Feminism and Veg(etari)anism

* DISCLAIMER: This post is mostly a stream-of-conscience type post. It is lengthy, and composed primarily of ideas in my head that I wanted to attempt to share. *

I was thinking about how, in my experience, people feel the need to question me when it is revealed that I consider myself a feminist. Later, I was thinking about how people also feel the need to question me when it is revealed that I am vegan. So, I began to think about why people ask me about both and how they intersect.

Display of dominance (image from anonymous.org)

This could very, very easily become an essay, so I am going to try to stick to the main points that are in my head.

I started off my self-conversation rather simply — most of the time veganism and feminism go against the norm in US society, so of course they are challenged. Eating meat and sexism are “simply how things are”.
But, quickly my self-conversation turned a bit more complicated.

There is something inherently patriarchal in eating meat. I felt this in my bones long before I could pinpoint it. I do get criticized for “being a pussy”, or whatever disgusting use of words one would like to use, because I am vegan; however, my boyfriend gets more of the shit-storm than I do. It’s just not manly to be vegan!

In our patriarchal society, eating meat would be one of the characteristics that falls under the “masculine” category. Why is this? Some may say it comes from the cave-people days, but haven’t we evolved far from that, and didn’t the women partake in the meat eating (and often times hunting) as well? How did this become “masculine”? I think that it is because it shows dominance over another creature, and men have historically been doing this for thousands of years, so of course it is “manly”. Since women are known as the peace-keepers, the “fair sex”, and being “one with nature”, it is not as surprising to hear a woman say that they are vegetarian or vegan — because women just think furry things are cute! It can’t go deeper than that!

There are men that recognize oppression and act accordingly — be it fighting for equal rights, identifying as a feminist, being vegetarian/vegan, not being racist, not being homophobic, and so on. And there are women that do the same thing.

It’s amazing how much gender roles affect every aspect of a person’s life. Even down to the food that is considered acceptable to eat. (Somewhat similar to the idea that men drink beer, and women drink fruity drinks. I have often seen men give one another crap for drinking a “girly drink”, and I have also had a number of men confide in me that they do, in fact, like consuming drinks that taste good, but they don’t because it isn’t manly).

So, why is it that many feminists decide to stop eating meat?

When I first became vegetarian, I didn’t realize that I was also making a feminist statement. I also didn’t realize that the two had anything to do with one another.

A woman depicted as meat cutlets (image from wordpress.com)

I did a bit of research and found that a few books have been written about this topic, some eco-feminists have written about the intersectionality of feminism and veg(etari)anism, and there has been quite the chatter in forums and on blogs about this dynamic. A popular UK feminist blog, The F Word, wrote about this, citing author of The Sexual Politics of Meat, Carol J Adams, by saying:

Images of butchering suffuse patriarchal culture. A steakhouse in New Jersey was called ‘Adams Rib’. Who do they think they were eating? The Hustler, prior to its incarnation as a pornographic magazine, was a Cleveland restaurant whose menu presented a woman’s buttocks on the cover and proclaimed, “We serve the best meat in town!” Who? A woman is shown being ground up in a meat grinder as Hustler magazine proclaims: “Last all meat issue”. Women’s buttocks are stamped as ‘Choice Cuts’ on an album cover…

Drawing from the author’s mention of “Adam’s Rib”, even the christian idea that women were born from a part of a man’s body (notably a part that is often consumed — the rib), compares a woman to meat upon creation.

Perhaps the idea of not desiring to dominate over any living thing is what calls some feminists to veg(etari)anism, but that may be a bit of a stretch in some cases.  Or maybe people who think more about social structures also end up thinking more about their food, or vice versa.

I’m going to end this now and let the reader brew on this for a little while.  But, I will leave you with good reading material about this matter.

“Are You a Breast or a Leg Man?” – The F Word

Vegetarianism as Feminism – Naama Harel

Feminist Arguments for Vegetarianism – getcrafty.com forum

Interview with Carol Adams – The Guildfordian

Is Vegetarianism a Feminist Issue? – Adventures of a Young Feminist blog