{"id":62440,"date":"2014-12-29T13:00:56","date_gmt":"2014-12-29T18:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=62440"},"modified":"2015-02-01T03:13:37","modified_gmt":"2015-02-01T08:13:37","slug":"the-sexual-politics-of-veganism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2014\/12\/29\/the-sexual-politics-of-veganism\/","title":{"rendered":"The Sexual Politics of Veganism"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"2\"<\/a>Carol Adams has written extensively on the sexual politics of meat<\/a>, arguing that women and other animals are both sexualized and commodified to facilitate their consumption (both figuratively and literally) by those in power. One result has been the feminization of veganism and vegetarianism. This has the effect of delegitimizing, devaluing, and defanging veganism as a social movement.<\/p>\n

This process works within the vegan movement as well, with an open embracing of veganism as inherently feminized and sexualized. This works to undermine a movement (that is comprised mostly of women) and repackage it for a patriarchal society. Instead of strong, political collective of women, we have yet another demographic of sexually available individual women who exist for male consumption.<\/p>\n

Take a browse through vegan cookbooks on Amazon, for instance, and the theme of \u201csexy veganism\u201d that emerges is unmistakable:<\/p>\n

\"1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Oftentimes, veganism is presented as a means of achieving idealized body types. \u00a0These books are mostly geared to a female audience, as society values women primarily as sexual resources for men and women have internalized these gender norms. \u00a0Many of these books bank on the power of thin privilege, sizism, and stereotypes about female competition for male attention to shame women into purchasing.<\/p>\n

\"1a\"<\/a><\/p>\n

To reach a male audience, authors have to draw on a notion of \u201cauthentic masculinity\u201d to make a highly feminized concept palatable to a patriarchal society where all that is feminine is scorned. \u00a0Some have referred to this trend as \u201cheganism<\/a>.\u201d \u00a0The idea is to protect male superiority by unnecessarily gendering veganism into veganism for girls and veganism for boys. \u00a0For the boys, we have to appeal to \u201creal\u201d manhood.<\/p>\n

Meat Is For Pussies (A How-to Guide for Dudes Who Want to Get Fit, Kick Ass and Take Names)<\/a><\/em>\u00a0appears to be out of print, but there are others:<\/p>\n

\"1b\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Then there is the popular tactic of turning women into consumable objects in the exact same way that meat industries do. \u00a0Animal rights groups recruit \u201clettuce ladies\u201d or \u201ccabbage chicks\u201d dressed as vegetables to interact with the public. \u00a0PETA routinely has nude women pose in and among vegetables to convey the idea that women are sexy food. \u00a0Vegan pinup sites<\/a>\u00a0and strip joints also feed into this notion. \u00a0Essentially, it is the co-optation and erosion of a women\u2019s movement. \u00a0Instead of empowering women on behalf of animals, these approaches disempower women on behalf of men.<\/p>\n

\"2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In sum,\u00a0vegan feminism argues that women and non-human animals are commodified and sexualized objects offered up for the pleasurable consumption of those in power. In this way, both women and other animals are oppressed under capitalist patriarchy. When the vegan movement sexualizes and feminizes vegan food, or replicates the woman-as-food trope, it fails to acknowledge this important connection and ultimately serves to repackage potentially threatening feminist collective action in a way that is palatable to patriarchy.<\/p>\n

Corey Lee Wrenn is a Council Member for the American Sociological Association’s Animals & Society section. \u00a0This section facilitates improved sociological inquiry into issues concerning nonhuman animals and is currently seeking members.\u00a0Membership is $5-$10; you must be a member of the ASA to join<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Cross-posted at the Vegan Feminist Network<\/a>\u00a0and Pacific Standard<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Carol Adams has written extensively on the sexual politics of meat, arguing that women and other animals are both sexualized and commodified to facilitate their consumption (both figuratively and literally) by those in power. One result has been the feminization of veganism and vegetarianism. This has the effect of delegitimizing, devaluing, and defanging veganism as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":62442,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[12508,155,2124,55,23678,2096,2095,2087,2098,283],"class_list":["post-62440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-activismsocial-movements","tag-animals","tag-foodagriculture","tag-gender","tag-gender-androcentrism","tag-gender-femininity","tag-gender-feminismactivism","tag-gender-masculinity","tag-gender-prejudicediscrimination","tag-prejudicediscrimination"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2014\/04\/115.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62440"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62440\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65557,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62440\/revisions\/65557"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}