Posts Tagged ‘vegetarianism’

Carol J. Adams’ The Sexual Politics of Meat explores the many similarities between vegetarianism and feminism. Through literary, cultural, and historical examples, Adams seeks to align the two movements, maintaining throughout the book that women and animals hold similar subordinate and exploited roles.

Early on in the text, Adams examines the link between masculinity and meat-eating, concluding that passivity has long been associated with women, and when vegetables came to be associated with women, they too came to be regarded as passive foods.

“A complete reversal has occurred in the definition of the word vegetable. Whereas its original sense was to be lively, active, it is now viewed as dull, monotonous, passive. To vegetate is to lead a passive existence. Once vegetables are viewed as women’s food, then by association they become viewed as ‘feminine,’ passive.”

She concludes that men who become vegetarians “challenge an essential part of the masculine role. [...] Men who choose not to eat meat repudiate one of their masculine privileges.”

In her chapter “The Rape of Animals, the Butchering of Women,” Adams investigates striking comparability between how animals are slaughtered in the meat industry and how women are typically assaulted or murdered. By studying the common phrase “I felt like a piece of meat” and consumption as a metaphor for rape, Adams explores the particular ways female bodies are brutalized (often dismembered, left on the sides of roads, or open fields). Adams supports her observations by citing common practices in slaughterhouses; the methods used to slaughter animals are often interchangeable with the most frequently used tactics to kill women.

Adams’ most prominent and fascinating literary example is her look into Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, asserting that Frankenstein’s monster (sometimes interpreted as a symbol of women’s alienation in society) was a vegetarian himself. She cites the passage from Shelley’s work with her analysis:

“ ‘My food is not that of man; I do not destroy the lamb and the kid, to glut my appetite; acorns and berries afford me sufficient nourishment. My companion will be of the same nature as myself, and will be content with the same fare. We shall make our bed of dried leaves; the sun will shine on us as on man and will ripen our food. The picture I present to you is peaceful and human.’ The Creature’s vegetarianism serves to make it a more sympathetic being, one who considers how it exploits others. By including animals within its moral circle the Creature provides an emblem for what it hoped for and needed — but failed to receive — from human society.”

The link between the Creature’s dietary choices and his alienation as “not man” is, according to Adams, a feminist one.

Adams’ theory, though, becomes somewhat far-fetched when she points out the vegetarianism of several notable feminists. In what feels like a last-ditch effort to legitimize her many literary and cultural claims, Adams scrambles to point out that Clara Barton (founder of the Red Cross), Matilda Joslyn Gage (an editor of The History of Woman Suffrage), and suffragists Jessica Henderson and Anne Gvinter were all vegetarians. Although this can serve as a women’s studies fun fact, these examples seem to detract from Adam’s larger argument, as she  cites minor exceptions along much more insightful observations.

The Sexual Politics of Meat, overall, is a very perceptive read on a notable, and yet rather undocumented, cultural intersection. Adams undoubtedly drives home her theory that patriarchal values have been institutionalized in the meat industry and that meat can, atleast in a literary sense, function as an appropriate metaphor for women’s oppression.

To read more about Carol J. Adams, click here.

Jonathan Safran Foer’s first nonfiction book explores the philosophy, practicality, and all-around cultural reasoning behind eating meat. An on-again, off-again vegetarian for years, Foer tackles the questions of dietary consciousnesses after the birth of his son. Faced with making dietary decisions for his first child, Foer begins his journey into contemplating, with a genuine curiosity, the consumption of meat, putting the question as honestly to himself as to his reader.

For much of the book, Foer maintains a fairly moderate voice with regards to the practice of eating meat, balancing descriptions of his grandmother’s signature chicken dish, which he will always remember having enjoyed as a child, with his first realization that the meat on his plate was once a living animal.

For his interviews, Foer thoughtfully chooses complex individuals whose relationship with meat is not exactly black and white, such as a vegetarian who raises animals for slaughter, a vegan who builds slaughterhouses, and a young animal activist who sneaks into farms to put suffering animals out of their misery. Foer includes letters from various workers in the meat industry, many of them deeply troubled by the numerous violations of humane slaughter laws that they have witnessed. Hairs are proverbially split between various activist camps as Foer explores the difference between animal rights and animal welfare advocates. Through his own research and toured visits, Foer exposes the lies about animal welfare that are perpetuated under terms like “cage free,” “free range,” and “organic.”

Many factors of our now completely meat-dependent society are addressed in detail: the environmental dangers of our continuous consumption, the poor quality of our meat relative to that of previous generations, and why meat prices are able to remain comparatively low.

Eating Animals is a well-crafted meditation on right and wrong that doesn’t rest on the opinion of the radical animal activist or the consistent carnivore. Foer raises more questions than he answers, particularly about the stories we tell with the food we choose and what we owe to the health of our children.

To read more about Jonathan Safran Foer, click here.