Ella Rosenblatt weighs in on why empathy matters when discussing animals.
I was talking to a friend about a crazy day she had in San Francisco: dodging a drum circle in Golden Gate Park, watching a naked cyclist glide past on Market Street, squeezing onto a packed Muni bus and seeing a coyote wander her street when she returned home that night.
Despite this chaos, there was really only one part of her story that tripped me up. When referring to the coyote, she had said “it.” It — a small word with a big significance. Whether dogs, pigs, fish or coyotes, these are beings who think and feel. And yet, most of us still refer to them as “it.”
We use “it” for inanimate objects: a chair, a car, a cell phone. So, when we call a living being “it,” we place them in that same category—something rather than someone. It might seem harmless, but language shapes our perception. When we reduce an animal to an object in speech, we strip them of sentience and individuality in thought. And when animals are seen as objects, they become easier to exploit, confine or kill. Animals experience joy and grief, forge bonds and value their lives in the same way we value ours.
A mother cow bellows and runs after her calf, who is taken from her just after birth in the dairy industry. Mice and rats giggle when tickled. Every animal is someone. And we already use gendered pronouns for the animals we love. We say “she” when talking about the family dog and “he” when describing a friend’s cat.