Customer Reviews

The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory

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I read this book at the same time I was reading Riane Eisler's The Chalice and the Blade. The two works seem to fit well together in some ways (and I noticed that Eisler quotes from one of Adams' later books in her book Sacred Pleasure). I agree with Adams' main assertion in this book: Throughout modern history meat has been associated with "domination"-type patriarchal values. I don't think there is any question that this meat = patriarchy assertion is true in most of our world's cultures. However, I find The Sexual Politics of Meat oddly and somewhat incoherently written. The book is not really comprehensively anthropological and it's not really comprehensively literary-analytical either. Adams seems to just jump around to (mostly) British-oriented novels and non-fiction works in a very haphazard way. I could not figure out exactly why she chose some of the books that she did. With the exception of some works like Percy Shelly's piece on meat-eating, many of her choices appeared quite random to me. And the other thing that bothered me was that Adams repeated herself a lot. I had trouble keeping track of the different works Adams was analyzing because she seemed to say the same thing about them over and over. Finally, in 2001, I find there is an obviousness to some of the examples Adams uses to make her point about meat-eating and patriarchal values. The Vietnam-era scene about someone refusing to eat meat in the house of prominent military person sticks out in my mind here. Perhaps when she wrote this down fifteen or so years ago, it seemed that our "majority culture" would have sympathized more with the military/macho meat guy. But I think today, more people (or a great many people) would sympathize with the person who refused to eat meat. I guess this book just doesn't seem as radical to me as it probably felt to Adams when she was writing it.

Does eating rice bring "wholeness to our fragmented relationships"? Carol Adams believes that it can, and in this beautifully crafted work she lays out the entire argument. She does not minimize her personal revulsion toward the eating of meat, and the meat industry, but she ventures widely - from there.

This serious, disturbing, and well-researched book covers many interrelated topics, among them women, linguistics, animal rights, violence and terror, political resistance and patriarchy.

Food's meaning and importance to sustenance, spirituality, ritual and symbol and more - is undisputed. Adams' interesting, accessible, and scholarly polemic builds a solid foundation for her fervent wish that feminists embrace vegetarianism, or more accurately, veganism - the rejection of all animal-based foodstuffs.

But Hitler was a vegetarian and an animal lover; and until I got to Adams' deconstruction of that seemingly hideous contradiction, I thought, "There goes the notion of the moral weight of eating habits!" But Adams tackles the topic of Hitler's vegetarianism (for example)efficiently and convincingly, and in doing so removes him from the discussion.

This is a serious, disturbing, and well-researched book. Adams sounds a rational and convincing call for all people with control over what they may choose to consume - to live and eat deliberately and mindfully. Definitely worth reading.

The very depth of Adams' convictions about vegetarianism interfere with her ability to make a convincing argument to the skeptical. Quoting people who agree with her does not in and of itself prove that she is right - it only helps if they are making good arguments. But they seem so right and so obvious to Adams that she simply throws them at the reader. If the reader already agrees with her, this no doubt seems very eloquent, but if the reader doesn't, particularly if he/she has already thought about the issues, they are meaningless. She seems to have no idea how the omnivorous reader thinks, and therefore might be persuaded. Anyone making an argument that meat-eating offends god or the natural order would have to offer me a convincing explanation for the existence of carnivores and omnivores other than human beings. The usual argument that they are animals and have no choice makes no sense. If God disapproved of meat-eating, vegetarianism would be the default.

The attempt to equate meat-eating and white racism is beneath contempt and displays an incredible (willful?) ignorance of how other people live.

One unintended bit of humor is Adams' constant reference to "savory vegetables." Everyone I have quoted that to, included one vegan, thinks that is an oxymoron.

I also wonder about Adams' grasp of reality: she seems to confuse fiction with real events and to overrate the value of words. This seems like a classic case of the ivory tower. She offers quotes from novels as one might offer historical events. Adams repeatedly cites an obviously beloved scene where a vegetarian is, for some no-doubt bizarre reason, celebrating Thanksgiving with a very hostile host who not only insists upon putting meat on her plate, but pours gravy over her vegetables. I gather that it does not occur to Adams, as she enjoins vegetarians to rebuke meat-eaters, that we would find that as objectionable as the fictional character finds her host's behavior. I suspect that Adams has lost her hold on the distinction between defending the right of vegetarians to eat as they please (in which I would support her) and harassing other people who don't share their beliefs. Anyone taking the latter authoritarian stand will have to offer me a convincing, entitling authority.

I'll mention one last thing that bothers me about this book. Feminists, in their tendency to view their set of beliefs as a seamless garment, often argue that their other causes are an inherent part of feminism, which burdens feminism by making it more exclusionary. I don't often hear people making the opposite argument and burdening their other causes with feminism. Adams argues that vegetarianism should be considered an intrinsic part of feminism. Does she argue that feminism is an intrinsic part of vegetarianism? Does she tell vegans that they can't really consider themselves to be vegetarians if they don't support feminist issues?

Adams continues this argument in a book entitled The Pornography Of Meat.

Amazon previously threw this review off the website, although it was at the time the highlighted review, but I am defying them and putting it back on.

I first read THE SEXUAL POLITICS OF MEAT in 1990. I had just become a vegetarian. This book connected my feminist politics with my vegetarian politics. This book was a groundbreaking work in ecofeminist theory. Ms. Adams shows how a patriarchal society oppresses animals, women and the very planet Earth itself. She shows us how our dietary choices can be a resistance to the oppressive patriarchal status quo. This book continues to empower me. In 2004 this book is more relevant than ever.

Within the contexts of feminism, racism, speciesism, classism, and vegetarianism, the author lucidly demonstrates how our culture and language define and reinforce a political paradigm that supports marginalization and consumption. She does an excellent job exposing the hypocrisy and denial so prevalent in contemporary society.

I could go on & on about this book. It is one the most inspiring and thought-provoking books I've ever read. I first read this book around the time I became a Vegan, developed a serious interest in Sociology, and earned a greater respect for Feminism. To truly appreciate and understand this book, one has to read it with an open mind. Some of the concepts and theories may seem extreme or abstract at first, but I suggest that people give Adams's text time to marinate.

Many feminists do not like to be treated like meat or like animals. I think this is because we all know, consciously or not, the extent and nature of animal oppression. Why have feminists for so long co-opted these animal metaphors to explain their own oppression, yet failed to see that these metaphors only work BECAUSE animals themselves are so oppressed?

Carol Adams is among the first to step forward and call for feminist attention to animal rights and meat eating. She makes points in this book which are revolutionary and, I believe, will be the future of feminism. The questions she raises about species are no less reasonable than questions other feminists have raised about race, class, gender, and any other facet of identity. Yet most feminists have refused to analyze human identity, and look at animals with the same eyes that many men look at women.

Though at times Adams writes very academically and heavily, this book should be required reading for all feminists-- and for all people who believe that both women and animals in this culture are literally and figuratively fragmented, consumed, and turned into meat, the ultimate objectification. A book whose importance I cannot stress enough.

This book is interesting chiefly as an extreme example of a rhetorical style that is altogether too much with us. It will either annoy or amuse you, depending on your taste for irony.

There may in fact be some deep relationship between carnivory and maleness, or vegetarianism and femaleness. Those who wonder why would probably find more pertinent data in the realm of evolutionary anthropology, rather than in stilted and implausible over-interpretations of advertising and other pop culture ephemera.

You will marvel at the author's faith in the magical power of words and pictures: by changing them, we can change the world. Believe this, and all social and politcal action can be carried out safely from within the ivory tower.

Both rigorous and eccentric diets born of body-image problems, and a sort of maudlin sentimentality our great-grandmothers would have had no leisure for, are much too close to the stereotypical notions of conventional femininity. In her zeal to denounce patriarchy and carnivory, this author seems to have embraced them.

Still, it's an interestingly over-the-top example of this type of rhetorical style, and as such has some entertainment value despite itself.

Engaging overview, from a post-structuralist/postmodern vantage point, of the linkage between meat-eating and patriarchy and feminism and vegetarianism. One of the purposes of the book is to emphasize the role of the "absent referent" as an essential influence on cultural and social discourse. In doing so, Adams calls attention to the ways in which acceptable modes of thinking and behaving are structured within the cultural framework. All in all, a very readable, well-researched, and engrossing examination of the integral connections (oppression) between vegetarianism and feminism.

An obvious connection overlooked before Carol Adams came along to illuminate it for us.