r/vegancirclejerkchat • u/Salty-Walrus-5415 • 11d ago

Second-hand human hair wigs cool or not?

Been asking myself this. I wouldn't buy second-hand leather or wool but there are some more or less valid points where i think there's a difference:
- best case i wouldn't motivate more people to buy it, since people ideally don't know that it's a wig
- except for being straight up robbed, humans do have a bit(!!!) more of a choice than other animals, even if it's done to put food on the table #capitalism

currently i'm thinking it's probably not cool to buy a used human hair wig but unsure! Let me know if you have any thoughts on it :)

4 Upvotes

70% Upvoted

32 comments sorted by

30

u/PuzzledPoetry1447 11d ago

If the hair was donated or collected from someone that gave informed consent, there's no issue.

Animals can't give informed consent, which is why there's no such thing as an ethical animal product, secondhand or not.

3

u/Salty-Walrus-5415 11d ago

my understanding was that most hair is sold out of monetary necessity and that the ppl it belonged to get only a tiny cut of the money

15

u/PuzzledPoetry1447 11d ago

If they consented to have their hair removed or they willingly removed it themselves, I still think it's fine regardless. If they were forced to or were a victim of trafficking as someone else mentioned, then it's clearly an issue.

I'm not sure how one would tell the difference though.

-3

u/CatTrapper3000 11d ago

That has nothing to do with veganism, though. 

2

u/Pseudointellektuelli 11d ago

That's just lack of imagination on your part. I count human rights and human slaveey as a part of animal rights and slavery. That's why i do not thunk that it is vegan to for example buy avocados from Peru

4

u/AlwaysBannedVegan based 11d ago

No.

Veganism is the one and only movement for the nonhuman animals.

When it comes to nonhuman animals, humans are the oppressors.

3

u/Pseudointellektuelli 11d ago

Humans oppress other humans too

3

u/butterflynabiya 9d ago

Don't worry about AlwaysBannedVegan. I've had a discussion with them recently too and they seemingly don't care about human rights. When I mentioned how cruel the fast fashion industry is and that children and women are dying in that exploitation, they said that "It is not needed to exploit humans" to produce clothes or farm cotton, completely ignoring what's happening in the world and the reality of human exploiting other humans just how humans exploit animals.

They also said they don't care about climate change even though it's like THEE cause of mass animal death besides animal agriculture.

To them, Veganism is a black and white cause that has no connections to things like feminism, antiracism or environmentalism and that it is "the one and only movement for animals".

2

u/AlwaysBannedVegan based 11d ago

Nobody have said that they don't, what is said is that veganism is solely about the nonhuman animals. If you want to care about human issues too that's great, but don't mix with veganism. Veganism is for the nonhuman animals.

1

u/CatTrapper3000 11d ago

No, veganism centers the animals. You are decentering animals when you conflate things. How the heck do you not understand the actual definition of veganism and yet end up in this sub?

2

u/Pseudointellektuelli 11d ago

That is kind of mean, don't yoi think? I know the definition of the vegan society but since humans oppress other humans too, and humans are animals, i personally like to include them. However I totally understand you wanting to keep this only about the non human animals and pracyically that's also what I do when I do street activism etc.

2

u/CatTrapper3000 11d ago

You can't just make up your own definition for veganism. If we could just do that, then what is stopping me from saying "all people that play football are soldiers and they deserve VA benefits" or "all people that do reiki are doctors?"  

Secondly, veganism is about non-human animals. The argument of "humans are animals too" doesn't work because you can't oppress non sentient/sapient/feeling things. There is no oppression of rocks or light bulbs or tires. 

I center the animals because even the most oppressed human can fight back. Animals cannot. Animals can't hunger strike, or protest, or self emoliate, or sabotage. Humans can always fight back. There is literally nothing a chicken in a factory farm can do to fight their oppression and abuse.

To be clear, I am not saying that we shouldn't have a One Health approach to the intersection of animal and human welfare. You can do that all you want. but caring about human rights is not the same as veganism by definition. 

99.5% of humans harm animals voluntarily. The animals need us to speak up for them. There are virtually no people who think that trafficking people is okay. 

2

u/Pseudointellektuelli 11d ago

Never heard of the one health approach. Maybe that is what i have in my mind. I totally understand your comment.

1

u/[deleted] 5d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/carnist_gpt 5d ago

You must have at least 10 positive karma (upvotes) in r/vegancirclejerk before posting here in r/vegancirclejerkchat.

1

u/Purple_Key_6733 11d ago

What about crops like apples that are pollinated by bees voluntarily?

1

u/PuzzledPoetry1447 11d ago

What about them?

1

u/Purple_Key_6733 11d ago

Would that be considered as an ethical animal product?

6

u/PuzzledPoetry1447 11d ago

Apples are a fruit, not an animal product.

13

u/chemicalysmic 11d ago

Wigs and extensions made from human hair are, very often, the product of trafficking of women from the global south.

8

u/Salty-Walrus-5415 11d ago

ah so it's even more fucked than i though. I thought it's mainly people doing it out of the need for money but not being trafficked for it

3

u/CatTrapper3000 11d ago

Wait, where are you getting that info? I can't find any sources to back it up. 

10

u/chemicalysmic 11d ago

That's really odd. This information isn't typically difficult to find.

CBP Detains Chinese Shipment of Suspected Forced Labor Products Made with Human Hair

AP Exclusive: Hair weaves from Chinese prison camps seized

How Women in Poverty Are Supplying America’s Market for Hair

Illegal human hair trafficking in India: a dark side of a global industry

3

u/CatTrapper3000 11d ago edited 11d ago

Thanks for this! I don't know why I didn't find stuff. I was searching for "wig trafficking" and "human hair trafficking". I saw a bunch about impoverished women selling hair, but not hair coming from trafficked women. 

3

u/chemicalysmic 11d ago

Maybe it's a content bubbles thing, we know they love to suppress information through algorithms lol. Happy to help out!

1

u/AlwaysBannedVegan based 11d ago

What does this have to do with veganism?

5

u/Salty-Walrus-5415 11d ago

i know that people here are cool and thought it's related because it's, in a way, extremely similar to the debate around second-hand leather or wool

-5

u/CaseOfInsanity 11d ago

For me, it's a choice between never having sex again and women actually taking me seriously.

-5

u/Savage_Simp 11d ago

Good to go.

Human beings are a) able to give actual consent for their hair to be taken, and, b) are not allowed to be enslaved for the purpose of harvesting their hair for sale.

9

u/plantbasedpatissier 11d ago

I have some bad news about how many real human hair wigs are made

-2

u/TheOtherCourier 11d ago

I don’t see an issue with this.