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194 reviews for:
The Sexual Politics of Meat (20th Anniversary Edition): A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory
Carol J. Adams
3.91 AVERAGE
194 reviews for:
The Sexual Politics of Meat (20th Anniversary Edition): A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory
Carol J. Adams
3.91 AVERAGE
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
“Our dietary choices reflect and reinforce our cosmology, our politics.”
This sentence, the third-to-last sentence in The Sexual Politics of Meat, nicely summarizes Carol Adams’s basic thesis in this book wherein she ties together her feminist critique of patriarchy with her vegetarian critique of patriarchy. These two social critiques, argues Adams, are not merely related but are part of an organic whole: to live fully the feminist protest against the heterosexual male oppressiveness of patriarchy, one must recognize the kinship that women’s oppression shares with non-humans animals and act accordingly.
Patriarchy objectifies women: within the patriarchal system, women are not beings for themselves; rather, they are instruments to serve men: they serve men as mothers, as marital servants, as food preparers, as bodies for sating male sexual desires, etc. In these roles, women are no longer subjects with a first-person perspective but are dehumanized and objectified; they are “fragmented” in Adams’s terms: they are broken down into parts: in the dominant patriarchal narrative, any particular role that a woman has is viewed in terms of that particular role in serving the interests and desires of men. Thus, a woman takes her objectified identity from her various positions in relation to the male power structure and loses her subjective identity as a person for her own self.
In similar fashion, non-human animals are fragmented and objectified: the corpses humans eat are literally fragmented when they are chopped into pieces, and the non-human animal becomes not a free, living, sentient being pursuing its own goals in nature as a subject with its own perspective but becomes merely an object: food for humans. This is especially evident in the way that language attempts to remove from our minds the fact that the corpses that are eaten were once living subjects themselves: humans eat meat, not corpses; humans eat beef and hamburgers and steak, not cows; humans eat pork and bacon and ham, not pigs; humans eat chicken or turkey (notice the missing indefinite articles), not a chicken or a turkey; humans eat mutton, not a sheep.
The fragmentation and objectification of non-human animals, Adams argues, is carried out largely by the patriarchal power structures: men are the hunters, the butchers, the killers, and women are forced to comply with this system in preparing meat and in eating it, too. Thus, in preparing meat and eating meat, women are acting against their own interests in being subjects for themselves by helping to objectify non-human animals just as men objectify women.
Adams argues for this thesis drawing on history, anthropology, biology, myth, and literature. She makes her argument skillfully and in the manner of academic feminists and Marxists, of literary deconstructionists, and of post-structuralist social critics, but she does so with a clarity and precision that is often missing in academia. Her arguments are not rigorously deductive arguments but proceed in a classical inductive fashion, adding detail upon detail, example upon example, to support her thesis.
And Adams also points out (though the scope of this book does not really grant her the opportunity to argue this point in much detail) that not only are feminism and vegetarianism necessarily linked in opposition to patriarchy, but this opposition is also shared by critiques of patriarchal racism and homophobia and militarism; thus, just as feminists, if they are truly to practice an authentic critique of patriarchy, must be vegetarians, so too must feminist-vegetarians rise up against racism, homophobia, and war as must those in the civil rights community (both ethnic minorities and the LGBT community) and the pacifist community make common cause with the feminist-vegetarians.
As an aside, I should mention that Adams wrote this book in 1989, when the term vegan was not much used; had she written this book in this decade, she probably would have used the term vegan in lieu of vegetarian as Adams herself is not merely a vegetarian but also a vegan.
Perhaps the best summation of this book is to be found in this paragraph in Adams’s last chapter:
“Eating animals acts as mirror and representation of patriarchal values. Meat eating is the re-inscription of male power at every meal. The patriarchal gaze sees not the fragmented flesh of dead animals but appetizing food. If our appetites re-inscribe patriarchy, our actions regarding eating animals will either reify or challenge this received culture. If meat is a symbol of male dominance, then the presence of meat proclaims the disempowering of women.”
This sentence, the third-to-last sentence in The Sexual Politics of Meat, nicely summarizes Carol Adams’s basic thesis in this book wherein she ties together her feminist critique of patriarchy with her vegetarian critique of patriarchy. These two social critiques, argues Adams, are not merely related but are part of an organic whole: to live fully the feminist protest against the heterosexual male oppressiveness of patriarchy, one must recognize the kinship that women’s oppression shares with non-humans animals and act accordingly.
Patriarchy objectifies women: within the patriarchal system, women are not beings for themselves; rather, they are instruments to serve men: they serve men as mothers, as marital servants, as food preparers, as bodies for sating male sexual desires, etc. In these roles, women are no longer subjects with a first-person perspective but are dehumanized and objectified; they are “fragmented” in Adams’s terms: they are broken down into parts: in the dominant patriarchal narrative, any particular role that a woman has is viewed in terms of that particular role in serving the interests and desires of men. Thus, a woman takes her objectified identity from her various positions in relation to the male power structure and loses her subjective identity as a person for her own self.
In similar fashion, non-human animals are fragmented and objectified: the corpses humans eat are literally fragmented when they are chopped into pieces, and the non-human animal becomes not a free, living, sentient being pursuing its own goals in nature as a subject with its own perspective but becomes merely an object: food for humans. This is especially evident in the way that language attempts to remove from our minds the fact that the corpses that are eaten were once living subjects themselves: humans eat meat, not corpses; humans eat beef and hamburgers and steak, not cows; humans eat pork and bacon and ham, not pigs; humans eat chicken or turkey (notice the missing indefinite articles), not a chicken or a turkey; humans eat mutton, not a sheep.
The fragmentation and objectification of non-human animals, Adams argues, is carried out largely by the patriarchal power structures: men are the hunters, the butchers, the killers, and women are forced to comply with this system in preparing meat and in eating it, too. Thus, in preparing meat and eating meat, women are acting against their own interests in being subjects for themselves by helping to objectify non-human animals just as men objectify women.
Adams argues for this thesis drawing on history, anthropology, biology, myth, and literature. She makes her argument skillfully and in the manner of academic feminists and Marxists, of literary deconstructionists, and of post-structuralist social critics, but she does so with a clarity and precision that is often missing in academia. Her arguments are not rigorously deductive arguments but proceed in a classical inductive fashion, adding detail upon detail, example upon example, to support her thesis.
And Adams also points out (though the scope of this book does not really grant her the opportunity to argue this point in much detail) that not only are feminism and vegetarianism necessarily linked in opposition to patriarchy, but this opposition is also shared by critiques of patriarchal racism and homophobia and militarism; thus, just as feminists, if they are truly to practice an authentic critique of patriarchy, must be vegetarians, so too must feminist-vegetarians rise up against racism, homophobia, and war as must those in the civil rights community (both ethnic minorities and the LGBT community) and the pacifist community make common cause with the feminist-vegetarians.
As an aside, I should mention that Adams wrote this book in 1989, when the term vegan was not much used; had she written this book in this decade, she probably would have used the term vegan in lieu of vegetarian as Adams herself is not merely a vegetarian but also a vegan.
Perhaps the best summation of this book is to be found in this paragraph in Adams’s last chapter:
“Eating animals acts as mirror and representation of patriarchal values. Meat eating is the re-inscription of male power at every meal. The patriarchal gaze sees not the fragmented flesh of dead animals but appetizing food. If our appetites re-inscribe patriarchy, our actions regarding eating animals will either reify or challenge this received culture. If meat is a symbol of male dominance, then the presence of meat proclaims the disempowering of women.”
challenging
dark
informative
sad
slow-paced
Really interesting exploration of how animal oppression and slaughter and the hate and objectification of women overlap and come from the same hierarchical structures. Notably, meat eating is a big part of toxic masculinity; the use of language and imagery how we speak about and protray animals and women to objectify and invisibilise them; notable historical vegetarians and how their vegetarianism has largely been left out of history so the discourse of animal liberation has not been able to develop.
I found the writing a bit too academic and opaque, and think with more plain language it would have been more accessible to a wider audience. Adams also references many historical figures and texts without any context, so I felt like I wasn't able to integrate the information as well as if she'd provided a bit of context.
Overall I think the book makes a very important contribution and is helpful to better understand and articulate how different oppressions are related.
I found the writing a bit too academic and opaque, and think with more plain language it would have been more accessible to a wider audience. Adams also references many historical figures and texts without any context, so I felt like I wasn't able to integrate the information as well as if she'd provided a bit of context.
Overall I think the book makes a very important contribution and is helpful to better understand and articulate how different oppressions are related.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death
Moderate: Misogyny
Having been written in 1995, this book’s scholarship is extremely dated. That being said, it provides an excellent framework for understanding why certain aspects of society remain, to this day, defensive of meat and threatened by environmental movements which seek to lessen our consumption.
I would very much like to find a book on the same subject written more recently, but the teachings here apply very well even if the piece lacks intersectionality.
I would very much like to find a book on the same subject written more recently, but the teachings here apply very well even if the piece lacks intersectionality.
challenging
mysterious
sad
slow-paced
informative
reflective
slow-paced
informative
inspiring
sad
slow-paced
i have been meaning to read this book for years and i have very mixed feelings about it! it was of course well written but i felt that the amount of literary analysis/criticism in it was misplaced maybe? i feel as though there was so much to explore in the realm of the dairy industry and sexual exploitation but it did not dip into that much at all, even though it is the obvious immediate thing that comes to mind when reading the title. strangely, the afterword to the 25th anniversary edition was more on the pulse than the actual meat (haha) of the book. for it being thr foundational text of fem-vegan critical theory i would have thought it to be more urgent and well.. foundational? a missed opportunity for sure
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
I used this text for my undergrad thesis, read alongside Han Kang’s “The Vegetarian”. Adams articulates some links between meat-eating and patriarchal power extremely well. However, I do find her lack of consideration of women’s health disappointing. Some may argue that red meat is essential in our diets; how can we fight the patriarchy if we lack the iron and energy to do so? Ultimately, her theory centres men/male power more than it inspires feminist vegetarian mobilisation. I also agree with the reviewer who notes the cisnormative nature of the argument, and wish there could have been more considerations of queerness overall. There is no denying that this text is thoroughly well-researched and interesting, but also very “white feminist”; I guess that’s 90s academia for you!