Vegetarians, Vivisection and Violationism: Gender and the Non-Human Animal in Anna Kingsford's Life and Writing

• Published in: Lilith (Fitzroy, Vic.) no. 28; pp. 73 - 173
• Main Author: Ekkel, Ruby
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Wollongong Australian Women's History Network 01.12.2022
• Subjects: 19th century; Advocacy; Animal welfare; Ecofeminism; Femininity; Feminism; Gender; Protectionism; Society; Spirituality; Vegetarianism; Victorian period; Women; United Kingdom > UK
• ISSN: 0813-8990

Anna Kingsford (1846-1888) was an influential figure within the Victorian vegetarian movement who argued that abstinence from meat laid the foundation for all physical, social, moral and spiritual progress. Like many other vegetarian women of the later nineteenth century, she also actively opposed the practice of vivisection-operating on live animals for scientific or medical purposes-and was deeply engaged in the 'woman question' of her period. This article addresses Kingsford's ideas about non-human animals and gender and examines the complex relationships between them. It argues that Kingsford's vegetarianism lay at the centre of her world view and profoundly shaped her engagement with antivivisectionism and feminism. Through an investigation of her intertwined commitments to animal and women's causes, Kingsford's multifaceted and deeply considered conceptualisation of animals is reconstructed: one which was founded on scientific research, spiritual beliefs and personal experience. This conceptualisation closely interacted with, but was not merely an extension of, her ideas about femininity, gender and women's emancipation. In foregrounding Kingsford's vegetarianism, a movement frequently overlooked in existing scholarship on Victorian reformism and politics, this article challenges accounts that subsume the nuanced ideas of vegetarians and other animal protectionists within purportedly more significant causes.