Who was the crazy vegan who gave us all such a bad rep? They must have been mighty crazy because that stigma has gone a looong way and I don’t know any crazy vegans.

And I subscribe to Vegan Outreach’s philosophy, too, about paying attention to the big ingredients and not worrying so much about the small, hidden ones. We want to make veg*anism look easy (which it can be), not grueling.

For me that’s the hardest part. While I don’t want to hide that I’ve vegan, I tend to give very short answers if someone asks me questions about it because I assume they won’t be receptive. But like you said, I really need to go into the conversation assuming that the person wants the information. After all, they wouldn’t ask if they didn’t want info, right?

I do know that today, especially in the west, we do have the resources and knowledge to chose a life that does not exploit animals, and we should not ride on thousands of years of meat-eating traditions as an excuse.

I always find it funny when people assert that cultural pressure isn’t playing a role in their decision. When you are entrenched in a culture it is nearly impossible to remove yourself from it’s assumptions.

I work in a physics department that is (surprise) male dominated. There has been a desire to hire more womyn professors, however I often hear from people that they should just hire the best qualified. For some reason they can’t see the patriarchy, and instead of seeing this as a positive way to help break hundreds of years of social oppression they claim that such hiring practices are sexist! The white male is so advantaged that he can’t even recognize his elite position in society.

The problem with veg*nism isn’t that people think it’s feminine, it’s that people think of feminine as undesirable and associate it with terms like weak and passive. Not to mention that males who show any sort of femininity are often considered gay… Using gay as an insult has got to be near the top of my list of the most offensive things you can do.