Like many people of color, I got an early introduction to bigotry and cruelty. For no other reason than that I looked "different" from my classmates, I was bullied, excluded and treated unkindly. And as a woman, I've experienced many of the same struggles and the inequity that women around the world have had to contend with.
Perhaps that's why the theme of this year's International Women's Day resonates with me so deeply: #BalanceforBetter. We all benefit when we work to make our world a more just and balanced place. As vice president of international affairs for the PETA Foundation U.K., that's a goal I strive toward every day.
My work has shown me that all the harmful "-isms" _ from racism to sexism to speciesism _ share common denominators of ignorance, exploitation and discrimination. Just as some animal abusers try to defend their actions by claiming that their victims don't feel emotion or pain, it was once commonly believed that black people couldn't feel pain to the same extent as white people, for example. (Shockingly, a recent University of Virginia study shows that many American medical students still appear to believe this.)
Perhaps it should be of little surprise, then, that in confronting cruelty to animals, I've become a target of abusers' cruelty myself. During my visits to document conditions in slaughterhouses in Asia, for example, I often seemed to be the only woman for miles around. Male workers _ armed with knives or axes _ leered at me and tried to intimidate and harass me by dangling animals' guts in front of me.
During these times, I thought about all the other female PETA eyewitnesses and activists who have risked their safety to expose abuse or fought to secure rights for themselves or others _ as well as the animals who endure far worse mistreatment by these violent men _ and it gave me the strength to stay focused and carry on.
But that harassment was apparently just a warm-up to what I'd face when I worked with PETA India on a campaign to stop jallikattu, a violent spectacle during which men form huge, raucous mobs to chase down bulls as they run for their lives in terror, pounce on them, bite their tails and jab them with sticks. Many bulls sustain broken horns and other painful injuries when they slip and fall in their desperate attempt to flee. Some even die.
Speaking out against this practice brought me threats of death and rape. Some pro-jallikattu protesters burned me in effigy, and countless others took to social media to threaten me. It was disturbing but not surprising that the bullies who find it fun to terrorize animals apparently also see nothing wrong with terrorizing a woman.
A few years ago, a Muslim female PETA India staffer and two other female colleagues who were helping her distribute literature were attacked by a mob of angry men, some of whom suggested stripping them, while others hurled stones at them and some shouted, "Rape them!" and "Kill them!" What was their "offense"? Simply encouraging other Muslims to consider observing Eid by giving alms of grain, fruit, clothing or money to the poor, instead of killing terrified goats.
The existence of such cruelty demands that we keep speaking up for the rights of all who are marginalized and oppressed in order to tip the scales and achieve balance so that all beings on our planet are afforded equal consideration of their interests and needs.
As Martin Luther King Jr. said, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." Securing basic rights for those who are like us in all the ways that matter _ such as their capacity to suffer and feel pain _ can move us closer to a kinder, more tolerant world for all.
