The Sexual Politics of Meat by Carol J. Adams, Polity Press, Cambridge,
pp 256, Pounds sterling 8.95
PEOPLE often ask me why I am vegetarian: is it on moral grounds, or
for reasons of health or religion, perhaps? Yet when I ate meat no one ever
questioned why I consumed dead animals, but, of course, that is 鈥榥atural鈥�.
The Sexual Politics of Meat admirably explodes that old chestnut, by
exploring the symbolic claptrap that our society loads onto a steak or a
Big Mac. There is undeniably a lot of sexual politics about.
Advertisement
Meat is overwhelmingly a male鈥檚 prerogative, thought to promote virility
and strength. Man, as the hunter, or at least the fearless livestock farmer,
procures the meat, by dominating and slaughtering the beast. In our society,
鈥榤eat鈥� also refers to woman, made object of male sexual gratification.
Carol Adams attempts to explain why meat eating is seen as natural and
acceptable to so many people. At the core of the problem, she says, is the
鈥榓bsent referent鈥� 鈥� that is, the living animal disappears as it is slaughtered
and transformed into mutton or beef, say.
Many feminists are vegetarian (it must be said) because they see the
link, and empathise with the poor beasts. A character in Marge Piercy鈥檚
novel Small Changes sums up the situation, as she chews a meatloaf after
her husband has flushed her birth-control pills down the loo: 鈥楢 trapped
animal eating a dead animal.鈥�
This book will clearly alienate the confirmed sexist carnivore. Those
who hate 鈥榩ostmodernist鈥� approaches to the analysis of literary texts will
also find much of Adams鈥檚 writing difficult to digest. But for the open-minded
person interested in the interplay between food and society, there is much
of interest here. I took heart from the discovery that the term 鈥榲egetable鈥�
was not always an insult when applied to people. The Romans, it seems, considered
Homo vegetus to be a mentally and physically vigorous person.
