Carol J. Adams On The Sexual Politics of Meat
One of the most exciting aspects of veganism is the way in which it challenges one to think holistically about one's relationship to a wide variety of interconnected social justice concerns. While opponents frequently try to paint it as a myopic "one issue" cause, the reality is that veganism witnesses to the urgent need for social change not just in the ways that non-human animals are viewed and treated, but also in the ways that human beings are viewed and treated.
In her pioneering work on feminism, race, and vegetarianism, activist and social theorist Carol J. Adams is concerned, in particular, with articulating the structural and historical parallels between human and animal subjugation. Her guiding question, investigated at length in both The Sexual Politics of Meat and The Pornography of Meat, is that of how dominant culture succeeds in reducing "someone" (an irreplaceable, individual person or animal) into "something"-a consumable object or "mass term" in which all vestiges of the original "someone" are effaced.
Like many texts that question the domination of the status quo, Carol Adams' work is not exactly beach reading. But if you like a challenge, it might well change the way you look at bodies on the beach, be they those of scantily clad people basking in the sun or those of butchered "food" animals sizzling on the grill.
To be sure, Adams has a lot to say on this topic. The first part of The Sexual Politics of Meat is entitled "The Patriarchal Texts of Meat", wherein Adams explicitly addresses the historical and contemporary kinship between "male dominance" and meat-eating (in both racist/colonialist and sexist contexts). Here are some outtakes:
From the heading "Meat is King" (42-43):
"Meat is king: this noun describing meat is a noun denoting male power. Vegetables, the generic term meat eaters use for all fods that are not meat, have become as associated with women as meat is with men, recalling on a subconscious level the days of Woman the Gatherer [as opposed to Man the Hunter]. Since women have been made subsidiary in a male-dominated, meat-eating world, so has our food. The foods associated with second class citizens are considered to be second-class protein. Just as it is thought a woman cannot make it on her won, so we think that vegetables cannot make a meal on their own, despite the fact that meat is only secondhand vegetables and vegetables provide, on the average, more than twice the vitamins and minerals of meat. Meat is upheld as a powerful, irreplaceable item of food. The message is clear: the vassal vegetable should content itself with its assigned place and not attempt to dethrone king meat. After all, how can one entrhone women's foods when women cannot be kings?"
From the heading "The Male Language of Meat-Eating" (44-45)
"Men who decide to eschew meat eating are deemed effeminate; failure of men to eat meat announces that they are not masculine. Nutritionist Jean Mayer suggested that "the more men sit at their desks all day, the more they want to be reassured about their maleness in eating those large slabs of bleeding meat which are the last symbol of machismo." [...] One's maleness is reassured by the food one eats.
From the heading "Meat is a Symbol of Patriarchy" (47-48)
"In her essay, "Deciphering a Meal," the noted antrhopologist Mary Douglas suggests that the order in which we serve foods, and the foods we insist on being present at a meal, reflect a taxonomy of classification that mirrors and reinforces our larger culture. [...] A meal does not begin with a dessert, nor end with soup. All is seen as leading up to and then coming down from the entree that is meat. The pattern is evidence of stability. As Douglas explains, "The ordered system which is a meal represents all the ordered systems associated with it. Hence the strong arousal power of a threat to weaken or confuse that category." To remove meat is threaten the structure of the larger patriarchal culture."
Adams goes on, using a variety of empirical sociological and psychological studies, to demonstrate tight connections between meat eating culture and the culture of objectification, marginalization, and violence toward women. Particularly interesting are some of her claims about the links between sport-hunting culture and communities with high incidences of battery and rape in domestic relationships.
The Vegucator | May 31, 2007 12:19 PMsounds good. ill probably read it, thanks!
emma | May 31, 2007 2:16 PM
what does she have to say about men/masculinity and its relation to meat?
emma | May 30, 2007 5:44 PM