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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
informative
slow-paced
(these are more notes to myself of bits I enjoyed than an actual review)
Wasn't a fan of the structure or the writing style or the literary critique, but there were a few well-made arguments, novel thoughts, and interesting tie-togethers I'd never considered before.
She's huge into the 'absent referent', metaphors that invoke one subject or concept in an attempt to illustrate a different subject or concept without fully addressing the reference to the first. For example, when one treats a woman like a piece of meat, we are invoking dead animals w/o actually discussing them and 'Western culture constantly renders the material reality of violence into controlled and controllable metaphors'. She goes on to argue that we use the slaughter and butchering of animals constantly as absent referents for all kinds of things when we wouldn't invoke the holocaust or slavery so casually - but the oppression of animals is constantly overlooked and through language is thus rendered abstract & acceptable. Furthermore, often when referring to women or women's status animal metaphors are used AND vice-versa, they each serve each other to invoke the feeling of a lesser status than something masculine. Even in the bible - it was animal and woman that ruined man's life in the perfect garden! Many good allusions to this shared oppression.
---
"Feminized Protein" - How female animals are treated very different than male animals in our meat processing because we breed, milk, and get eggs from them, putting them into full lives of servitude.
Four levels of human meat eating, that are less ethical from 1 to 4:
1: Primitive - Wrestling, killing, eating an animal by one's self with no tools
2: Hunting - Animals remain wild but we use a tool further distancing ourselves from the act of killing, and often a division of the society of those who are to be the hunters / do the killing while the rest do not but still eat the meat
3: Domestication - Setting up animals with the, 'trappings of care and security while planning their elimination', meat consumption increases because readily available and here is where feminized protein comes into the mix.
4: Imprisonment - Animals separated from the majority of their consumer's everyday lives except as meat (or feminized protein) on their plates. More factory produced, most suffering.
While I'm not ready to become a vegetarian as of yet, (despite everything in this book!) I can at least try to move my meat consumption down to the third level away from the terrible meat prison life of most animals destined to become meat.
---
Really interesting point how Henry Ford got his inspiration for his famous assembly lines from the DISassembly lines of slaughterhouses - and that in doing so, 'Ford dismembered the meaning of work, introducing productivity w/o the sense of being productive', and that the thus dismembered workers themselves have become the absent referents in a patriarchal system.
----
A good look into how vegetables are the 'feminized' food and meat is 'masculine' - in so many ways - including how when one is arguing for vegetarianism they are often accused of simply being emotional or sentimental. She quotes Brigid Brophy here, ' To assert that someone other than oneself has rights is not sentimental. Not that it would be the gravest of sins if it were. "Sentimentalist" is the abuse with which people counter the accusation that they are cruel.' Brilliant.
And a whole marvelous likening of vegetarians being called at the dinner table to defend and explain their choices in a arguments, 'designed to not only provoke defensiveness but to sidetrack the reformer into answering the wrong questions' to such conversations with feminists about equal rights that aren't really about understanding equality. 'Are you one of those bra-burners? / Are you one of those health-nuts?' And ridiculous statements like 'Men need liberation too! / Plants have life too!' Creating trivialization through ridiculousness, thwarts any real discussion, though the author provides two more radical answers to be put forward: 'Men need first to acknowledge how they benefit from male dominance' / 'Can anyone really argue that the suffering of this lettuce equals that of a sentient cow who must be bled out before butchering?' Yet the reformer will be, 'put back on the defensive by the accusation that they are being aggressive. What to a vegetarian or a feminist is of political, personal, existential, and ethical importance, becomes for others only an entertainment during dinnertime.' Such a good, direct comparison.
---
Lastly, really interesting thoughts surrounding vegetarianism, feminism, and war. How carefully meat is rationed out for only fighting men, how being able to kill an animal is the first step towards being able to kill one's own kind / another human, how war is not women's space and women criticizing the war aren't taken seriously because they cannot be present on the frontlines. How justifications are often made to children who have recently learned that meat comes from killing animals, that there are cases where killing can be legitimate. 'It is as though the way to create a child's acceptance of animals' deaths is by convincing him or her that sometimes humans must be killed, too.' How pacifist women refusing meat can be seen as threatening to those trying to serve her meat, while ironically providing more of it for soldiers to continue fighting wars.
Wasn't a fan of the structure or the writing style or the literary critique, but there were a few well-made arguments, novel thoughts, and interesting tie-togethers I'd never considered before.
She's huge into the 'absent referent', metaphors that invoke one subject or concept in an attempt to illustrate a different subject or concept without fully addressing the reference to the first. For example, when one treats a woman like a piece of meat, we are invoking dead animals w/o actually discussing them and 'Western culture constantly renders the material reality of violence into controlled and controllable metaphors'. She goes on to argue that we use the slaughter and butchering of animals constantly as absent referents for all kinds of things when we wouldn't invoke the holocaust or slavery so casually - but the oppression of animals is constantly overlooked and through language is thus rendered abstract & acceptable. Furthermore, often when referring to women or women's status animal metaphors are used AND vice-versa, they each serve each other to invoke the feeling of a lesser status than something masculine. Even in the bible - it was animal and woman that ruined man's life in the perfect garden! Many good allusions to this shared oppression.
---
"Feminized Protein" - How female animals are treated very different than male animals in our meat processing because we breed, milk, and get eggs from them, putting them into full lives of servitude.
Four levels of human meat eating, that are less ethical from 1 to 4:
1: Primitive - Wrestling, killing, eating an animal by one's self with no tools
2: Hunting - Animals remain wild but we use a tool further distancing ourselves from the act of killing, and often a division of the society of those who are to be the hunters / do the killing while the rest do not but still eat the meat
3: Domestication - Setting up animals with the, 'trappings of care and security while planning their elimination', meat consumption increases because readily available and here is where feminized protein comes into the mix.
4: Imprisonment - Animals separated from the majority of their consumer's everyday lives except as meat (or feminized protein) on their plates. More factory produced, most suffering.
While I'm not ready to become a vegetarian as of yet, (despite everything in this book!) I can at least try to move my meat consumption down to the third level away from the terrible meat prison life of most animals destined to become meat.
---
Really interesting point how Henry Ford got his inspiration for his famous assembly lines from the DISassembly lines of slaughterhouses - and that in doing so, 'Ford dismembered the meaning of work, introducing productivity w/o the sense of being productive', and that the thus dismembered workers themselves have become the absent referents in a patriarchal system.
----
A good look into how vegetables are the 'feminized' food and meat is 'masculine' - in so many ways - including how when one is arguing for vegetarianism they are often accused of simply being emotional or sentimental. She quotes Brigid Brophy here, ' To assert that someone other than oneself has rights is not sentimental. Not that it would be the gravest of sins if it were. "Sentimentalist" is the abuse with which people counter the accusation that they are cruel.' Brilliant.
And a whole marvelous likening of vegetarians being called at the dinner table to defend and explain their choices in a arguments, 'designed to not only provoke defensiveness but to sidetrack the reformer into answering the wrong questions' to such conversations with feminists about equal rights that aren't really about understanding equality. 'Are you one of those bra-burners? / Are you one of those health-nuts?' And ridiculous statements like 'Men need liberation too! / Plants have life too!' Creating trivialization through ridiculousness, thwarts any real discussion, though the author provides two more radical answers to be put forward: 'Men need first to acknowledge how they benefit from male dominance' / 'Can anyone really argue that the suffering of this lettuce equals that of a sentient cow who must be bled out before butchering?' Yet the reformer will be, 'put back on the defensive by the accusation that they are being aggressive. What to a vegetarian or a feminist is of political, personal, existential, and ethical importance, becomes for others only an entertainment during dinnertime.' Such a good, direct comparison.
---
Lastly, really interesting thoughts surrounding vegetarianism, feminism, and war. How carefully meat is rationed out for only fighting men, how being able to kill an animal is the first step towards being able to kill one's own kind / another human, how war is not women's space and women criticizing the war aren't taken seriously because they cannot be present on the frontlines. How justifications are often made to children who have recently learned that meat comes from killing animals, that there are cases where killing can be legitimate. 'It is as though the way to create a child's acceptance of animals' deaths is by convincing him or her that sometimes humans must be killed, too.' How pacifist women refusing meat can be seen as threatening to those trying to serve her meat, while ironically providing more of it for soldiers to continue fighting wars.
Adams has a reasonably good writing style. I certainly did not find fault with the structure of the book, which is nice. The book made some interesting points, and some of the terminology ("the absent referent") has stuck with me. It is also a very thoroughly researched book.
That said, Adams has some quirks. Citation would be one. The book is heavily cited. Insanely heavily cited. And yet, bold statements are thrown out with no hint of support. Adams asserts, over and over, that vegetarians are healthier than meat eaters, however the book never provides any support for this proposition. That is but one example. Hundreds of citations to what somebody thought somebody thought Susan B. Anthony had for dinner one night, but the real meaty citation opportunities are completely ignored.
This is certainly a problem in an of itself--it takes away a lot of punch--but it's a sign of the main issue. Adams is a "true believer" of the worst sort (worst in the sense of being able to persuade). Adams takes as given various facts (that feminists need to be vegetarian, that vegetarians are healthier, etc...) that no effort is spent establishing those points. However, if a book is merely preaching to the converted, it hasn't accomplished much.
And therein lies the rub. It's really an infuriating book. There are little kernels that aren't too bad (chapter 8, for instance). The portions on some of the origins of sexual violence were well developed and ring true. But they are buried under a mountain of nonsense. Adams also seems to lack self-awareness as a number of the arguments are self contradictory. It's unclear what Adams' real thesis even is. Feminists should be vegetarians, because women are oppressed and so are animals, so they need to show solidarity. But maybe feminists need to be pacifists. Maybe non-drinkers, maybe lesbians, it's not clear. The book seems to me an example of what happens to people who drop off the edge of whatever spectrum they're writing about. Which is too bad. There were a number of good points, but it in the end, it was a really crappy book.
That said, Adams has some quirks. Citation would be one. The book is heavily cited. Insanely heavily cited. And yet, bold statements are thrown out with no hint of support. Adams asserts, over and over, that vegetarians are healthier than meat eaters, however the book never provides any support for this proposition. That is but one example. Hundreds of citations to what somebody thought somebody thought Susan B. Anthony had for dinner one night, but the real meaty citation opportunities are completely ignored.
This is certainly a problem in an of itself--it takes away a lot of punch--but it's a sign of the main issue. Adams is a "true believer" of the worst sort (worst in the sense of being able to persuade). Adams takes as given various facts (that feminists need to be vegetarian, that vegetarians are healthier, etc...) that no effort is spent establishing those points. However, if a book is merely preaching to the converted, it hasn't accomplished much.
And therein lies the rub. It's really an infuriating book. There are little kernels that aren't too bad (chapter 8, for instance). The portions on some of the origins of sexual violence were well developed and ring true. But they are buried under a mountain of nonsense. Adams also seems to lack self-awareness as a number of the arguments are self contradictory. It's unclear what Adams' real thesis even is. Feminists should be vegetarians, because women are oppressed and so are animals, so they need to show solidarity. But maybe feminists need to be pacifists. Maybe non-drinkers, maybe lesbians, it's not clear. The book seems to me an example of what happens to people who drop off the edge of whatever spectrum they're writing about. Which is too bad. There were a number of good points, but it in the end, it was a really crappy book.
It started off interesting and familiar but grew to not be worth my time anymore unfortunately. It got too abstract and jargon filled for my preference.
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
Un essai très intéressant qui met en parallèle les combats pour le féminisme et le végétarisme. Il met principalement en avant la notion de "référent absent" qui entre en jeu lorsque l'on parle de "manger de la viande" : le fait que l'animal mort n'est pas nommé, à sa place on parle de "viande". Malheureusement, il comprend beaucoup de longueurs et de répétitions qui ralentissent la lecture. C'est un ouvrage essentiel pour toute personne qui s'intéresse à l'intersectionnalité même si, il faut bien l'avouer, je trouve que l'autrice force parfois un peu ses analyses pour qu'elles correspondent à sa théorie.
There were a handful of nuggets in here, and the author gives good reasons for vegetarianism, but I remain unconvinced about the link between vegetarianism and feminism.
Seksisme en specicisme zijn met elkaar verbonden en het maakt me triest dat dit boek nog steeds actueel is...
Dit is een van die boeken die je kijk op de wereld totaal verandert. Wat een ongelooflijke kennis en scherpzinnigheid bezit Carol J Adams. Haar boek wordt met ontzettend veel theorie én voorbeelden uit de praktijk in elkaar geweven tot een eloquent geheel. Ondanks dat het me ontzettend moeilijk lijkt als een van de eersten duidelijk op te schrijven hoe specicisme en seksisme met elkaar verwoven zijn (pas na haar volgenden er veel meer academici die zich op dit thema stortten), zijn de argumenten sterk en goed onderbouwd.
Ik heb ook nog nooit zoveel over de geschiedenis van het vegetarisme gelezen, over hoe lang deze stroming bestond en hoeveel sterke vrouwen hier bij betrokken waren. Dat heeft mijn beeld op de geschiedenis wel enigszins verandert en daarnaast is het als vrouw zo fijn om te lezen over historische vrouwen.
Mijn kanttekeningen bij dit boek zijn dat het erg gericht is op wit feminisme en dat ik wel af en toe wat licht validisme leek te proeven. Adams doet wel haar best om racisme af en toe bij dit onderwerp te betrekken, maar gaat er niet verder op in en refereert vrijwel niet naar schrijvers van kleur. Het validisme zit hem vooral in het 'vegetarisch als per definitie gezond' en een aantal twijfelachtige schrijfsters die ze quote. Daar had wat mij betreft wel wat kritiek op worden geuit.
Dit boek krijgt ondanks toch 5 sterren van mij want het is een ontzettend sterk en belangrijk werk, wat iedereen zou moeten lezen. Ik zal nooit meer een Millner reclame kunnen zien met een vrouw tussen twee kazen zonder te denken aan "The Sexual Politics of Meat", de gefeminiseerde koe en de verdierlijkte vrouw en hun gezamenlijke objectieficatie.
Dit is een van die boeken die je kijk op de wereld totaal verandert. Wat een ongelooflijke kennis en scherpzinnigheid bezit Carol J Adams. Haar boek wordt met ontzettend veel theorie én voorbeelden uit de praktijk in elkaar geweven tot een eloquent geheel. Ondanks dat het me ontzettend moeilijk lijkt als een van de eersten duidelijk op te schrijven hoe specicisme en seksisme met elkaar verwoven zijn (pas na haar volgenden er veel meer academici die zich op dit thema stortten), zijn de argumenten sterk en goed onderbouwd.
Ik heb ook nog nooit zoveel over de geschiedenis van het vegetarisme gelezen, over hoe lang deze stroming bestond en hoeveel sterke vrouwen hier bij betrokken waren. Dat heeft mijn beeld op de geschiedenis wel enigszins verandert en daarnaast is het als vrouw zo fijn om te lezen over historische vrouwen.
Mijn kanttekeningen bij dit boek zijn dat het erg gericht is op wit feminisme en dat ik wel af en toe wat licht validisme leek te proeven. Adams doet wel haar best om racisme af en toe bij dit onderwerp te betrekken, maar gaat er niet verder op in en refereert vrijwel niet naar schrijvers van kleur. Het validisme zit hem vooral in het 'vegetarisch als per definitie gezond' en een aantal twijfelachtige schrijfsters die ze quote. Daar had wat mij betreft wel wat kritiek op worden geuit.
Dit boek krijgt ondanks toch 5 sterren van mij want het is een ontzettend sterk en belangrijk werk, wat iedereen zou moeten lezen. Ik zal nooit meer een Millner reclame kunnen zien met een vrouw tussen twee kazen zonder te denken aan "The Sexual Politics of Meat", de gefeminiseerde koe en de verdierlijkte vrouw en hun gezamenlijke objectieficatie.