The sexual politics of meat: a feminist-vegetarian critical theory

Abstract

What does the eating of meat have to do with the women's movement? Is there a cultural correlation between our image of and attitude toward women and the slaughter of animals? This study answers these questions by establishing the connections between the women's movement, ecological concerns and our increasing awareness of the environment in the 1990s. In this approach to violence against women and animals, the book uses feminist literary theory to enlighten social practices and develops the thesis that women and animals are linked as absent referents in the context of patriarchal society. It provides the beginnings of a feminist history of vegetarianism from 1790 to the present day, and examines works by women writers that depict a connection between meat eating, male dominance and war. In identifying the cross-mapping of feminism and vegetarianism, the book argues that vegetarianism can act as a sign of autonomous female being, and signals a rejection of male control.