I need feminism

I need feminism because society teaches girls to wear longer skirts rather than teaching boys not to stare.

I need feminism because society comforts women struggling with their body image by telling them that men like curvier women, as if the sole purpose of a woman’s body is to impress men.

I need feminism because the education and empowerment of women in developing countries is the only way to battle poverty.

I need feminism because society calls a woman who wears a short skirt a whore and a woman who wears a long skirt a prude.

I need feminism because society calls a woman who says yes a slut and a woman who says no a bitch.

I need feminism because dead bodies have more body autonomy than pregnant women.

I need feminism because people should respect all other people, regardless of gender.

I need feminism because young boys are taught that it is shameful to lose to a girl in a game.

I need feminism because the word “pussy”, a part of female anatomy, has come to be an insult meaning lacking in confidence or manhood.

I need feminism because every hour, a woman in India is killed because her family cannot afford to give her husband a dowry.

I need feminism because self-proclaimed pro-lifers care more about the life of an embryo than the life of a grown, respectable woman.

I need feminism because never having experienced street harassment shouldn’t make me feel unattractive.

I need feminism because I can open my own doors, thank you.

I need feminism because women in Saudi Arabia cannot drive and women in Vatican City are still waiting for the vote.

I need feminism because the patriarchy oppresses men just as much as it oppresses women.

I need feminism because a woman’s place is in the house and the senate.

I need feminism because society compliments girls on their physical attractiveness on every occasion no matter how irrelevant it is, and yet mocks girls for caring about their appearance.

I need feminism because women’s products cost up to double the amount as corresponding products for men, yet women earn less pay for doing the same job.

I need feminism because society teaches us, “Don’t get raped” instead of “Don’t rape”.

I need feminism because even if “not all men” are wicked, if you eat a handful of M&Ms from a bowl of which 10% are poisoned, you will still die (a miserable death).

I need feminism because for a woman, walking on the street is more dangerous than playing Russian Roulette.

I need feminism because catcalls are not compliments.

I need feminism because women like me should be able to do what we want and say what we want and wear what we want, when we want and where we want, without living in constant fear.

But we can’t.

7 Reasons Why I Don't Eat Mammals

Sizzling, succulent, strips of bacon just out of the frying pan passes a certain charisma: the thin layer of shiny grease, crispy edges, and curvy physiognomy - how utterly and irresistibly... attractive.

But not to me. That breakfast plate won't be one you see sitting in front of me. Here are the top seven reasons why I don't eat mammals:

7) Eating red meat is not only nutritionally unnecessary - too much of it is actually detrimental. High in cholesterol, red meat also increases one's risk of cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer's disease, breast cancer, colorectal cancer, and type 2 diabetes.

6) Pigs and cows share 98% of human DNA. In fact, medical researchers have recently found that it is possible to use organs from pigs for life-saving human organ transplants. Considering that, pigs, cows, and humans are much more alike than we tend to give them credit for.

5) "Meat" nowadays should be spelled with a capital M and quotation marks. A vast majority of meat on the market is cross-contaminated, injected with harmful substances, and treated with ammonia gas. Not to mention that a multitude of chemicals and synthetic hormones are implanted into those pigs and cows to make the meat more "appealing".

4) Our little bovine and porcine friends are immensely intelligent. Pigs are social, quick to learn, and capable of many cognitive processes. It has been said that pigs are more intelligent than dogs and dolphins, and they have even been compared to human three-year-olds.

3) As Paul McCartney once so eloquently stated, "If slaughterhouses had glass walls, we'd all be vegetarian." Consider that for a second. An undercover investigation at a North Carolina slaughterhouse revealed the workers delivering daily beatings to the pigs. Sawing off their legs. Throwing piglets against concrete walls and floors. Raping sows with iron poles. Sticking electric prods in their eyes and ears. Skinning them alive. And none of this cruel abuse "enhances the flavor of the meat" whatsoever. These are purely brutal and sadistic actions performed by brutal and sadistic people.

I won't give you, reader, any more nightmares, so I won't tell you how pigs are slit at their throats alive at the slaughterhouse and hung upside-down to bleed. I won't tell you that billions of innocent animals worldwide succumb to this gruesome fate. And I won't tell you how one former worker admitted having once slaughtered a pig: "He sliced off the end of the pig's snout, just like a piece of bologna... Then he took a handful of salt and ground it into his nose." (Yes, all of this is true: check out Jonathan Safran Foer's book Eating Animals for more information.)

2) Tell me, then, why do we have a greater right to eat an animal than an animal has to live without suffering? Why is taste exempted from the ethical rules that govern all our other senses? What would we think of an artist who killed and mutilated animals because it was visually arresting? What would we think of a musician who tortured animals and recorded their groans because the sound was pleasing? And yet, what do we think of a person who kills and eats animals, just because it "tastes good"? As Jonathan Safran Foer once said, "Animal rights [are] the purest form of social-justice advocacy, because animals are the most vulnerable of the downtrodden."

To buy and consume this meat would be the equivalent of showing support and advocacy for the brutal slaughtering of innocent animals. Why should we support these horrible actions with our money, with our taste buds? Tell me, why should we?

1) That is not bacon on your plate.

That is a pig.
A pig that once lived and deserves to live just as much as you and I deserve to live and who was robbed of daylight just to satisfy the taste buds of some voracious human being. That is a pig who has - or once had - a soul of its own.

And to me, that is the most important reason of all.