i’d rather go naked than wear fur… pass me my leather boots
As a committed moral vegetarian, I think it’s excellent that there are animal rights campaigns out there designed to raise awareness about cruelty to animals, animal testing, and the treatment of animals used for food. They’ve even managed to make the issues ‘sexy’ with the famous “I’d rather go naked than wear fur” campaign, in which we’re treated to a full view of whatever celebrity du jour has been convinced that showing their naked skin is the best they can do for the animal rights movement:
“Okey dokey, I’ll just roll off my leather couch, zip over to the photoshoot in my vanity car with leather interior, set down my trendy little leather clutch (containing my leather wallet and mobile phone holster), slip off my leather FMBs, take off my bone jewelry, my leather belt…and make my stand against cruelty to animals.”
…Does anyone else see a problem here?
It’s incredible how many vegetarians out there are still wearing leather. I’ve heard some interesting comments on this issue recently – people advocating use of leather over synthetics as its biodegradable. This gave me pause for thought. While I don’t like the idea of wearing animal skins on my feet, I also don’t fancy the idea of my veggie friendly snazzy vinyl platforms or what have you outlasting me by 500 years – fashions come and go, but crappy pleather lasts an eternity. So what to do? I will admit that I am wearing leather shoes as I type this – a result of the fact that at the time they were required, I couldn’t find anything suitable for work that wasn’t made of dead animal, or otherwise vile to wear. I guess pleather used to be the poor person’s leather, but does being veggie mean a lifetime of smelly trenchfoot due to synthetic shoes? I’m not sure those hemp flipflops are exactly office friendly – nor are the canvas court shoes (probably made in a sweatshop)…. So what is a veggie to do?
My fella has been having a similar problem, so I know this issue isn’t restricted to the female of the species. He was a bit luckier – he actually managed to find a website that sold some veggie friendly trainers, which came with the added bonus of being specialist hackysack gear. Out of interest he contacted the company to find out where the shoes were made — a query that was met with a deafening silence – a dirty little secret perhaps?? Hmm?? Or maybe it was just that the customer support folks monitoring the website in Bangalore weren’t able to comment on the conditions in the Hanoi factory.
Indeed it is a slippery moral slope when you start factoring in human rights issues into the production of cheap non leather wearables, on top of the environmental issues.
Is it still bad for your karma if it’s second hand leather?
mari said,
September 28, 2006 at 2:16 am
Some time ago, I remember reading a youngsters comment about people who were protesting against McDonalds outside one of their branches in Finland. Their main complaint had been the damage that McDonalds causes to rainforests by overgrazing cattle to make their famous burgers. The youngsters complaint (in my opinion a very correct one) was that most of the people at the demo were chain smoking… and what does the tobacco industry do to rainforests? I don’t have any facts and figures at hand, but I´m pretty sure tobacco industries are as much to blame for the downfall of rainforests as a company like McDonalds. Still think its great that those people were demonstrating, but they should really reconsider their own actions whilst doing so. This issue was constantly in my mind when trying to stop smoking and definitely was one of the things that finally pushed me to do so..
..but then its hard to be perfect and every little bit counts.
JP said,
October 31, 2006 at 6:26 am
From the environmental perspective, please remember that noxious chemicals are used to tan leather. Leather is far more environmentally destructive than synthetics for that reason. Cancer rates have been shown to be higher near leather tanneries for that reason.
amber said,
March 5, 2008 at 9:58 am
hey i with u on dat cuz wearin fur iz not good 4 animals at all i think ppl dat wear fur r stupid