- Paperback: 272 pages
- Publisher: Continuum; 2nd Revised edition edition (Nov 1 1999)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0826411843
- ISBN-13: 978-0826411846
- Product Dimensions: 22.6 x 15 x 1.5 cm
- Shipping Weight: 363 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
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Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
#366,939 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #72 in Books > Gay & Lesbian > Nonfiction > Civil Rights
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
Many cultures equate meat-eating with virility, and in some societies women offer men the "best" (i.e., bloodiest) food at the expense of their own nutritional needs. Building upon these observations, feminist activist Adams detects intimate links between the slaughter of animals and violence directed against women. She ties the prevalence of a carnivorous diet to patriarchal attitudes, such as the idea that the end justifies the means, and the objectification of others. In Frankenstein , Mary Shelley made her Creature a vegetarian, a point Adams relates to the Romantics' radical politics and to visionary novels by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Dorothy Bryant and others. Adams, who teaches at Perkins School of Theology, Dallas, sketches the alliance of vegetarianism and feminism in antivivisection activism, the suffrage movement and 20th-century pacifism. Her original, provocative book makes a major contribution to the debate on animal rights.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
Writer/activist/university lecturer Adams's important and provocative work compares myths about meat-eating with myths about manliness; and explores the literary, scientific, and social connections between meat-eating, male dominance, and war. Drawing on such diverse sources as butchering texts, cookbooks, Victorian "hygiene" manuals, and Alice Walker, the author provides a compelling case for inextricably linking feminist and vegetarian theory. This book is likely to both inspire and enrage readers across the political spectrum: we learn, for example, that veal was served at Gloria Steinem's 50th birthday, as well as of the atrocities of the slaughterhouse. One wishes Adams had been more careful about documenting some of her claims--her contention, for instance, that early humans were entirely vegetarian, requires scholarly support. Nevertheless this is recommended for both public and academic collections.
- Beverly Miller, Boise State Univ. Lib., Id.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
- Beverly Miller, Boise State Univ. Lib., Id.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most helpful customer reviews
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Semiotics of Meat,
By
This review is from: Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory (Paperback)
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.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Agree with Adams' assertions, but repetitive, oddly-written,
By Bart Tare "Cristobal" (United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory (Paperback)
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.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Meat=Murder!,
By Brian Mitchell (Woodland Hills, CA United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory (Paperback)
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.
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