Vegetarian Ecofeminism

The first thing that I noticed about this image is that the human-like figure who is cutting the meat is not identified. We do not know if it is a woman or a man or what the person looks like in general. To me, this meant lack of emotion, and it also shows that this is a normal thing, so it does not matter who is doing it because this is a common practice. The body pose that the figure is exhibiting shows domination over the meat, and this can be perceived through the foot on the board and the two knives. One of the knives looks like it is killing the meat, and the knife being held by the figure is cutting it up for consumption. At first glance, this looks like just tasty meat with no issues around it. This is because this meat has been cleaned and the animal itself is not known, but if we were to see the process through which this specific animal was killed, then we would not see it as such a normal thing.

In the article by Curtin for this week, we learned that ecofeminists perceive non-human animals and our relation to them as a matter of culture. Curtin says that the Japanese have a ritual to honor the insects that are killed during rice planting. This is their way of paying their respects to insects and acknowledging that insects are valuable and that there is a connection between humans and insects. He also says that the Ihalmiut do not practice vegetarianism, but they thank the deer for giving its life so that they can eat. This is “reflective of a serious, focused, compassionate attitude toward the ‘gift’ of a meal” (Curtin). In this part of the world, however, we do not even think about where the meat came from. We consume meat on a regular basis without thinking of the suffering that the animal had to go through in order for us to feed our families.

The ecofeminist perception that I personally liked the most by Curtin was the comparison between women and non-human animals. He gave the example of pornographic representations of women as “‘meat’ ready to be carved up.” This means that women are treated as simple flesh without emotions and feelings and that they are just there to be used however men want. This is what we do to non-human meat, we do not care about the suffering and we just see it as an object, like the meat on the cutting board in the image. Curtin also points out that not only do we use the term “meat” to dehumanize women, but that we also use it to associate it with men’s strength and masculinity. “Men, athletes and soldiers in particular, are associated with red meat and activity (‘To have muscle you need to eat muscle’).”

In Gaard’s case, she defines ecofeminist perception of non-human animals and our relation to them in terms of the language used toward women and other oppressed people. Examples of this are words like “bitch”, “pussy”, “bird-brain”, “old bat”, and “beaver”, which are all derogatory terms used to refer to women. There are other non-human animal terms used to refer to people of color and Jews like “jungle bunnies” and “vermin”. What Gaard is trying to explain is that we think of animals as an underclass, putting us humans at the top. For this reason, we use those terms to refer to our “underclass” humans. This is not just a problem of women and nature, this is also a problem of racism, classism, sexism, and speciesism. All of these isms represent “different faces of the same system.”

An example of a gendered food is yogurt. Yogurt is associated with women and femininity. Another example of a gendered food is steak. Steak is associated with men and masculinity. I read, by Paul Freedman, on the article, “Steak for the gentleman, salad for the lady: How foods came to be gendered”, that this disparity began when women gained access to the workforce and began to eat with other women and not so much with their husbands and families anymore. This developed a new perception that certain foods were more appropriate for women, like fish, white meat, and cottage cheese. It is astonishing to learn the history of this social construct because I have always asked myself, “Who comes up with these outrageous ideas about men and women having to act differently?”.

Annotated Bibliography

Freedman, P. (2019, December 31). Steak for the gentleman, salad for the lady: How foods came to be gendered.

This article is about the disparity between men and women in terms of foods. Freedman says that men and women are expected to eat different foods because, according to society, there are foods that are more appropriate for women and other foods that are more appropriate for men. He goes on to explain where this idea comes from, he explains that this comes from the era when women were finally allowed to work and they began to eat with their female friends and were away from their husbands and families for part of the time. This created a new concept that led people to think that food should be separated by genders. This relates directly to the topic “Vegetarian Ecofeminism” because it teaches us where this idea of gendered foods emerged from in the United States.

 

One thought on “Vegetarian Ecofeminism

  1. Hi Natalia!

    It seems as though we had fairly similar ideas of what the photo meant in relation to vegetarian ecofeminism. I did not think about the quality of meat when looking at the picture like you did though. I see where you are coming from about not knowing what animal the piece of meat could have come from due to the processes in which it has gone through after being killed.

    As for your examples of gendered food, yogurt was a typically feminine food that I had not even given any thought to. In my response, I discussed gendered eating practices/styles in terms of caloric intake and societal standards for gendered eating. The article I found by Barbara J Rolls discussed how men are associated with larger bites and portions (Rolls 1), presumably to seem “manly” and powerful in appearance by bulking up, whereas women take smaller bites and are expected to eat smaller portions at slower paces (Rolls 1), most likely due to the societal body standards and eating practices that women are expected to have. When taking yogurt into consideration, it occurred to me that not only is it a gendered food, but it is also marketed as a gendered food. When I googled “yogurt commercial,” a plethora of women holding different brands of yogurt popped up. Not one man, with the exclusion of John Stamos seductively selling the yogurt to women in the ads, appeared as the focal point of these advertisements. Yogurt is always marketed as some kind of low-sugar, low-calorie snack that appeals to a predominantly female audience, and this gendered view of this food contributes to the marketing of it.

    The article you reference is very interesting in terms of the origins of societal standards impacting women’s food choices. I notice a link between the article I used and the article you used for your response, as it states in both how women’s portions and eating habits were expected to be smaller and more in line with the gendered food norms. It is so interesting, yet so disheartening that even food has its gendered associations with oppression.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *