Speaking Up

Owen as an itty-bitty

“Well, no little lady, they don’t feel any pain.”

I was a college student, he was a professor. The “they” were 2-day-old male piglets being castrated without pain relief.

This is a prestigious university with a state-of-the-art veterinary teaching hospital and the year, 2002, the location California. The Animal Science degree was (is) hard, five years hard, made more difficult by my vegan leanings and constant questioning.

The piglet processing portion of the class was mandatory. Every student had to trudge to the school’s pig farm, enter the room where half a dozen sows lived in crates so small they couldn’t turn around, and assist in the tail-docking, castration and needle-teeth removal of sixty screaming piglets.

I helped with nothing. Instead, I tried to bond with the sows, quickly realizing they wanted nothing to do with me. I played with a couple piglets, watching in humor as they tussled with one another and nose-bopped me curiously. There I was, on the sideline, pretending this was all okay, *I* was okay, all of this suffering in front of me was okay.

Until the castration.

I know you don’t want to know, but I’m going to tell you. Male piglets are hoisted up by their rear legs and then placed head first between your legs. You pinion them there and take a knife, hopefully sharp, and slice open the scrotum. Then you literally pull out the testes. Throw on some betadine and you’re done. The whole time, the piglet is screaming and twisting, trying his hardest to get away and hide.

I couldn’t help but ask the obvious question, “Doesn’t that hurt? Shouldn’t you use anesthesia?”

Whoa! Alert, alert, we have a free-thinker here. Stop the presses, quell the rumors! The professor paused mid-cut, stared at me, and over the squealing piglet said, ““Well, no little lady, they don’t feel any pain. This is just a reaction to being handled.”

The heads of other students swiveled in my direction. Except for the torturous screams of the piglets and the desperate calls from the sows, it was quiet (which is to say, it was quite loud).

I could feel a turning in on myself. Fear, palpable and real, edging its way from my heart and outward. Anger soon following, righteous indignation. A host of thoughts ran through my brain. Do I respond? How do I respond to such an insult, such a backwards, wrong way of thinking. And did he just call me little lady? My brain reminded me I was taller than him, my heart thumping its ire that a professor, in the year 2002, would ever call a student little lady. That he would deny the science being taught us in all of our classes – piglets feel pain, they hurt when they are cut. Just like me. Just like this professor.

But there was this piglet. He was crying, calling for his mother. As the professor finalized his emasculation of the pig, denying the pain evident in every scream, every stiff movement thereafter, I pitied this man. An adult, someone with years of experience and knowledge…he was an idiot. A stupid, stupid person who had closed off his heart, shut down the critical thinking part of his brain and instead, chose to retain the sexist, speciesist, callous persona. How pathetic, how sad, how lonely.

My mouth moved of its own accord, “First, I am *not* a little lady. Second,” and here I paused, picking up an “unprocessed” piglet, rubbing her belly until she flopped over in my arms, snorting, grunting, not screaming, “professor, your colleague just taught us that piglets feel pain as much as any other mammal.” Take that!

The man shrugged his shoulders and moved onto the next piglet. He was unused to a response, unsure of how to deal with this reality in front of him. Me, the “little lady”. She, the silent, snoring piglet.

I was upset, ready to cry, with this little dozing piglet in my arms. I left that room, shaken. I never returned, either. I took that class over with a different teacher, choosing to endure that room again with a different professor, at a different time.  I never reported the professor’s sexist, inexcusable behavior…and, come to think of it, neither did any of the 20 other students in my class. I may have spoken up in that classroom, for one brief, shining moment of Rightness, but I didn’t pursue the matter. I didn’t rage against the patriarchy, shake up the hierarchy, or do anything grandiose. I didn’t even tell anyone, too uncomfortable with the matter, too unsure that I should have even responded. I spoke against this man, this authority figure, the controller of my grade and, potentially, my academic future. It was not enjoyable, I didn’t feel impassioned or brave. In fact, I was scared and unsure. I could have easily remained silent, no one would blame me.

I can’t say this moment transformed me into an aggressive advocate, voicing my thoughts verbally to the masses where ever I go. I love writing and seeing the world through my camera over talking (which I find a little intimidating). That moment was, no is, a piece of time I go back to when I’m feeling unsure or lonely or afraid. It’s one of many I rely on to get me through this path I’ve chosen. I hope you have those moments too, those sometimes achingly painful times that can help boost you in the present from silent observer to active participant.

You can be an advocate in many ways. You don’t have to do what I did or liberate animals from factory farms or research facilities, either. You can cook a vegan meal for an omnivore friend. You can make donations to your favorite charity in honor of a friend and explain why. You can write a letter to the editor about veganism. You can write, take pictures, sing songs, make friends all with a conscious intent to share this most important thing with others. You can also speak at rallies, demonstrate, leaflet, make your voice loud and clear. There are a lot of people like that professor out there to educate and, hopefully, change.

I could have remained silent, kept with the status quo. I would not have been a worse off person, nor would I have loathed myself for all eternity. Those pigs are dead and gone, but I take solace in the fact that, at the very least, I didn’t let a lie pass as truth.