Gender Equality Month: If You Value Fairness, Ditch Eggs
What Is Gender Equality?
March is Gender Equality Month—a time to uplift those whose bodies have been controlled, used, and abused due to their gender. And while the conversations we have around gender equality often focus on human rights, there’s another group whose exploitation must not be ignored: animals raised for food.
If we truly stand for gender equality, our empathy must extend to other animals. Because female chickens are arguably some of the most abused mothers on the planet.
As the Price of Eggs Skyrockets, Hens Always Pay the Biggest Price
When left alone in nature, the red jungle fowl—which is the breed that chickens used for eggs have been bred from—lay only around 15 eggs a year. But for chickens bred and used by the cruel egg industry, their bodies have been genetically manipulated to churn out over 300 eggs annually—causing intense suffering, reproductive diseases, ovarian cancer, and often bone breakage from the toll of nonstop egg-laying.
The egg industry is built on the exploitation of female bodies. So, allies who advocate for bodily autonomy should see right through the “humane” lies stamped on egg cartons.
Male Chicks: The “Waste” of the Egg Industry
What about males? From day one, male chicks are deemed “useless” because they won’t lay eggs. Within hours of hatching, millions of baby boys are violently sorted, tossed onto conveyor belts, and dropped into high-speed grinders—fully conscious. Others are suffocated in plastic bags or crushed under the weight of their siblings.
No egg—no matter how “ethical” the brand claims to be—exists without mass male slaughter. And every single carton of eggs represents millions of babies who were discarded like trash because of their biological sex.
Gender Equality Must Extend to All Species
Chickens are intelligent, inquisitive individuals with rich social lives and unique personalities. A mother hen will cluck softly to her chicks while they’re still inside their eggs—and they chirp back before they’ve even hatched. But in the egg industry, mother hens are denied the chance to raise their young.
When we fight for gender equality, we fight against the idea that anyone should have their body commodified. And yet, hens bred to lay eggs are treated like nothing more than egg-laying machines until their abused, worn-out bodies are shipped off to slaughter.
Is this what equality looks like?
What You Can Do to Help Animals This Gender Equality Month
Going vegan is one of the most powerful ways to stand against systemic gender exploitation.
This Gender Equality Month—and every month—share with your family and friends why you swap out eggs for vegan upgrades like tofu scrambles for breakfast or flaxseed and applesauce in baking. You can even order a FREE vegan starter kit for them.
For the kiddos and grandkids, check out this free coloring page that shows how animals are friends, not food. Another idea for Easter is to ditch coloring eggs for other fun egg-shaped items.
