**TRIGGER WARNING: I HAVE INCLUDED A PICTURE OF AN INDUSTRIAL CHICKEN FACTORY**
I have to admit that I have had an incredibly difficult time trying to determine what the image our professor chose means. To be honest I started questioning my own intelligence. I perused other students’ blogs to see if anyone had the same idea I was having to no avail. Perhaps I’m not as deep a thinker as I thought or maybe it is sleep deprivation! Who knows?
I looked for any hidden meaning in the photo and, what came to mind is the meat looked like a loaf of bread. The encasing of it looked just like bread and, the knife used is a bread knife. My interpretation of this photo, is that food consumption is a full-circle process. I’m going to assume that the bread/meat epitomizes the same tradition of factory animal slaughtering and treatment. Bread uses eggs from chicken farms, that in majority, coop the chickens in miniscule, inhumane quarters. The meat, lets call it beef, represents the same standard of inhumane slaughterhouses and animal farms.
What is interesting in this photo is that the cartoon slicing the meat is both masculine and white. The male figure represents men and their need for meat as a masculine meal choice. The reason I believe that meat is a masculine choice is not only media, ads, and a traditional approach to thinking but, from my own personal experience. When I tried in the past to become vegan, the male figures in my life met me with absolute disagreement. My father outright refused to accommodate my new needs. He said he’s a man and he needs meat! My fiancé’s response was similar: “I’m a man and, I can’t be vegan. Only women can get by on salads. I need my steak!”. (My fiancé is open-minded and has since changed his views entirely of that situation).
_______________________________________________________________
I absolutely believe in gendered foods! I can’t tell you how many times I have gone to a restaurant and ordered a steak and, the waiter has been like “Oh wow! This tiny thing has got a big appetite!”. I’m sure many other women can relate to this statement. My fiancé NEVER gets that response when he orders a steak. It’s almost as if its bizarre for me to get a steak instead of a salad.
Which brings me to my next point, why is it assumed that women will always prefer salads? When I was single and went on dates to restaurants, my dates would always comment that its surprising to see a woman not ordering a salad. I never understood that but, after reading the material in this course. It makes sense to me that it is because, it is a gendered food. Meat, like steak, is associated with men whereas, salads are associated with women.
In the article, Meat Heads: New Study Focuses on How Meat Consumption Alters Men’s Self-Perceived Levels of Masculinity, the author speaks a great deal on how men tend to feel that choosing meat displays their masculinity or even makes them more masculine. I’ll include one quote from the article that I felt really hit the nail on the head on gendered foods. “In the book The Sexual Politics of Meat, it’s argued that the connection between meat and masculinity goes far beyond typical sexist advertising as it articulates the hidden connections between meat eating and patriarchy.” (https://www.huffpost.com/entry/meat-heads-new-study-focuses_b_8964048).
Finally, one more example I’d like to provide on gendered food has to do with eating practices. Has anyone every noticed that it’s socially acceptable for men to eat with their hands but, when a woman does it’s seen as being unfeminine or not classy? (Side note: I am not vegan anymore and, I will discuss why in my next blog post). When eating boneless buffalo wings with my fiancé, he picks up the wings and dips them in the blue cheese dressing with his hands. When I do the same thing, the waiter comes over with a fork and knife for only me…. I’ve noticed this perceived gender-assigned eating habit on more than one occasion.
“The Question is not, can they reason? Nor, can they talk? But can they suffer?”
-Jeremy Bentham, The Romance of Leonardo DaVinci, 1900
_______________________________________________________________
When I first began this assignment, I will admit that I had my doubts about the connection between feminism and vegetarianism. Carol J. Adams completely changed my perception on this. Why do feminists and ecofeminists find such a strong connection to vegetarianism and the abuse and killing of animals? I believe this is due in large part because, while it may not be the same form of oppression (on all scales), it IS indeed oppression. Feminists and Eco-feminists have been fighting oppression for a very long time and, why should their fight stop with homo sapiens only?
I believe a unique part of being a woman is that we can understand oppression on such a large scale. As a white woman, my heart goes out to African-Americans being oppressed. My heart goes out to Muslims and Muslim-Americans being oppressed; to name a couple just a couple groups. While I have no experience being either a Muslim or an African-American, I have felt oppression and mistreatment based solely on my gender being different than that of a man.
Deane Curtin expressed that the major reasons that feminism is so entwined with vegetarianism is because of feminist’s fight for humane treatment of all sentient beings. Curtin also states that the eating practices of people in industrialized countries is heavily felt in third world nations; thus furthering the oppressive effects on a broader scale. Perhaps my favorite quote from my reading of Curtin is ‘Just as there are gender-specific reasons for women’s commitment to vegetarianism, for men in a patriarchal society, moral vegetarianism can mark the decision to stand in solidarity with women’ (http://www.animal-rights-library.com/texts-m/curtin01.htm ).
Greta Gaard shared a similar approach in her connection of feminism and vegetarianism. Gaard focused more so on speciesism. “While some people care about the suffering of animals, feminists who politicize their care of animals, see a specific linkage between feminism and speciesism.” (https://www.academia.edu/2489929/Ecofeminism_on_the_Wing_Perspectives_on_Human-Animal_Relations ). Gaard believes that the oppression of one group (animal alike) is simply the transfer of mistreatment to another. As a feminist, Gaard believes that is is our duty to care and sympathize with the mistreatment of all sentient oppressed groups.
_______________________________________________________________
Annotated Bibliography
“The Question is not, can they reason? Nor, can they talk? But can they suffer?”, Jeremy Bentham, The Romance of Leonardo DaVinci, 1900 (https://animalclock.org/)
“In the book The Sexual Politics of Meat, it’s argued that the connection between meat and masculinity goes far beyond typical sexist advertising as it articulates the hidden connections between meat eating and patriarchy.” Carol J. Adams (https://www.huffpost.com/entry/meat-heads-new-study-focuses_b_8964048)
‘Just as there are gender-specific reasons for women’s commitment to vegetarianism, for men in a patriarchal society, moral vegetarianism can mark the decision to stand in solidarity with women’, Deane Curtin, Moral Contextual Vegetarianism, 1991, (http://www.animal-rights-library.com/texts-m/curtin01.htm)
“While some people care about the suffering of animals, feminists who politicize their care of animals, see a specific linkage between feminism and speciesism.” Greta Gaard, Ecofeminism On the Wing, (https://www.academia.edu/2489929/Ecofeminism_on_the_Wing_Perspectives_on_Human-Animal_Relations )