Melanie Joy is a familiar name to many, for her work for animals and in challenging a quiet driver of suffering and sadness in the world today: Carnism.

About Melanie:

Melanie Joy, PhD, is a Harvard-educated psychologist specializing in relationships, communication, and social transformation. She is the award-winning author of six books, including the bestselling Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows and Getting Relationships Right: How to Build Resilience and Thrive in Life, Love, and Work. Joy is also an internationally recognized speaker and trainer who’s presented her work in fifty countries across six continents.

Joy is best known for her groundbreaking theories on the psychology of violence and nonviolence and building healthy relationships. Her analyses have helped explain why people engage in “nonrelational” behaviors—behaviors that harm other people, animals, the planet, and themselves—as well as how to change this pattern.

Her new book, How to End Injustice Everywhere: Understanding the Common Denominator Driving All Injustices, to Create a Better World for Humans, Animals, and the Planet breaks new ground:

In this eye-opening and compelling work, psychologist Melanie Joy reveals the common denominator driving all forms of injustice. The mentality that drives us to oppress and abuse humans is the same mentality that drives us to oppress and abuse nonhumans and the environment, as well as those in our own groups working for justice.

How to End Injustice Everywhere offers a fascinating examination of the psychology and structure of unjust systems and behaviors. It also offers practical tools to help raise awareness of these systems and dynamics, reduce infighting, and build more resilient and impactful justice movements.

Hear Melanie discuss her book, and learn why training ourselves to be relational can end injustice.

She said this about relations with future children:

We’ve all learned to believe the myth that there’s a hierarchy of moral worth: that some individuals or groups are more worthy of moral consideration, of being treated with respect, than others. This belief lies at the foundation of all forms and acts of injustice, which include not giving children a fair start in life. The belief in a hierarchy of moral worth lies at the core of the dysfunctional mentality that causes us to think, feel, and act in ways that violate our integrity and harm the dignity of others and that leads to unjust power imbalances.

By recognizing the hierarchy of moral worth as the myth that it is, we can help to create a more just world for children, enabling them to have the fair start in life that they deserve.

Her vision of justice aligns with what Fair Start sees as the first human right, a right that overrides all others, the right to an ecosocial fair start in life.