When people talk about the injustices of clothing made from animals, they're usually talking about fur - with good reason. About 85 percent of the fur people wear comes from fur farms, which generally face no regulation whatsoever and therefore treat animals merely as machines for the maximization of profit. Animals are crammed into tiny cages, unable to move for their entire lives. There is no federal law that regulates how animals are killed for fur, so farmers generally go for the cheapest method, irrespective of the pain it causes. Some animals are killed by having their necks snapped, while others die from breathing in engine exhaust or being poisoned. A particularly popular method is anal electrocution - I'll spare you the details and just let you imagine what that method entails.
Fur that is not farmed comes from wild animals that are killed in leg-hold traps. One out of every four trapped animals escapes by chewing off its own foot, only to die later from blood loss, fever, gangrene or predation. As if that weren't enough, fur is an environmental disaster. In fact, real fur takes 20 times as much energy to produce as faux fur.
That said, a lot of you reading this may be contentedly thinking to yourselves that, unlike your Grandma, you don't own a full-length fur coat, so none of the above applies to you. And that brings us back to Uggs. Your boots or your fur-trimmed coat or leather belt may not be quite as ostentatious as a full fur coat made from over 60 animal pelts, but the process by which the other products are produced is just as cruel. Sheepskin is not like wool, which is sheared off a living sheep; sheepskin necessarily involves killing the animal. Most sheepskin comes from Australia, where animals are frequently killed in methods illegal in the United States or simply left to die in barren feedlots from which their skin will later be collected.
While meat eaters frequently tell me that they are concerned that they "need" the protein from meat or are concerned about the health effects of a vegetarian diet, it is hard to see how switching from sheepskin to synthetic boots would adversely affect anyone. You don't need to wear animal products, period. We're not living in Siberia; you don't need fur to stay warm and there are durable, quality alternatives to any animal product clothing or accessory item. Every iota of suffering inflicted on animals to produce clothing provides something that is purely a luxury.
We need to accept that what we buy and consume has moral implications. Clothing is no exception. Most of us know that buying clothing produced in sweatshops is wrong, but many do so anyway because it's easier to choose looking "good" over the well-being of others. The Princeton Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) seeks to challenge this same set of priorities that leads people to buy items from sweatshops or child laborers. A love of convenience and reflexive aversion to change is simply no good reason to avoid moving toward kinder, more just ways of dressing ourselves.
That is why today you will see members of PAWS lying out in the cold on the Frist North Lawn for our demonstration, entitled "What If You Were Killed for Your Coat." We'll be wearing fur coats donated for animal activism by individuals who have realized the harm that using animals for clothing causes.
Our demonstration is not just about encouraging you to stop buying animal products, though that's a good place to start. It's also about changing the way we look at fashion and realizing that what is "hot" and "in style" should also be what is sustainable and humane. Or better yet, donate your Uggs to PAWS so we can smear them in fake blood and use it for another protest. They're ugly anyway.
Alex Barnard is the vice president of the Princeton Animal Welfare Society. He can be reached at abarnard@princeton.edu.
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