Comments on: Milk And Gendered Production And Consumption

By: Sam R

Sam R — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 16:16:16 +0000

Well the barn owl could be considered a barn yard animal.

By: jenny

jenny — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 13:42:21 +0000

that reminds me of the vintage book “i’m glad i’m a boy! i’m glad i’m a girl!”

http://michiedo.blogspot.com/2008/12/im-glad-im-boy-im-glad-im-girl.html

By: Umlud

Umlud — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 18:52:18 +0000

This is a nit-pick: Ummm… I don’t think it was marketing chicken menstrual products per se as something edible that was the driving force for humans to eat eggs.

I think it was something more along the lines of: it tastes good (because we have been evolved to find protein and lipids “tasty”) and it’s relatively readily available (because domesticated chickens can continue to produce eggs).

“Marketed” on the basis that it was easier to raise chickens, collect, and eat their eggs (and eat the capons once they’re grown)? More likely than marketed on the basis that we were eating chicken-menses (since I’m going to hazard a guess that this bit of analogous biology wasn’t known at the time).

By: Louche

Louche — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 14:56:58 +0000

I read in “Neither Man Nor Beast” by Carol J. Adams that about 70% of factory farm workers (at least when the book was published) were non-white females. Adds to the absurdity that men are the producers of the milk… though who knows about the actual owners of these places.

By: emfole

emfole — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 13:51:40 +0000

hells yea @MeToo!! I wonder if the rape of cows would be appropriate in a non-patriarchal society. The dairy industry is some really sick shit.

By: Citizenparables

Citizenparables — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 04:05:08 +0000

Massively innappropriate co-opting of the term ‘child pornography’, IMHO.

By: MeToo

MeToo — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 03:50:45 +0000

Beyond the reproductive labour required to start the milk-producing process, these representations obscure the fact that actual sexual assault of cows (as well as bulls, to obtain semen) by humans is required for artificial insemination to start the process. The process is so horrifically vicious, that it’s perhaps not surprising that milk producers see nothing wrong with the sort of gendered promotion of “their” product which is portrayed here; dairy milk is sort of a ‘child pornography’ for the gastronomic appetite rather than the sexual appetite — exploitation and rape of bodies without consent, for the monetary gain reaped by consumers’ enjoyment.

By: MeToo

MeToo — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 03:38:47 +0000

Yes, chicken eggs are menstrual byproducts. Just goes to show that with marketing you can convince humans to consume pretty much anything.

By: Heta

Heta — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 22:19:44 +0000

Well, technically they are: laying eggs is basically the same thing as human menstruation; the unfertilized egg comes out and the ovulatory process starts from the beginning.

By: Elena

Elena — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 21:45:42 +0000

That the commodity of milk has become a product so abstracted and disjointed from its laborer is sickening. There’s some Marxist commentary that could be done there… Already been done :P

By: Elena

Elena — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 21:42:49 +0000

In the strictest sense, cow milk is made for the calf to drink. That 60% of humans, due to having raised and lived with cattle for millenia, have retained and propagated a genetic mutation that enables them to get one more source of nutrition and a bit more of diversity in their diet than they’d get otherwise is just a marginal evolutionary advantage.

It’s not like *any* food but mother’s milk has been intended for human consumption, anyway.

By: Citizenparables

Citizenparables — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 21:18:04 +0000

Although you’d be keen on them ovulating, I presume…

By: edward

edward — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 21:12:00 +0000

When I went to the doctor to consult why I was feeling so awful the next morning after eating macaroni and cheese or ice cream, he told me that it was probably lactose intolerance and confirmed that cow’s milk is not made for human consumption.

Some people – 60% – can drink it, but the rest of us have to make do with soy, rice, or almond products (and of course there are more).

By: Zuza

Zuza — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 20:44:30 +0000

If I were a farmer, I’d be very concerned if my chickens were menstruating.

By: Jackie

Jackie — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 18:38:35 +0000

Oh lordie this is quite awful, isn’t it? i imagine they’re aiming at kids…the only ray of hope in all this is that children these days are so computer literate they don’t need to solve puzzles to allay mother hen’s PMS on the gotmilk.com website to entertain themselves (instead they’re more content to play shoot-shoot-bang-bang 1p’s and all that jazz)…quite the world we live in…

And mercurianferret has a point–where are the cows??? That the commodity of milk has become a product so abstracted and disjointed from its laborer is sickening. There’s some Marxist commentary that could be done there…