On the occasion of International Women’s Day we are going to talk about some role models we admire. To commemorate this March 8th, it seems necessary to highlight some of the heroic cases in which empowered women have undertaken great acts in the field of animal rights awareness, and have managed to have enough strength to start changing things and thus history and the way we see and understand our furry friends today.
Jane Goodall, speaking of primates
Officially, she is considered to be the first primate expert, and she has always been committed to the fight against the illegal trafficking of wild animals. She began her professional career aged 23 and became famous for the results of her research, which revolutionized the international scientific community. She devoted herself to studying their behavior and adaptation for 45 years in which, the love and devotion she felt for them led her to found the Jane Goodall Institute.
Nowadays, she is still one of the best-known activists of the animal cause and one of the most influential scientists in history for her work and her tireless activism in search of a more sustainable world.
Researcher Marian Dawkins
English biologist and professor of animal behavior at the University of Oxford. Her research has focused on animal consciousness and welfare, among others.
Animal consciousness today is a concept that is more than accepted and assumed, but it was not always the case. Thanks to her studies and analysis of the animal world, it was concluded that animals have feelings just like human beings, a concept that, until Marian’s work, was scientifically unknown.
Keri Cronin y Jo-Anne McArthur
Jo-Anne McArthur is a Canadian photojournalist, social educator, animal rights activist and author. She is known for her project We Animals, a photographic organization that documents human relationships with animals. Through the We Animals Humane Education program, McArthur offers presentations on human relationships with animals in educational and other settings, and through the We Animals Archive, provides photographs and other media for those who work to help animals.
She met Keri Cronin, professor of art history at the Visual Arts Department of Brock University, and together they created the Unbound Project, a multimedia and book project that aims to “recognize and celebrate women at the forefront of the defense of animals, both in a historical and contemporary context, and to inspire our audience to do what they can to make the world a friendlier and gentler place for all species “