On International Women’s Day, PETA Calls for Solidarity With Females of All Species

Principles of Women’s Rights Demand an End to Eating Eggs and Dairy Products From Sexually Exploited Cows and Hens, Group Says

For Immediate Release:
March 7, 2017

Contact:
Megan Wiltsie 202-483-7382

As people mark International Women’s Day (March 8), PETA is calling for solidarity with all females—including hens and mother cows whose bodies are used to the breaking point on factory farms, just to produce eggs and dairy products for human consumption.

On its website, PETA notes that human females aren’t the only ones who have been subjugated, oppressed, and abused and whose reproductive systems are regulated and controlled. On dairy farms, farmers keep cows pregnant by forcibly inseminating them—while they’re restrained in a device that the industry itself has called a “rape rack.” Then, the calves are torn from their mothers shortly after birth, causing extreme distress for both the newborns and their mothers, who have been known to cry for days.

On egg factory farms, hens are confined to a space that’s no bigger than an iPad, and parts of their beaks are sliced off with a hot blade and no painkillers, in order to prevent them from pecking each other in frustration. Once their bodies wear out and they’re no longer considered useful for egg production, they’re sent to slaughter.

“The egg and dairy industries are built on the subjugation and exploitation of female animals, something that no woman or man should support,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “This International Women’s Day, PETA is calling for everyone to take a simple step toward ending oppression—by going vegan.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat or abuse in any other way”—has also marked International Women’s Day by donating packages of shelf-stable, plant-based soymilk to women’s shelters in New York City.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.