Neither Man Nor Beast: Feminism and the Defense of Animals [Paperback]

Carol J. Adams (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 1995 | ISBN-10: 0826408036 | ISBN-13: 978-0826408037

In 1990, The Sexual Politics of Meat was published. In just a few years, the book became an underground classic. Neither Man Nor Beast takes Adams' thought one step further. It represents her collected reflections on animal rights, vegetarianism, and ecofeminism from the often-difficult-to-locate sources in which many originally appeared, and includes two important and completely new chapters. More than a book of theory, Neither Man Nor Beast is an enlightened call to action. Topics covered include: animal experimentation and patriarchal culture; abortion rights and animal rights; responding to racism in a human-centered world; ecofeminism and the eating of animals; the need to integrate feminism, animal defense, and environmentalism; the interconnected abuse of women, children, and animals; institutional violence; feminist ethics, and vegetarianism; a beastly theology: the place of animals in God's universe>

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Believing that domination of women and violence toward women are often connected with domination of and violence toward animals, Adams (The Sexual Politics of Meat: a Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory, Continuum, 1990) continues her ecofeminist analysis of the relationship between objectification (for example, of animals and their corpses or of women through pornography), experimentation, and consumption. In the process, she provides a radical critique of patriarchal culture; "Christian humanocentric theology," which supports not only human/animal dualism but also man/woman dualism; and meat eating and fur wearing. She advocates an activism that reveals the truth about animal suffering and about women's lives. Recommended for informed lay readers.
Carolyn M. Craft, Longwood Coll., Farmville, Va.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"This book will enrage some, enlighten some, liberate some, and get many to think. That is what makes a great theoretical work. And that is what Carol Adams has produced. For anyone wanting to enlarge their understanding of and feelings for animals, nature and ourselves, NEITHER MAN NOR BEAST is one selection that must be read."--The Av


"Adams's THE SEXUAL POLITICS OF MEAT introduced a new idea to the general public: that the eating of meat and the oppression of woman are intimately connected. According to Adams, the patriarchal mind constructs both women and animals as 'other,' and sees them only in terms of their usefulness. Insofar as women participate in meat-eating, Adams argued, they are complicit in their own oppression. In this collection of her essays, Adams, a theologian, expands on those ideas, exploring a range of subjects: abortion rights and animal rights; connections between domestic violence and violence against animals; feminist ethics and vegetarianism; racism and animal oppression; and feminist-vegetarian theology. Although most of the essays were previously published, they have been largely inaccessible and so the collection is welcome. Some of the essays are geared to sophisticated academic audiences; most presume at least some acquaintance with feminist theory, but even general readers with an interest in animal rights will be intrigued by Adams's work. Her thinking is brilliant and original, and this volume belongs in every women's studies, theology, and environmental ethics collection."--Choice

"A radical critique of patriarchal culture." - LIBRARY JOURNAL

"This work of unflinching intelligence makes connections critical to any kind of survival with integrity. Buy it. Read it. Be challenged, comforted, and changed forever." - Robin Morgan

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Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Continuum (December 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0826408036
• ISBN-13: 978-0826408037
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,371,631 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I'm the author of The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory. It's been called "ground-breaking" and "pioneering" (interesting how our description of books draws from our invasive relationship to the land). Many say it is an underground classic, which I guess means that lots of people know and love it, but it goes unnoticed by the dominant media. Of course, when it first came out, that was slightly different. Then, right-wing reviewers held it up as the latest example of academic excess and political correctness, which was funny to me, because I am not an academic. I used to teach a course I developed at Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University on "Sexual and Domestic Violence: Theological and Pastoral Issues" -- but very infrequently. Basically, for as long as I have been an adult, I have been an advocate, an activist, someone trying to figure out how do we transform this d*#! world that is built on inequality.

I have published more than 100 articles in journals, books, and magazines on the issues of vegetarianism and veganism, animal advocacy, domestic violence and sexual abuse. I am particularly interested in the interconnections among forms of violence against human and nonhuman animals, writing, for instance, about why woman-batterers harm animals and the implications of this (it's in my book Animals and Women). Besides advancing scholarship and developing theory in the area of interlocking oppressions, I have created a series of books that address the vegetarian/vegan experience: Living Among Meat Eaters: The Vegetarian Survival Guide, Help! My Child Stopped Eating Meat! and The Inner Art of Vegetarianism.

I've worked to bring back into print Howard Williams's nineteenth-century classic text on vegetarianism, The Ethics of Diet. I have contributed prefaces to important vegetarian, vegan, and animal defense books and discovered an eighteenth-century vegetarian work that had never entered the vegetarian tradition.

Because I am so deeply moved by my relationship with animals, I have authored books of prayers for animals for both adults and children.

I am excited that the 20th anniversary edition of The Sexual Politics of Meat will be published next February.

I also write about literary topics, including two "Bedside" books: one on Frankenstein and one on Jane Austen. I am finishing a memoir on caregiving and reading.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I enjoyed the thought-provoking essays, June 24, 2011

By 

A. Harper "Breeze Harper" (California) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Neither Man Nor Beast: Feminism and the Defense of Animals (Paperback)

in Neither Man nor Beast: Feminism and the Defense of Animals, Adams appreciates how authors such as Tom Reagan and Peter Singer describe the suffering that animals endure as consumable commodities, however, she argues that their epistemologies around animals is filtered through a human male experience. She writes, "Do Reagan and Singer and other animal-defense theorists have the analysis correct- they understand and act upon the problem of animals' instrumentality- but incorrectly attempt to fit it within a framework delimited by its own human male bias?." Adams recognizes that epistemologies come from embodied experiences, and that this embodied experience is subjective and based on factors such as gender.

Adams argues that many feminist-vegan and feminist-vegetarian critical theorists are not comfortable with the use of "rights" within pro-vegan and pro-vegetarian animal liberation philosophies, simply because the logic of [human] rights comes from the white male class privileged embodied experience. She asks what animal ethics can look like if coming from women's embodied experience.

In Neither Man Nor Beast, Adams also gives the reader a small view into the potential of a critical whiteness analysis within animal ethics. Even though she is a white middle class woman with a graduate degree living in the privileged spaces of American modernity, Adams, to some degree, critically reflects on how unacknowledged white privilege potentially becomes a self-made barrier for the animal liberation movement. Adams writes in Chapter 4,

"[M]any people of color and some progressive whites eye the animal defense movement with suspicion. The animal defense movement is thought to result from and enact forms of race and class privilege, providing an opportunity for some whites to ignore issues of social oppression. Do white animal defenders put themselves in the place of the animals, thus allowing them not to deal with the privilege they have vis-a-vis other humans? Do white animal defenders identify with animal victims of human privilege because this is a privilege they are willing to foreswear, but not with victims of race and class privilege because these are privileges they wish to maintain?" (Adams 1994, 71-72).

Most of post-1980s scholarship on feminist-vegan/vegetarian critical theory tend to be concerned with 'patriarchy' and/or 'male-stream' thought within animal ethics, without looking into how race or whiteness also operates. This is indicative of a largely white middle-class feminist standpoint that has a history of engaging in feminism with the assumption that all feminists and women have a white middle-class First-world experience. Rarely, if ever, did this collectivity of feminist theorists reflect on how race and whiteness operate, or how their own racial and class privileges influence how they produce feminist scholarship.

Adams has substantial training in anti-racism and critical studies of racism and whiteness at not just the individual, but structural level in the USA, hence the content of her works shows this, drawing from black feminist epistemologies of bell hooks, Alice Walker, as well as critical race theories of Kimberlé Crenshaw. Though written 16 years ago, I really enjoyed this book and actually think it's a little 'deeper' than "Sexual Politics of Meat". I think it's great to read "Sexual Politics of Meat" first, and then Neither Man Nor Beast.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Intersectionality, November 23, 2011

By 

Voltairine Michel - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Neither Man Nor Beast: Feminism and the Defense of Animals (Paperback)

In spite of Carol Adams being in a little bit of a different wave of feminism, I always enjoy her intersectional approach to things, which always includes race, gender, class, animals, and so on. Many animal lib books, or intersectionality books, leave out women, or race, or animals. Carol Adams never fails to keep me interested. I always read her books quickly.