The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Review

From our earliest myths, meat has always been associated with the masculine and vegetarianism with the feminine. Whereas man the hunter was strong, virile, and dominant, woman the gatherer was passive, peaceful, and submissive. To this day, the myths our culture has woven continue to inculcate within us a sly, but potent belief that meat is necessary for strength, that soldiers need meat, and that only true men eat meat. Simultaneously, vegetarianism has been denounced as the senseless sentimentality supposedly so often typified by women. But what if these associations could connect the oppression of women to the oppression of more-than-human animals?

In her 1990 classic, The Sexual Politics of Meat, Carol J. Adams connects the oppression of women to the oppression of more-than-human animals by examining the cultural roles and meaning of meat. She first identifies the association between meat and masculinity, noting how men consume the lion's share of meat while women, due to various social pressures, consume less meat or forgo it entirely. This inequality also bleeds into racism, with meat consumption historically associated with the superiority of the white race and “coarser foods,” such as grain and vegetables, considered suitable only for “savages” and people of color. Connecting the eating of animals with yet another human vice, Adams implicates meat consumption in the waging of war, noting how the brutality behind the production of meat inclines entire societies to accept the brutality of war. While soldiers receive extra rations of meat, men who choose to forgo meat are seen as effeminate, solidifying the connections between masculinity, meat-eating, and violence. She next describes the inequalities of meat-eating societies, with societies relying more heavily on plant protein exhibiting greater equality between the sexes. From all the foregoing, Adams ultimately concludes that meat is both a symbol and instrument of the male patriarchy, elevating the status of men while denigrating the status of women and more-than-human animals.

Throughout the rest of her work, Adams greatly expands on the concept of the absent referent, arguing that animals and their miseries become absent referents through literal death, definitional semantics, and figurative allusion on a sliding scale from the physical to the metaphorical. To explain the complex process of becoming an absent referent, Adams proposes a three-pronged cycle of objectification, fragmentation, and consumption, wherein women and animals are first objectified, dismembered into inanimate parts, and then physically or visually consumed. Next, she argues that language both obscures the reality of meat and mutes the voices of vegetarians who speak against the dominant culture, which accepts meat-eating as natural, normal, necessary, and nice. Since vegetarians rely heavily on protest literature to “re-member” the absent referent in the context of a meat-eating culture, vegetarians moreover have significant difficulty communicating with nonvegetarians despite a rich literary history. After a foray into this oft-overlooked, but highly evocative literary history, Adams develops a feminist-vegetarian critical theory in her final chapter, arguing that vegetarianism should be a major component of feminism since both seek to reanimate the absent referent and both implicitly reject patriarchal domination.

Through her lovely prose, Adams composes a highly readable book, full of rich literary allusions and extensive, colorful anecdotes, particularly in her chapters on Frankenstein and vegetarianism after the Great War. Her first two chapters, in particular, present the most engaging, thought-provoking, and original synopsis of the relationship between feminism and vegetarianism. Compared to these breezy, remarkably clear and well-written first two chapters, some of her later chapters seem bulky and overloaded with outside sources. Despite the relative density of some of her later chapters, however, Adams generously intersperses lovely quotes and insights from the surprisingly rich tradition of 19th and 20th century vegetarianism throughout. Adams could further improve the readability of her book by more directly relating her effusive examples to her central thesis as well. Rather than providing an extremely brief synopsis and conclusion for each chapter, she could add more commentary to explain the evidence she provides throughout each chapter instead; it is not always clear how her copious content relates to her major points or overarching thesis. Adams, despite occasionally turgid passages and a certain terseness in connecting the enthralling evidence she provides to her core thesis, succeeds in writing an enjoyable, highly stimulating piece of literature that will hopefully continue captivating feminist audiences for decades to come.

The Sexual Politics of Meat provides novel insight into the vegetarian-feminist relationship. Before this book, I had only loosely considered the connection between vegetarianism and other social justice issues, let alone the connection between vegetarianism and feminism. Now I realize that vegetarianism and feminism are deeply intertwined, with both rebelling against the patriarchy, rejecting social norms, and tackling massive inequalities. In her explanation of the common descent of vegetarianism and feminism, Adams also introduces us to the unexpectedly rich history of vegetarianism. Prior to this book, I had only ever read books on moral philosophy and animal rights without prying open so much as a single book upon the history of the animal rights movement. Now I am filled with countless allusions to the millennia-long vegetarian ascent, from Porphyry and Pythagoras to Ritson and Shelley. Understanding the history of the animal rights movement has also allowed me to gain new insight into the progress our movement has made. While just 20 years ago vegetarians were openly ridiculed, today vegetarianism seems more fashionable a lifestyle choice than ever. This freshly discovered, surprisingly lavish history also makes great fodder for discussion, especially with my aunts and other feminists, all while enhancing my overall perception of reality; just last week while visiting the St. Louis Art Museum with my family, I examined a Babylonian monolith that glorified the exploits of a celebrated king, from indiscriminate hunting and rapacious war-mongering to his many subjugated concubines. Through the feminist-vegetarian lens I acquired after reading Carol J. Adams’ masterwork on the subject, I saw the intimate connection between these interrelated evils.

As Carol J. Adams expounds so eloquently in this groundbreaking treatise, vegetarianism and feminism are, indeed, natural allies. Both rebel against accepted social norms, beginning with the recognition of profound injustice—in this case, the objectification of women and the consumption of more-than-human animals. Both represent serious social movements that have burgeoned over the past 200 years in particular. And both demand not only urgent social reform, but also a radical, all-encompassing respect for all, woman and mouse alike. Carol J. Adams performs a major service in her landmark book, The Sexual Politics of Meat, by exploring the rich interconnections between vegetarianism and feminism. In the upcoming years, hopefully even more feminists discover her masterful opus and come to appreciate the shared experience of oppression between more-than-human animals and women. As a collective movement, we should work to ensure these animal-conscious feminists and social reformers become the foremost torchbearers of both women’s and more-than-human animal liberation.