggests that the former often leads to the latter.

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At the same time, vegan men (like all vegans) remain part of plant-­based consumer cultures, even if they are critical of the appropriation of veganism by capitalism. However, we should ask critical questions about the relationship between veganism and plant-based consumption, including how (men’s) veganism reimagines human-animal relations. This in turn calls for inquiring about how challenging anthropocentrism or anthroprivilege (Springer, 2022) would look like and considering limits to it. Veganism seeks to end the use of nonhuman animals by humans, an ideal that most vegan men in this study aspired towards. Yet, most urban vegans in Western societies, such as the vegan men in this study, cannot easily cut themselves off from capitalist food systems. Being part of these structures, they are implicated in various ethical challenges. If veganism is a political and ethical practice of contesting nonhuman animal as well as human exploitation, as I define it in this book, drawing on many CAS and other scholars (see, e.g., White, 2022), most vegans seem to fall short of this ideal and could be thought of as plant-based consumers instead. While refraining from consuming animal products, vegans are certainly participating in structures and macro processes beyond the individual level that exploit other animals, for instance in environmental speciesism that can involve displacement of nonhuman animals to clear land for human housing (Springer, 2022). Also, many vegans consume coconut oil, which typically involves the labour of enslaved monkeys (Gunderman, 2022, p. 173; see also Fazzino II, 2022, on harm towards nonhuman animals in plant-­based food production). Buying plant-based products made by meat and dairy companies is also a common practice among vegans, which in fact is profitable for these companies, as selling plant-based products functions as a form of greenwashing and humane-washing of these enterprises and the meat and dairy they sell (Stănescu, 2021). Several authors (e.g., Harper, 2010; White, 2022, pp. 25–26) have highlighted the exploitation of human workers involved in food production systems, including in fruit and vegetable industries, thus making it difficult to label these products as cruelty-free. Yet, this should not in any way suggest, as some critics conclude, that individuals should be complacent or take no action, or reject veganism altogether, since the consumption of all products involves some cruelty. These insights instead underscore an even greater urgency of addressing these issues and encourage active and critical veganism. This applies particularly to those in a position to make alternative consumption choices and lobby for or directly produce institutional change, such as privileged men. As such, privileged men who have become vegan can act as role

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models for other similarly positioned men. I have argued in this book that men’s veganism is an important step towards post-anthropocentric masculinities, which centre practices of care towards human and nonhuman others. Vegan men’s narratives explored in this book can function as vegan imaginaries (White, 2022, p. 21), offering possibilities for doing veganism and masculinity differently.

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Appendix: Overview of the Research Participants

Pseudonym Age at the time of interview

Profession/primary field of activity

Time since vegan transition in years or months at the time of interview

Main motivations behind veganism according to the interviewees Nonhuman animals, also environment and healtha Nonhuman animals, also environment Nonhuman animals, also environment Nonhuman animals, also environment Nonhuman animals, also environment Initially health, later nonhuman animals

Finland Eetu

18

High school student

3 years

Olavi

33

Entrepreneur, musician

9 months

Mikko

43

Professional, IT

18 years

Veli-Matti 34

Political activist

6 years

Lukas

25

Artist

10 years

Mikael

36

Professional, IT

2 years

(continued)

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 K. Aavik, Contesting Anthropocentric Masculinities Through Veganism, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-19507-5

241

242 

APPENDIX: OVERVIEW OF THE RESEARCH PARTICIPANTS

(continued) Pseudonym Age at the time of interview

Profession/primary field of activity

Time since vegan transition in years or months at the time of interview

Main motivations behind veganism according to the interviewees

Oskar

32

Warehouse worker

2 years

Petteri

38

Professional, IT

2.5 years

Oleg

32

Entrepreneur

1 year

Jan-Erik

36

Professional, IT and design

4.5 years

Petri

43

Doctoral student, humanities

7 years

Daniel

34

Professional, IT

1.5 years

Kari

29

8 years

Jukka

30

Student (social sciences), artist Advisor

Antero

47

Project manager

5.5 years

Panu

22

Musician

4 years

Mika

40

Librarian

12 years

Otto

52

Professional, IT

11 years

Emil

41

Specialist, health services

6 months

Niko

26

Doctoral student, natural sciences

1 year

Tapani

35

Master’s student, social sciences

13 years

Nonhuman animals, also health and environment Nonhuman animals, also environment Health, also nonhuman animals Health, nonhuman animals, environment Nonhuman animals, also environment Nonhuman animals Environment, nonhuman animals Nonhuman animals, environment Nonhuman animals Nonhuman animals Nonhuman animals, also environment Health, nonhuman animals, environment Nonhuman animals, also health and environment Nonhuman animals, also environment Nonhuman animals

4.5 years

(continued)

  APPENDIX: OVERVIEW OF THE RESEARCH PARTICIPANTS 

243

(continued) Pseudonym Age at the time of interview

Profession/primary field of activity

Time since vegan transition in years or months at the time of interview

Main motivations behind veganism according to the interviewees

Eino

40

3 years

Timo

38

Sami

30

Kasper

36

Entrepreneur, tourism Professional, IT; specialist, health and sports industry Master’s student, social sciences Logistics

Matti

25

4 years

Gordon

48

Master’s student, humanities, and social sciences Professional, IT

Ilmari

27

3 years

Lauri

28

Researcher, natural sciences Master’s student, social sciences

Tõnis

33

Consultant

1 year

Oliver

38

Writer, publisher

2 years

Environment, also nonhuman animals Nonhuman animals, also health Nonhuman animals Nonhuman animals, also health and environment Nonhuman animals, also environment Nonhuman animals Nonhuman animals Nonhuman animals, also environment Environment, health Environment, health, nonhuman animals

Estonia Urmas

45

Professional, cultural 16 years sector

Sven

24

5 months

Martin

27

Undergraduate student, natural sciences Professional, IT

Hannes

39

Entrepreneur

7 years

Toomas

39

Consultant

2.5 years

1 year

4 years 2 years

7 years

Several years

2.5 years

Nonhuman animals, environment Nonhuman animals, environment Nonhuman animals, health, also environment Nonhuman animals Nonhuman animals (continued)

244 

APPENDIX: OVERVIEW OF THE RESEARCH PARTICIPANTS

(continued) Pseudonym Age at the time of interview

Profession/primary field of activity

Time since vegan transition in years or months at the time of interview

Main motivations behind veganism according to the interviewees

Jaanus

35

Transitioning

Health

Raido

28

Manager, health services Chef, athlete

2 years

Ivar

24

Musician

3 years

Andres

52

Entrepreneur

8 years

Holger

34

Artist, youth worker

4 years

Alvar

40

5 years

Erki

18

Professional, translation services High school student

Emris

26

Several years

Tom

41

Undergraduate student Editor, sustainability activist

Tanel

31

Entrepreneur

3.5 years

Paul

44

6 years

Arvo

56

10 years

Health

Tarmo

36

Professional, financial sector Consultant, health and nutrition Professional, IT and design

Nonhuman animals, health Health, nonhuman animals Nonhuman animals, religion, health Nonhuman animals, also health and environment Nonhuman animals, health Nonhuman animals, health, environment Nonhuman animals Nonhuman animals, also health and environment Nonhuman animals and environment, also health Health

4 years

Mart

26

Musician

2 years

Nonhuman animals, also health and environment Nonhuman animals, environment

4 months

13 years

(continued)

  APPENDIX: OVERVIEW OF THE RESEARCH PARTICIPANTS 

245

(continued) Pseudonym Age at the time of interview

Profession/primary field of activity

Time since vegan transition in years or months at the time of interview

Main motivations behind veganism according to the interviewees

Ott

28

Professional, sales

3 years

Indrek

34

Publisher

5 years

Kalev

43

Professional, IT

1.5 years

Peeter

33

Entrepreneur

3 years

Jaagup

23

Viktor

34

Sander

19

Student in vocational 3 years education, medical assistant Professional, energy Several years sector Professional, IT 3 years

Eero Marek

28 26

Nonhuman animals, also environment and health Nonhuman animals Nonhuman animals, also environment and health Nonhuman animals, health Nonhuman animals, also environment Nonhuman animals Nonhuman animals, environment Environment Health

Priit

35

Markus

40

Professional, IT Professional, IT; musician Professional, finance

3 years 5 years

Professional, crafts and design; vegan activist

8 years

2 years

Nonhuman animals Nonhuman animals, health

a I use the shorthand “nonhuman animals” to capture various forms of concern over the well-being of other animals. “Health” refers to personal health and well-being considerations; “environment” also includes concerns over climate. The key motivations behind the research participants’ veganism as identified by them are listed. Motivations followed by “also” indicate their somewhat lesser importance according to the men, in contrast to the primary ones.

Index1

NUMBERS AND SYMBOLS #MeToo, 88 A Able-bodiedness, 71, 87, 224 Absent referent, 42, 100 Activism, 3, 4, 7, 8, 17, 18, 34, 46, 49, 60, 69, 71, 82, 93, 94, 94n1, 96, 98, 101, 141, 149, 160, 176, 179, 199, 210, 224, 230, 231 Adams, Carol, 3, 16, 42, 88, 89, 100 Affect, 4n4, 11, 21, 37, 39, 52, 59, 83, 87–111, 126, 129, 148, 150, 154, 157, 164, 166, 208, 211, 212, 217, 229, 230, 232n12, 233 Agriculture, 4, 6n6, 7, 80 Ahmed, Sara, 90, 120, 148, 229 Alternative masculinities, 15n13, 16, 40, 110, 218 Anglo-American, 15, 19

Animal advocacy, 4, 7, 8, 17, 18, 35, 36n1, 46, 52n5, 88, 94, 94n1, 98, 108, 136, 140, 141, 199, 231 Animal advocacy movement, 8, 8n8, 88, 224n8 Animal ethics, 5, 33, 34, 36, 45, 50, 51, 55, 57, 59, 60, 63, 72, 75–77, 79, 122, 135–137, 140, 141, 158, 190, 210, 214, 215, 232 Animal-industrial complex, 2, 2n1, 4, 4n4, 56, 57, 71, 81, 84, 100, 101, 109, 232, 232n12 Animal products, 7, 10, 20, 35, 53, 54, 58, 63, 70, 72, 75–77, 99, 106, 108, 121, 156, 160, 164, 173, 178, 200, 201, 222n5, 231, 234 Animal rights, 35, 51, 52, 75, 99, 138, 185, 218 Animal Save Movement, 94n1 Anthropocene, 1–22, 225–230

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

1

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 K. Aavik, Contesting Anthropocentric Masculinities Through Veganism, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-19507-5

247

248 

INDEX

Anthropocentrism, 10, 70, 75–76, 158, 207, 216, 219, 223, 224, 228, 233, 234 Anthroprivilege, 234 Anti-racism, 13 Army, 48, 57 B Biographies, 33, 38, 40, 42, 59–61, 64, 208 Black feminism, 13 Buddhism, 15n13, 44, 45, 63, 77 C Capitalism, 4n3, 6, 10, 50, 69–72, 78, 81, 83, 193, 221n3, 234 Carbon footprint, 56 Care, 3, 21, 35, 47, 51, 56, 57, 60, 66, 73, 74, 83, 84, 89, 90, 93, 94, 104, 105, 109, 111, 124, 128, 132, 135–137, 140, 157, 158, 161, 162, 164, 165, 167, 169, 171, 190, 191, 194, 195, 200, 211, 214, 216, 217, 220, 221n3, 223, 226, 227, 235 Care ethics, 84 Care work, 47, 48, 161, 174, 178, 179, 190, 199, 215, 216, 218, 227 Caring masculinities, 16, 74, 141, 217, 219, 225, 227 CAS, see Critical animal studies Childhood, 38, 40, 41, 58, 64 Children, 41, 44, 100, 161, 163, 165, 166, 195, 198–201, 203, 204, 216 Civilian service, 39, 48, 48n3, 49, 63, 65 Class, 12, 39, 64, 65, 71, 72, 79, 152, 194, 203, 208, 209, 216, 221, 224, 224n8, 230

Climate, 4, 5, 7, 10, 14, 20, 34, 35, 37, 48, 51, 55, 56, 60, 77, 88, 107, 142, 212, 226n10, 231, 232, 245 Climate change, 2, 4, 4n3, 5, 7, 9, 10, 12, 14, 16, 37, 55, 57, 107, 108, 120, 140, 142, 207, 226 Colonialism, 71, 72 Companion animals, 40, 41, 137 Compassion, 15n13, 45, 47, 63, 76–77, 81n2, 82, 90, 94n1, 100–105, 109, 126, 130–135, 170, 210, 216, 217 Connell, Raewyn, 11, 16, 185, 219, 220, 232 Consumer boycott, 80 Consumerism, 10, 58, 70, 80–82, 101, 232–234 Consumption, 1–22, 34–36, 50, 54, 69, 70, 77, 78, 98, 102, 111, 124, 131, 141, 142, 153–155, 154n1, 160, 164, 166, 175, 177, 190, 191, 196n2, 210, 220, 221, 223, 227, 231, 232, 234 Contextual moral vegetarianism, 5, 76 Cooking, 43, 53, 54, 65, 134, 161, 166, 169, 174, 176, 178, 179, 189, 199–200, 203, 204, 215, 216, 222n5, 227 Covid-19, 5 Cowspiracy documentary, 36, 61 Critical animal studies (CAS), 2–4, 2n1, 3n2, 8, 70, 98, 109, 230, 234 Critical studies on men and masculinities (CSMM), 3, 11, 13, 88, 89, 91, 98, 219, 219n2 CSMM, see Critical studies on men and masculinities Cultured meat, 6

 INDEX 

D Dairy, 5, 19n18, 36, 38, 54, 80, 95, 120, 131, 136, 187, 200, 231, 232, 234 De-animalisation, 6 Decolonisation, 71, 72, 72n1, 193 Deviance, 141, 148, 172, 200 Diet, 5–11, 19, 35, 36, 36n1, 38, 50–55, 52n5, 57, 58, 60, 63, 66, 69–74, 78, 81, 82, 87, 105, 106, 106n2, 120, 135, 138, 141, 158, 160, 163, 166n2, 167, 170, 173, 174, 186n1, 187, 200, 208, 209, 214, 231, 232 Dietary guidelines, 231 See also Nutritional recommendations Discourses, 2n1, 66, 69, 87, 106, 107, 132, 140, 166n2, 170, 185, 186, 188, 195, 198, 199, 202, 209, 211, 233 Documentaries, 36–38, 52, 61, 64, 101, 107, 109, 186, 186n1 Doing gender, 11, 21, 118, 119, 129, 138, 142, 207, 213, 217 Doing masculinity, 1, 2, 11, 20, 39, 47, 49, 65, 92, 94, 154–158, 183, 188, 192, 194, 196, 203, 208, 212, 217, 224 Doing veganism, 21, 111, 117–142, 149, 194, 213, 216–218, 221, 235 Domination, 4n3, 12, 16, 33, 184, 223, 227–229 Dominion, 36 Donovan, Josephine, 3, 16, 89, 90, 93, 94, 109, 136 E Earthlings documentary, 36, 37, 61 Eating, 2, 36, 70, 87, 118, 132, 148, 157, 158, 165, 176, 185, 210

249

Eating practices, 51, 70 Eco-anxiety, 55, 57, 78, 89, 107, 108, 110, 111, 212 Ecofeminism, 3, 5, 8, 16, 21, 72, 74, 84, 89, 93, 94, 109, 136, 140, 211 Ecological crisis, 3–6, 16, 93, 94, 207, 225, 226, 226n10 Ecological footprint, 7, 14 Ecological justice, 5, 7–11, 207, 231 Ecological masculinities, 16, 93–94, 141, 212, 219, 225–227 Education, 9, 12, 17, 39, 47, 64, 79, 198, 203, 209, 216, 218, 224, 231 Effective altruism, 141 Egalitarian masculinities, 16, 219, 222, 223, 225 Embodiment, 9, 11, 14, 16, 20, 21, 38, 52, 53, 60, 70, 83, 87–111, 174, 175, 179, 186, 187, 208, 211, 212, 216, 217, 228–230, 233 Emotions, 19–21, 35, 37, 41, 53, 60, 64, 87–111, 119, 127, 129, 131, 136, 140, 149, 150, 162–166, 170, 184, 192, 194, 195, 208, 211–213, 213n1, 217, 227 Empathy, 21, 89, 90, 94–98, 102, 104, 109, 131, 132, 139, 140, 176, 187, 194, 195, 202, 212, 214, 220, 227, 229 English language, 19, 39, 64, 64n7, 108, 209 Entanglements, 19n18, 90, 91, 94–100, 109, 229, 230 Environment, 4, 5, 7, 10, 14, 16, 21, 33, 34, 36, 36n1, 37, 44, 45, 55–60, 72–75, 77–78, 82, 83, 89, 91, 93–95, 105, 107–108, 110, 122, 135–137, 140–142, 156, 158, 196, 197, 207–212, 214, 225, 226, 228, 234, 245

250 

INDEX

Epistemology, 3, 71, 90 Equality, 2, 15n13, 16, 20, 46, 47, 79, 82, 92, 142, 183, 184, 202, 203, 211, 213n1, 219–230, 233 Estonia, 9, 17–20, 19n18, 20n19, 39, 43, 44, 44n2, 46–49, 48n3, 52n5, 59, 62–66, 64n7, 73, 77, 94, 100, 106, 121, 130, 151, 154, 154n1, 158, 163, 177, 179, 196n2, 200, 201n3, 207, 209, 215, 218 Estonian language, 19, 201n3 Ethics, 2–8, 12, 17n15, 33–37, 45, 50, 51, 55, 57, 59, 60, 63, 66, 69, 70, 72, 73, 77, 81, 83, 84, 90, 96, 100, 102, 118, 120, 122, 127, 135–142, 158, 167, 190, 208–210, 214, 215, 230, 232, 234 Ethics of care, 5–6, 89, 90 Ethnicity, 12n10, 17, 47, 65, 224 EU, see European Union Europe, 5n5, 17, 44n2, 231, 232 European Union (EU), 20, 46, 232 Everyday activism, 8, 149, 160, 179, 199, 224 Exploitation, 3, 4, 6n6, 8, 10, 12, 36–37, 46, 51, 60, 61, 63, 66, 71, 73, 75–76, 79, 81n2, 82, 95, 101, 106, 127, 129, 153, 199, 210, 213, 214, 231, 234 F Factory farming, 71 Family, 33, 40, 42, 56, 87, 106, 118, 121, 147–179, 194, 200, 201, 204, 214, 215 Farm, 43, 80, 100, 101, 130, 195 Farmed animals, 4, 94n1 Farming, 4–6, 6n6, 36, 39, 44, 55, 56, 75, 77, 94, 95, 232

Fatherhood, 40, 97, 159, 167, 168, 195, 199–201, 203, 216 Femininities, 48, 91, 105, 109, 110, 135, 184–186, 190, 194, 219, 220, 222, 222n5, 223n6, 225, 227 Feminisation, 39, 47, 48, 65, 88, 90, 91, 104, 122, 136, 140, 199, 203, 214, 218 Feminism, 3, 11, 13, 14, 46, 51, 72, 73, 79, 83, 89–91, 93, 109, 110, 118, 151, 184, 186n1, 192, 193, 198, 199, 208, 219, 225, 227–229, 233 Feminist killjoy, 120, 139, 148 Films, 15n14, 36–38, 36n1, 54, 55, 101, 106, 108, 109, 169, 186n1 Finland, 9, 17–20, 39, 43, 46–50, 48n3, 52n5, 59, 62–65, 64n7, 73, 79, 94, 99, 121, 130, 151, 152, 154, 154n1, 160, 163, 179, 185, 189, 196n2, 200, 202, 207, 209, 215, 218 Food, 2–8, 10, 14, 33, 37, 38, 43, 49–55, 52n5, 60, 63, 65, 70–72, 76–77, 81, 82, 87, 88, 95, 96, 98, 101, 102, 106n2, 107, 111, 117, 119, 120, 122–124, 126, 132, 134, 139, 141, 148, 151, 153, 156, 158, 160, 161, 164, 167–172, 175, 176, 196, 199–201, 203, 209, 210, 214, 216, 220, 231, 232, 234 Food practices, 2, 8, 12, 15, 51, 70, 72, 73, 87, 88, 131, 136, 148, 153, 160, 210, 211 Food systems, 6, 71, 231, 234 Friends, 21, 40–42, 46, 49, 50, 56, 61, 99, 104, 118, 121, 127, 129, 147–179, 188, 189, 191, 192, 194–197, 200, 214, 215 Futures, 19n17, 22, 55–57, 107, 140, 177, 201, 207, 229–235

 INDEX 

G Gaard, Greta, 16 The Game Changers documentary, 15n14, 186, 187 Gendered, 2, 3, 8, 12, 15, 47, 88, 111, 118, 148, 159–161, 167, 174, 179, 183–187, 189, 194, 199, 202, 203, 213, 214, 217, 222, 229, 230, 232, 233 Gender equality, 2, 15n13, 46, 92, 183, 184, 202, 203, 211, 213n1, 219–230 Gender relations, 1, 11, 15n13, 179, 185, 199–201, 203, 204, 216, 219, 223, 224, 226, 227 Gender studies, 47, 63, 219n2 Giraud, Eva, 3, 8, 10, 13, 15, 69, 70, 81, 139, 230, 231 Global North, 4n3, 5, 14, 232 Global South, 5 Goffman, Erving, 118, 119, 122, 138, 213 Governments, 4n4, 58, 232, 232n12 Green Deal, 232 Greenebaum, Jessica, 9, 10, 15, 35, 51, 119, 139, 183, 184, 186, 202, 213, 218 Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, 4, 6 Greenwashing, 234 Gruen, Lori, 3, 16, 89, 93, 94, 109, 136 H Haraway, Donna, 230 Harper, Breeze, 15, 183 Health veganism, 50, 51, 66, 81, 105, 107, 190, 209 Hearn, Jeff, 3, 11, 88, 91–93, 109, 110, 203, 209, 211, 212, 223, 228, 232, 233

251

Heganism, 15, 187, 188 Hegemonic masculinities, 2, 10, 11, 14, 16, 22, 49, 72, 74, 92, 102, 104, 110, 140, 154, 156, 183–193, 202, 204, 215, 217, 219–222, 219n2, 221n3, 222n5, 225–227, 229, 233 Hegemony of men, 223n7 Helsinki, 50, 151 Heteronormativity, 47, 148, 230 Heterosexuality, 92, 156, 173, 174, 189, 190, 203, 222n5, 223n6, 224, 225n9 Hultman, Martin, 4n3, 6, 14, 16, 83, 93, 108, 140, 141, 212, 219, 225–228 Human-animal relations, 1–4, 6–8, 10, 14, 42, 57, 70, 71, 75, 76, 78, 79, 89, 94, 100, 158, 184, 211, 228, 230, 231, 234 Humane-washing, 234 Humour, 157, 158, 197 See also Jokes Hybrid masculinities, 184, 223n6 Hypermasculinity, 15, 47, 183, 187, 202 I Identities, 3n2, 4n4, 9, 12–14, 18, 19, 34, 57, 66, 69, 78, 96, 118, 120, 122, 147, 150, 154, 155, 163, 175–177, 189, 193, 204, 208, 215, 217, 222, 227, 232n12, 233 Identity talk, 9, 203 Identity work, 9 Impression management, 64, 118, 119, 122, 138, 140, 149, 213 Inclusive masculinity, 16, 219, 225, 225n9 Indigenous, 71, 72, 72n1

252 

INDEX

Individualism, 45, 63, 66, 81, 106, 107, 119, 120, 170, 216, 221, 221n3, 228, 230 Industrial animal farming, 5 Inequalities, 2, 6, 10, 11n9, 13, 14, 22, 71, 72, 93, 198, 202, 223, 223n6, 233 Institutional resistance, 19n18, 221, 231 Institutions, 6, 20, 48n3, 49, 49n4, 57, 60, 62, 63, 70, 73, 81n2, 101, 103, 108, 109, 179, 200, 201, 208, 209, 215, 221, 223, 230–234 Intersectionality, 3, 11–14, 71, 79, 188, 198, 221 Intersectional privilege, 12, 12n10, 209, 217, 225 Intersectional veganism, 7–11, 142 Interspecies, 70 Intimate relationships, 38, 42, 43, 49, 60, 61, 95, 122, 128, 140, 147–179, 189, 190, 201, 214, 215, 222n5 J Jokes, 157, 158, 170, 197 See also Humour K Killjoy, see Feminist killjoy; Vegan killjoy Ko, Aph, 8, 10, 14, 17, 70, 71, 224n8, 231 Ko, Syl, 8, 10, 14, 17, 70, 71, 224n8, 231 L Liberation, 2n1, 10, 70 Lifestyles, 5, 8, 50, 59, 69, 72–74, 76, 78–79, 83, 107, 149, 151, 167, 230 Locavorism, 6

M Male privilege, 72 Marginalisation, 13, 14, 109, 110, 117, 125, 141, 219, 221, 223n6 Masculinities, 1–22, 34, 72, 87, 117–142, 148, 183, 207–235 Material-discursive, 12, 21, 60, 60n6, 93, 199, 203, 208, 209, 228, 233 Materiality, 3, 9, 11, 11n9, 12, 14, 19, 37–39, 43, 49, 57, 59, 60, 65, 71, 88, 91, 94, 95, 101, 109, 118, 121, 151, 178, 179, 190, 199–204, 208, 209, 216, 220, 223, 226, 230, 231, 233 Meals, 41, 54, 65, 118, 134, 161, 164, 168, 172, 174, 178, 199, 200 Meat, 5, 38, 87, 119, 185, 210 Meat culture, 55, 73, 147, 157, 166, 166n2, 167, 170, 178, 179, 199 Media, 5, 19, 36, 51, 69, 72, 73 Meditation, 44, 45 Mellström, Ulf, 3, 11, 14, 16, 91, 98, 219, 226n10, 228–230 Method, 17–20, 142 Methodologies, 64, 210, 233 Microinteractions, 117, 118, 122, 138, 139, 158, 213, 218 Microsociology, 213, 216 Middle class, 5, 12, 14, 17, 50, 65, 88, 92, 140, 212, 232 Military service, 39, 48, 49 Milk, 37, 50, 52, 54, 58, 71, 100, 124, 162, 164, 165, 195 More-than-human, 140, 226, 226n10, 229 Mother, 40, 105, 151, 160, 161, 164–167, 169, 170, 176, 178, 200, 203 Multi-species, 229

 INDEX 

N Narratives, 1, 13, 18–20, 18n16, 19n17, 33–66, 74, 75, 79–81, 88, 92, 94, 96–99, 102, 105, 106, 108–110, 121, 124, 126–130, 132, 134, 136, 137, 139, 153, 155, 157, 161, 163, 165, 170, 172–174, 177–179, 183–188, 190–194, 197, 199–201, 203, 204, 208–210, 212, 213, 215–217, 220, 223, 228, 233, 235 Nature, 4n3, 10–12, 16, 43, 44, 56, 76, 79, 88, 91, 93, 107, 118, 120, 121, 124, 131, 135, 140, 149, 151, 157, 163, 167, 168, 172, 174, 176, 179, 196, 212, 214, 223, 225–229 Neocolonialism, 71, 72 New materialism, 3, 11, 14, 16, 21, 90, 91, 208, 211, 228, 229, 233 New materialist feminism, 227 Non-confrontational communication, 131, 169, 170, 179, 213, 214 Nonhuman animals, 1–22, 33, 70, 89, 118, 148, 188, 208, 245 Nonnormative, 49, 141 Non-vegans, 18, 21, 41, 42, 61, 73, 78, 83, 84, 87, 102, 103, 110, 111, 117–121, 123, 125–128, 130–141, 147, 150, 153–160, 162–164, 166–168, 170–175, 177–179, 187, 189, 190, 192, 194, 196, 197, 201, 202, 209, 211–218, 220, 222n5, 224, 230 See also Omnivores Nonviolence, 15n13, 63, 76–77, 79, 83 Nordic, 20, 37, 38 Normative, 47, 65, 120, 131, 141, 153, 184, 187, 225 Norms, 5, 8, 15, 19, 41, 46, 48, 73, 104, 117, 118, 120, 121, 138, 148, 152, 154, 156, 162–164,

253

166, 183, 185–188, 196, 202, 213, 216–218, 224 Northern Europe, 1, 9, 19, 20 Nutrition, 7, 19, 19n18, 42, 54, 71, 82, 158, 167, 171, 174, 179, 199–201, 203, 210, 215, 216 Nutritional recommendations, 200, 231n11 See also Dietary Guidelines Nutritious, 49, 54, 55, 60, 71 O Omnivores, 42, 73, 83, 87, 102, 103, 117, 119–121, 123, 127, 128, 130–132, 135, 136, 138, 139, 147, 153–156, 162, 163, 166, 168, 173, 175, 177, 178, 189, 192, 196, 202, 213, 215, 218 See also Non-vegans Organic farming, 6, 6n6 P Pacifism, 47, 48, 79 Parents, 38, 41, 160, 164, 165, 200, 201, 201n3 Partners, see Intimate relationships Patriarchy, 87, 92, 161, 179, 189, 227, 228 Pease, Bob, 3, 11, 14, 16, 88, 91–93, 98, 107, 111, 212, 219, 223, 228–230 Permaculture, 81n2 Plant-based capitalism, 10, 69 Plant-based diets, 5–11, 19, 35, 36, 51–55, 58, 60, 63, 66, 72, 78, 82, 105, 106, 106n2, 135, 141, 158, 170, 186n1, 187, 208, 209, 214, 231, 232 Plant-based food/plant-based products, 10, 19, 37, 49, 49n4, 53–55, 65, 81n2, 178, 215, 234

254 

INDEX

Policies, 17n15, 176, 232 Post-anthropocentrism, 14–17, 93–94, 108, 207–235 Posthumanism, 3, 11, 14, 16, 21, 90, 91, 211, 230, 233 Potts, Annie, 15, 73, 148, 157, 166, 166n2, 172, 174, 175, 179, 183, 215, 224 Power relations, 3, 12, 15, 47, 70–72, 87, 88, 90, 111, 153, 157, 166, 167, 174, 183–186, 189, 202, 208, 209, 217, 219, 222, 227, 233 Preachy vegans, 73, 110, 128–130, 132, 133, 139, 170, 212, 213 Privilege, 12, 12n10, 13, 21, 39, 64, 65, 70, 72n1, 92, 93, 193, 194, 198, 208, 209, 212, 223n6, 224, 230 Pulé, Paul, 4n3, 6, 14, 16, 83, 93, 108, 140, 141, 212, 219, 225–228, 226n10 Punk, 46, 47, 73, 191 Q Qualitative research, 17, 17n15, 33, 207

121, 147, 208, 209, 211, 214, 216, 221n3, 222, 227–230 Relationships, 2, 3, 3n2, 4n4, 8, 9, 12, 15, 16, 18, 20, 21, 33, 40, 43, 50, 57, 60, 83, 89, 91, 93, 95, 96, 99, 105, 118, 119, 126, 127, 136, 141, 147–179, 184, 185, 189, 201–204, 207, 211, 212, 214–217, 220, 221, 222n4, 225–227, 229, 232n12, 234 Relatives, 21, 100, 118, 148, 153, 159–172, 178, 196, 200, 201 Religion, 15n13, 63, 130, 167, 218 Research participants, 13, 17–20, 17n15, 34, 39, 40, 42, 43, 45, 46, 50, 53, 55–57, 61, 63–66, 74, 76, 97, 99, 105, 110, 118, 121, 123, 124, 126, 129, 131, 132, 136, 139, 140, 142, 148–152, 158, 160, 162, 163, 167, 171–173, 177–179, 184, 187–189, 191, 192, 194–197, 199, 200, 202, 204, 208–210, 212, 214, 215, 220 Role modelling, 8, 133–135, 139, 169, 170, 179, 184, 187, 190, 213, 214, 220, 224, 225, 235 Rural, 17, 19

R Race, 8, 12–14, 12n10, 65, 70–72, 72n1, 90, 193, 194, 221, 224, 224n8, 230 Racism, 71, 72, 125, 198 Rationality, 21, 34, 42, 60, 82, 88–90, 92–100, 109–111, 119, 129, 133, 136, 140, 209, 211–213, 216, 217 Regan, Tom, 94, 136 Relationality, 9, 12, 21, 42–43, 49, 56, 77, 83, 92, 106, 117–119,

S Sample, 17, 18, 20 Schools, 49, 58, 59, 150, 165 Secular, 9, 44n2, 63, 130, 218 Sexism, 225 Sexualities, 87, 88, 230 Siblings, 160, 165 Singer, Peter, 94, 136 Slaughter, 94n1, 96, 101 Slaughterhouse, 41, 58, 101 Social change, 2, 3, 6, 45, 60, 118, 135, 141, 142, 227, 230, 231

 INDEX 

Social interactions, 9, 11, 12, 20, 21, 117–119, 123, 125, 127, 128, 138, 139, 141, 149, 151, 152, 157, 158, 166, 170, 213, 214, 216, 220, 224 Socialisation, 41, 54, 194, 197 Social justice, 2, 5, 7, 8, 10, 13, 22, 45–51, 63, 70, 72, 79, 82, 141, 183–204, 211, 215, 217, 219, 222 Social media, 43, 61, 134, 151 Social movements, 46, 79, 149, 231 Social networks, 73, 119, 147, 151 Sociology, 48, 119 Soy boy, 15 Species, 2n1, 8n8, 10, 41, 57, 70, 75, 96, 108, 230 Speciesism, 2, 4, 41, 49, 54, 71, 75, 76, 78, 101, 102, 117, 120, 130, 132, 139, 154, 166, 198, 200, 202, 232, 234 Spirituality, 44, 44n2, 63, 77, 108 Stănescu, James, 90, 98, 103, 111 Stănescu, Vasile, 6, 70 Stephens Griffin, Nathan, 33, 47, 63, 119, 120, 218 Stigmatisation, 111, 117, 120, 135, 137–139, 148, 200 Stories, 18, 19, 19n17, 38, 39, 98, 100, 189 Straight-edge punk movement, 33, 42, 46, 47, 62, 218 Subcultures, 33, 42, 46, 47, 73, 218 Subsidies, 231 Suffering, 4, 9, 35, 37, 53, 61, 73–75, 78, 82, 88, 94–99, 103, 109–111, 130, 135, 136, 194, 208, 210, 217 Sustainability, 7, 14, 142, 226, 231n11 Sustainable living, 44, 56 Symbolic interactionism, 118, 213, 216

255

T Technofixes, 6, 140, 226n10 Teenagers, 40, 46, 58, 97 Thematic analysis, 18 Total liberation, 10, 70, 77 Toxic masculinity, 105, 188, 190 Twine, Richard, 3, 4, 4n3, 4n4, 16, 87, 93, 120, 126, 130, 139, 147, 148, 150, 157, 159, 164, 178, 212, 226, 232, 232n12 U Unethical, 8, 14, 60, 207 University of Helsinki, 17n15 Unsustainable, 2, 6, 6n6, 16, 102, 108, 226, 232 Urban, 5, 9, 12, 17, 65, 152, 234 V Values, 1, 4n3, 10, 41–49, 49n4, 56–60, 73, 77–79, 83, 106, 111, 122, 133, 149, 150, 153, 154, 158, 160, 163, 167, 170, 174, 175, 179, 188, 204, 214–216, 219, 222, 227, 232, 233 Vegan activism, 18, 60 Vegan Challenge campaign, 52 Veganic agriculture, 6n6 Veganism, 1, 33, 69–84, 87–111, 117–142, 147, 183–204, 207–235, 245 Vegan killjoy, 120, 126, 130, 139, 148 Vegan masculinities, 10, 16, 20, 22, 156, 187, 207, 219–230, 233 Vegan movement, 8, 10, 65, 71 Vegansexuality, 148, 172, 174–179, 215, 224 Vegan Society, 8, 51, 72, 76, 214 Vegan sociology, 3 Vegan studies, 3, 3n2, 8, 70

256 

INDEX

Vegan transition narratives, 12, 19, 20, 33–66, 73, 89, 95, 97, 99, 101, 102, 127, 141, 147, 148, 150, 155, 173–174, 186, 190, 192, 196, 208–210, 212, 215, 218 Veganwashing, 10 Vegetarianism, 5, 15n13, 16, 34, 35, 38, 43, 48, 49, 51, 55, 63, 76, 83, 84, 99, 100, 104, 119, 120, 127, 148, 150, 152, 159–161, 168, 173, 189–191, 196 Veg*nism/veg*n/veg*ns, 15, 88, 119, 148, 155, 190, 202 Video, 36, 54, 55, 61, 95, 101 Vigil, 94, 94n1, 96 Violence, 4, 5, 71, 72, 72n1, 190, 191, 198

Visceral, 38, 52, 53, 95, 96, 99–101, 175, 212 Vulnerability, 89, 90, 94, 98, 111, 189, 221n3, 229 W What the Health documentary, 36, 52, 61 White privilege, 10, 13, 71 White, Richard, 1, 6n6, 10, 70, 117, 133, 149, 214, 231, 233, 234 Whiteness, 13, 65, 71, 224n8 Wrenn, Corey, 8, 8n8, 10, 89, 94, 109, 136, 141, 231 Wright, Laura, 3, 3n2, 8, 15, 187, 188