Speciesism – like sexism, racism, and other forms of discrimination – is an oppressive belief system in which those with power draw boundaries to justify exploiting or excluding their fellow beings who are less powerful. A human supremacist line of "reasoning" is used to defend treating other living, feeling beings like research tools, fabric, toys, or even food ingredients – even though they share our capacity for pain, hunger, fear, thirst, love, joy, and loneliness and have as much interest in freedom and staying alive as humans do.

From childhood, most humans are conditioned to view certain species as worthy of care and compassion and others as less important or unworthy – based on arbitrary preferences. This toxic view also leads people to draw groundless distinctions between animal species based on their perceived usefulness to humans. Consider the following examples:

• Animals are often referred to as property. Many humans call themselves an animal's "owner" and refer to the animal as "it", as if he or she were an inanimate object like a table or a chair.
• Most humans wouldn't dream of keeping their dog in a cramped, crowded warehouse on a slab of filthy concrete, which is the way pigs are treated in the food industry – even though pigs are able to experience the same pain, joy, fear, and misery that dogs can.
• Some people wear coats trimmed with fur from coyotes or stuffed with feathers pulled from a screaming goose, but most of them would never consider tearing fistfuls of fur out of a crying kitten's back with their own hands.
• Many people judge other cultures for eating dogs or poaching wildlife while wilfully turning a blind eye to their own cruel habits – as if eating other animals or hunting deer were any different.