Public speaking 3 – The Dairy Issue

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Ostensibly, we might have been invited to speak on this particular subject (“Going Vegan”) but in order to speak freely and say what we want to say fully, we need to get past the defence barriers.  We need to overcome the expectation that we’ll be ‘giving offence’. That needs to be squashed soon after we start talking, in order to win the permission of the audience for opening up this particular taboo.

Talking about abattoirs and meat eating is relatively straight forward, because the audience is likely to be interested in vegetarianism; it’s likely many are already vegetarians.  But as soon as we start to talk about dairy cows, people think we’re going too far.  They’ll know we are about to attack ice cream, chocolate and having milk in coffee, etc.  This is where I think it’s a good idea to preface what we are going to say by exonerating them.  By explaining that most people are unaware of what happens on the dairy farm, that most people believe ‘dairy’ is nutritionally good for them, and that almost all people use milk products.  I’d be prefacing my talk with all this, to ease-in the most difficult-to-swallow information I need to get across.

It’s only when the ground has been prepared that we can talk about the reality of ‘the dairy misconception’.  And let’s face it, what we’re mentioning here is daunting.

         

Something we have to do here is to go beyond the words we’re about to use (in explaining the reasons we have for ‘going vegan’).  It’s in the tone of our voice, its evenness, it’s neutrality, it’s invitation to the audience to feel comfortable about asking questions.  Using the right body language here is all important.  The voice must never be shrill, the hands need to be kept still and eye contact maintained all the time. (Frequent reference to notes at this delicate stage is not recommended - the thread of the talk should be committed to memory as far as possible).

To people who love their ice cream and butter and other often-used dairy products, why would they want to listen to anything that will turn them off their favourite foods?  And what will make them sit on the edge of their seats and be attentive?  It’s not as if they are reading a book, which can be put down and picked up again later.  This is direct interaction, between speaker and audience.  (Ideally!)

So, in order not to seem severe or seem to be making value judgements, it’s best to keep ourselves out of the way, and become almost like a book.  We should be advisory but never finger-wagging.  We should make a show of understanding a person’s struggle about all this, and admit that giving up dairy products might not be easy.

It goes down well to admit how one made mistakes, took backward steps, gave in to temptations, etc.  A speaker who is vulnerable, instead of holier-than-thou, is more approachable.  Eventually, the hard facts need to be spoken about, how the cows suffer, how the calves are shot soon after birth, the foreshortened, exhausted life of the dairy cow, the nutritional harm of using milk-products.  However we bring together the relevant information, it’s what comes before it that makes the difference between outright rejection or the acceptance of an audience.