The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory (Bloomsbury Revelations) Read online

  Everyone is affected by the sexual politics of meat. We may dine at a restaurant in Chicago and encounter this menu item: “Double D Cup Breast of Turkey. This sandwich is so BIG.” Or, we may dine at the restaurant chain Hooters, which has a logo ostensibly of owl’s eyes. In its menu, the restaurant explains how it came up with the name “Hooters” which is a slang for “breasts”: “Now the dilemma . . . what to name the place. Simple . . . what else brings a gleam to men’s eyes everywhere besides beer and chicken wings and an occasional winning football season. Hence, the name—Hooters—it is supposed that they were into owls.” Or look at the image of “Ursula Hamdress” on page 20, from a publication called Playboar: The Pig Farmer’s “Playboy” that continues to be sold in upscale bookstores. In each of these cases, animals are ostensibly the topic, but women are the absent referents.

  Through the sexual politics of meat, consuming images such as these provide a way for our culture to talk openly about and joke about the objectification of women without having to acknowledge that this is what they are doing. It is a way that men can bond publicly around misogyny whether they know it or not. It makes the degradation of women appear playful and harmless: “just” a joke. No one has to be accountable because women are not being depicted. Thus everyone can enjoy the degradation of women without being honest about it. “We’re just looking at a pig.” “It’s only a sandwich.” “We’re just eating at Hooters.”

  These issues are “in our face” all the time. We do not perceive them as problematic because we are so used to having our dominant culture mirror these attitudes. We become shaped by and participants in the structure of the absent referent. The sexual politics of meat also works at another level: the ongoing superstition that meat gives strength and that men need meat. Just as a proliferation of images in which women and animals are absent referents appeared in the past ten years, so there has been a resurgence of “beef madness” in which meat is associated with masculinity. As an article in the New York Times announced shortly after the appearance of The Sexual Politics of Meat: “Scotch and beef are served in a new shrine to trousers.” The article observes “in keeping with the masculine spirit of the evening, the hors d’oeurves were beefy—roast beef on toast, chunked chicken in pastry shell. None of that asparagus and cucumber fluff here.” A “man-pleasing” brunch recipe in Cosmopolitan called for “4 cups beef.” New Woman explored the issue of “Love, Sex, and Flank steak” in 1996, querying “What do men want?” The answer, from a writer and New York Times reporter:

  In my experience the answer is great sex and a great steak—and not necessarily in that order. Sure, they want money and power, but only because of what those can win them—sex and steak. Both are closely related, as muscular, full-bodied pleasures of the flesh, and each ignites desire for the other. A hot, juicy, blood-red steak or a succulently thick hamburger induces an overall sense of well-being and a surge of self-assurance that is sure to make him feel good about himself and by association, you. That is especially true in this country, where beef is the quintessential macho fare.

  Let’s face it, the assumptions about men in this article are as insulting as the assumptions about women. The sexual politics of meat traps everyone—“him,” “you,” and the animals who are supposed to be consumed.

  When a book features an idea originally conceived twenty-five years ago, the question appropriately arises: “Are these insights still timely?” Sadly, the answer is yes, even more so. During the past decade, the sexual politics of meat has experienced much cultural expression. The argument in chapter 1 that meat is part of the cultural mythology of maleness, can be found in diverse aspects of popular culture: From a Seinfeld episode that features the comedian desperately trying to hide the fact that he is not eating meat so his date will not mistake him for a “wimp,” to the examples from Cosmopolitan and New Woman, the message continues to be that men are supposed to eat meat and that meat is associated with virility. In the ads and menus and match covers and billboards that have appeared in the past ten years, the aspects of the sexual politics of meat proposed in chapter 2—the overlapping, interconnected oppression of women and nonhuman animals—are evident.

  Things feel worse not only in terms of the cultural depiction but also in terms of the staggering numbers. Anyone familiar with the first edition of this book knows that the dedication was to six billion animals slaughtered for food in the United States. Now the number is almost at nine and a half billion, and rising. Added to this number is the conservative estimate of 21.7 billion sea animals killed every year in the United States.

  Over the past decade, an immense amount of documentation has appeared confirming the healthful nature of a complete vegetarian diet—one that does not rely on any animal products. Why, given the proven health benefits of a low-fat, no-cholesterol, high-fiber diet, and the associations of meat eating with deaths or illness from “mad cow disease,” E. coli contamination, listeria, campylobacter, and salmonella poisoning, does meat eating remain such an important part of our culture’s diet? Why is it that now, here in Dallas, the waiting time for popular “steak-houses” on a weekend can be two to three hours?

  Clearly, meat eating is habitual; inertia militates against change. But that is not the only reason. People are able to change. Contributing to the inertia is the mythology of meat eating. Our culture accepts all the aspects of the sexual politics of meat, including the basic one that people need meat to stay healthy (read: strong). Moreover, government support of meat eating is clear as the politicians launch sexist attacks on “welfare queens” but not on the “cowboy welfare kings” whose cattle raising is subsidized by the federal government.

  In the past ten years, our awareness increased about the immense environmental consequences of factory farming and the impact of this dehumanizing treatment on animals and their human tenders. Yet, meat eaters continue to believe they are eating a humane diet. Meat eaters like to believe that they are doing what complete vegetarians do—eating humanely—without actually doing what complete vegetarians do—not eating animal products. And so, images of animals living in freedom on a family farm abound when in fact the animals’ lives are nothing like the depictions. We believe both that we are being kind to the animals and that they like how we are treating them. Or we like to believe that the animals have no consciousness of suffering and that their plight should not affect us. To paraphrase Rousseau, everywhere animals are in chains, but we image them as free. This denial is very strong. To convey this sense of the animals’ freedom, patriarchal-cultural images draw upon cues about another supposed freedom: the consumption of women’s sexuality. Thus animals and women are not only depicted as free, though they are not, but as sexually free. The result is the sexual politics of meat.

  Ironically, when I finally finished my book after fifteen years of working on it, a few reviewers accused me of trying to take advantage of the faddishness of vegetarianism in the late 1980s. The Sexual Politics of Meat appeared to be “trendy” because of what it was actually doing, offering a synthesis that made sense of two seemingly divergent impulses—justice for women and concern about animals. It is not that this book was the first feminist book to treat vegetarianism seriously as a political act of resistance, though it does do that. And it is not that I challenged animal advocates and vegetarians to become aware of sexual politics, though I do that as well. It was that the book heralds an exciting movement in scholarship that honors connections, recognizes overlapping oppressions, and works to challenge the fragmentation of activism.

  Since the publication of The Sexual Politics of Meat, I have become immersed in these exciting movements of scholars and activists alike who are challenging a violent and violating worldview. In the 1980s, ecofeminists began to identify the interrelated oppression of women and animals, and in the last decade they have continued these efforts. I have been honored to meet many of these fine women, including Marti Kheel, Lori Gruen, Greta Gaard, Josephine Donovan, Ynestra King, Barbara Noske, an
d Karen Warren. In addition, there has been important activism and scholarship identifying the relationship between violence against humans and violence against animals, including the direct relationship between child and animal abuse, and woman-battering and animal abuse. The activism of women associated with Feminists for Animal Rights, Marti Kheel, Batya Bauman, Lisa Finlay, and Michelle Taylor, has empowered feminists and animal activists around the world to continue to make connections. In addition, Feminists for Animal Rights provides information on domestic violence and harm to animals, and offers model programs for working with battered women’s shelters in providing housing for companion animals of battered women.

  I have appreciated the editorial role of Merle Hoffman of On the Issues, Robin Morgan at Ms., Kim Stallwood at Animals’ Agenda, and Martin Rowe at Satya, who have published writings that continue to make connections. Campus activism on the issue is increasing. When I travel to campuses, I meet energized students working to educate the campus community. The Bloodroot Collective continues to serve delicious meals in their feminist-vegetarian restaurant at 85 Ferris Street, Bridgeport, Connecticut. Artist Sue Coe’s Dead Meat, filmmaker Jennifer Abbott’s A Cow at My Table, Ruth Ozeki’s My Year of Meats, and Consolidated’s compact disk Friendly Fascism offer different artistic ways of representing the interconnections of violence.

  The discussion about animals and religion is beginning to catch up with the philosophical debate about animals. There is now a working group on animals and religions that is part of the American Academy of Religion. Literary analysis concerning animals outpaces religious studies. Marian Scholtmeijer’s important work Animal Victims in Modern Fiction has been joined by others who refuse to view animals merely as means to an end, whether it be academic or gustatory. A Society for Animal Advocacy through Literature (SAAL) has emerged, made up of individuals who are researching and teaching on animals in literature from a strong advocacy position.

  A concern voiced to me after the appearance of The Sexual Politics of Meat was that animal advocacy deflects women from dealing with our own oppression. I understand that concern. Approximately eighty percent of the animal advocacy movement is women. I have met and corresponded with animal advocates around the world who are immersed in forwarding both issues since they recognize how intertwined they are. In two anthologies, Josephine Donovan and I collect the important work of Karen Davis, Brian Luke, Susanne Kappeler, and others to indicate the exciting scholarship that arises from the recognition of the interconnections.

  This book does not provide a history of feminism and vegetarianism. It cannot—at least not yet. Even after ten years, there remains so much primary research work that must occur first. Instead, the book challenges traditional vegetarian and women’s histories. Vegan cookbook author and social historian Leah Leneman’s fine article on vegetarianism and the British women’s suffrage movement is a model for the kind of work needed to pinpoint exactly how feminist activism and vegetarianism interacted in the past.

  What of veganism—the abstaining from all animal products? The vegetarianism envisioned in this book is dairy- and egg-free. The Sexual Politics of Meat proposes a specific conceptual term to recognize the exploitation of the reproductive processes of female animals: milk and eggs should be called feminized protein, that is, protein that was produced by a female body. The majority of animals eaten are adult females and children. Female animals are doubly exploited: both when they are alive and then when they are dead. They are the literal female pieces of meat. Female animals become oppressed by their femaleness, becoming surrogate wetnurses. Then when their (re)productiveness ends, they are butchered and become animalized protein, or protein in the form of flesh. In the past ten years, an explosion of innovative vegan recipe books has occurred and many vegetarian cookbooks offer vegan alternatives.

  This book does not propose an essentialist view of the body. I do not believe definitively in the human vegetarian body; I know that people have survived as omnivores. But many of my sources did believe people were physiologically constructed as vegetarians. All of the health benefits of a complete vegetarian diet affirm their intuitions, if not their science. And presently, our diets have evolved faster than our bodies. I use the term “vegetarian body” metaphorically, trying to evoke these earlier claims, and gesturing to the preventive benefits that scientific studies have now confirmed for vegetarianism. The phrase “vegetarian body” also conveys the transformational nature of becoming a vegetarian. In the act of becoming vegetarians our relationship with our bodies often changes, and even if we humans as a species have not evolved vegetarian bodies, we vegetarians and vegans seem to evolve a vegetarian body—one whose optimum health and happiness is achieved through being vegetarians.

  I do not propose an essentialist view of women, either. I do not believe women are innately more caring than men, or have an essential pacifist quality. But many of my feminist-vegetarian sources did believe this. I do believe that when one lacks power in the dominant culture, such disempowerment may make one more alert to other forms of disempowerment. Privilege resists self-examination, but exclusion does not. I do not believe that women essentially “care,” but I do believe that it is essential for all of us to care and acknowledge relationships.

  Over the twenty-five years of working on this issue, I have heard one recurring response, “I’d be a vegetarian but my husband needs to eat meat.” If I had a dollar for every time that I have heard this response since 1974, I could endow the Feminists for Animal Rights organization for years to come. By believing they must feed their husbands meat, these women perpetuate the sexual politics of meat that says men need meat to be strong and that men should determine the contents of the dinner plate. Meat eating becomes another vehicle for self-denial, for placing the partners needs first. Women see themselves as more responsible for taking care of their partner’s needs than for taking care of their own needs. Many women appear fearful of what the absence of meat says to their husbands about themselves. Their thinking goes something like this: “It is my responsibility to meet his needs. He wants meat. If I do not prepare meat, I will not be meeting his needs. Since I am supposed to meet his needs, I am failing at a basic level of my responsibilities. This causes me to neglect him.” She does not want to be seen as failing in the role expectations that she has assumed are legitimate.

  The question may arise: Even if there is a connection between meat eating and a patriarchal worldview, does this necessarily prove the reverse, a connection between feminism and vegetarianism? Feminism should not embrace vegetarianism simply because it is a negation of the dominant world. It should embrace it because of what it is and represents. Vegetarianism is in fact deeply proactive and transformative. It is also delicious. Justice should not be so fragile a commodity that it cannot be extended beyond the species barrier of Homo sapiens. I have faith that those humans who have been exploited can empathize with and help nonhumans who have been exploited. The words of poet Fran Winant, “Eat rice have faith in women,” remain a credo and a vision.

  PREFACE TO THE ORIGINAL EDITION

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  My becoming a vegetarian had seemingly little relationship to my feminism—or so I thought. Now I understand how and why they are intimately connected, how being a vegetarian reverberates with feminist meaning. I discovered that what appeared to me as isolated concerns about health and ethics were interrelated and illumined by feminist insights. This book details these interrelationships and examines the connections between male dominance and meat eating. It argues that to talk about eliminating meat is to talk about displacing one aspect of male control and demonstrates the ways in which animals’ oppression and women’s oppression are linked together.

  In some respects we all acknowledge the sexual politics of meat. When we think that men, especially male athletes, need meat, or when wives report that they could give up meat but they fix it for their husbands, the overt association between meat eating and virile maleness is enacted. It is the covert assoc
iations that are more elusive to pinpoint as they are so deeply embedded within our culture.

  My endeavor in this book is to make the covert associations overt by explaining how our patriarchal culture authorizes the eating of animals and in this to identify the cross-mapping between feminism and vegetarianism.

  Besides contributing to feminist theory, this book forms a part of the emerging corpus of works on animal advocacy. Close examination of meat eating is an essential aspect of animal defense theory because meat eating is the most extensive destruction of animals. Where this book deviates from other pro-animal texts is in establishing the relationship between patriarchal culture and this form of animal oppression. Vegetarianism seeks meaning in a patriarchal culture that silences it; it is continually butting up against the sexual politics of meat. Cato cautioned, “It is a difficult task, O citizens, to make speeches to the belly which has no ears.”1 This expresses the dilemma of those who raise their voices against eating animals: it is a difficult task to argue against the dominant beliefs about meat when they have been reinforced by a personal enjoyment of meat eating and are heavily freighted with symbolism.

  Consequently, any comprehensive study of vegetarianism and feminism must consider how vegetarianism is received as well as what vegetarianism itself claims. Why has vegetarianism been considered a fad when, like feminist insights, it is a reform and idea that has recurred throughout history? Why is the vegetarian aspect to a writer or her work often ignored by literary critics? I struck upon the idea of the texts of meat to answer these questions.