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The Sexual Politics of Meat Slide Show
An evolving 1 and 1/4 hour dynamic and challenging presentation that discusses the images of women and animals in contemporary popular culture by drawing upon the ideas found in The Sexual Politics of Meat and Neither Man nor Beast. It introduces the concept of the absent referent through autobiography and then systematically applies an analysis of how it functions to explain the animalizing of women in contemporary cultural images and the sexualizing of animals used for food. It draws upon images that have been sent from around the world and is constantly being updated as it tracks changes in popular culture.
The Slide Show provides an ecofeminist analysis of the interconnected oppressions of sexism, racism, and speciesism by exploring the way popular culture presents images of race, gender, and species to further oppressive attitudes. It also suggests forms of resistance against the construction of individuals, human or non-human, as "meat."
Drawing upon images from popular culture, it answers the question: how does someone become a piece of meat? The slide show demonstrates how a trinity of interrelated forces--objectification, fragmentation, and consumption--impact our cultural and personal consciousness about women and animals.
The Sexual Politics of Meat Slide Show has been presented on campuses across the country. From Oregon to Maine, from experimental schools to universities with slaughterhouses on their campus, the slide show attracts a diverse audience and prompts spirited discussions.
Click on one of the images below to view a larger version:
Student's comments on the Sexual Politics of Meat Slide Show
"[I] liked the fact that [Adams] discussed the connections not only between feminism and vegetarianism, but also between racism, homophobia, and anthropocentrism."
--Student at the University of Rochester, quoted in the Campus Times
"I think Carol Adams is a phenomenal speaker...I think she says lots of relevant things that concern all people, not only vegetarians."
--Student at University of North Texas, quoted in the NT Daily
"A lot of the analogies she made...they seem like things that were always out there we just never connected them in our minds."
--Student at the University of Michigan, quoted in the Michigan Daily.
“The ads were powerful and showed how women are often portrayed by the media as ‘pieces of meat,’ submissive and helpless, but at the same time [Adams] compared how similar the human body is to other animals.”
--Student at State University of New York at New Paltz, quoted in The Oracle
"This talk really lit into the parallels between the consumer industry and the meat-eating world. It's a good way to see culturally why we eat meat. It's totally propaganda-centered."
--Student at the University of Wisconsin, quoted in The Badger Herald
For a write up of Carol’s slide show at the Universities of Southern California and Wisconsin see
http://www.dailytrojan.com/article.do?issue=/V150/N60&id=02-meat.60c.html
and
http://www.badgerherald.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2003/11/18/3fb9ae8952167?in_archive=1
Click on the image above for a larger version.
Professors’s comments on the slide show:
“Your talk was a huge hit on campus. The faculty and students who spoke to me said it was the "best lecture they had ever been to." High praise from senior faculty, I'd say. And a few students mentioned that they had changed their diets too. The ripple effects of your lecture also include more business for the veg. restaurant downtown …. And lots of good recognition for Women's Studies for bringing you to campus. You were inspiring, entertaining, political, theoretical and accessible--able to reach many different segments of the campus audience. This is a real accomplishment!”
--from a professor at a liberal arts college in Pennsylvania
Among the issues the slide show addresses are:
- Sexualized fragmentation. Fragmented body parts of animals who will be eaten depicted in such a way that thoughts of women as sex objects are clearly evoked as well. Breast and thighs advertised on menus, as well as specific examples like "We serve the best legs in town," draw upon the patriarchal fixation on women's bodyparts.
- Animals feminized/sexualized. Animals presented in poses and clothes human females are represented in our culture (svelte legs, a "chick" in high heels, often animals posed like women, animals who are four-legged made to appear both "sexy" and bipedal, animals in bikinis). "I ate a pig..." Exactly who are they referring to?
- Back-entry shots of both animals and women. In pornography, back entry shots are constructed to convey both women's accessibility and imputes to them an "animal-like" nature, that is, "animal-like" in a speciesist culture, a view that sees women as desiring being sodomized; sometimes animals who are seen as consumable are positioned that way as an invitation to consumption.
- Connecting flesh eating and other forms of animal oppression to prostitution and pornography ("strip", "buck-naked", "Live Nude Lobsters!", and the "Happy Hooker," etc.).
In all of this, we encounter the underlying hostility to women that is conveyed, through the supposed neutral medium of meat eating. The connections--and images--are everywhere. Through the sexual politics of meat, consuming images such as these provide a way for our culture to talk openly about and joke about the objectification of women without having to acknowledge that this is what they are doing. These issues are "in our face" all the time. We do not perceive them as problematic because we are so used to having our dominant culture mirror these attitudes. We become shaped by and participants in the structure of the absent referent.
What you can do:
· Book the slide show at your college or university, or work with your local institution of higher education to bring it to campus. Contact me at cja@caroljadams.com
· Send me examples of the sexual politics of meat that you encounter on billboards, advertisements, menu's, articles, matchbook covers, etc.! You can send hard copies to me care of my publisher, Continuum International, 15th E. 26th Street #1703, New York, New York 10010
Where the Sexual Politics of Meat Slide Show has been shown:
Agnes Scott College, Augustana College, Beloit College, Bowling Green University, California State Polytechnic University at Pomona, CalTech, Clark University, College of Charleston, Concordia University, Cornell University, Deerfield Academy, Denison College, Evergreen College, Franklin and Marshall College, Gustavus Adolphus College, Hamline University, Harvard College, Hope College, Kent State University, Knox College, Lewis and Clark College of Law, Marist College, Mt. Holyoke, New College, University of South Florida, Northwestern University, Oberlin College, Ohio University, Ohio Wesleyan, Oregon State University, Pennsylvania State University, Portland State University, Rutgers University, St. Cloud University, Scripps College, Seattle University, Sheffield University (England), Skidmore College Smith College, State University of New York (SUNY) at Binghamton, SUNY at Fredonia, SUNY at New Paltz, Southwestern University, Tufts University, University of Illinois, Champaign, University of Illinois, Normal, University of California at Berkeley, UCLA Law School, University of Chicago, University of Cincinnati, University of Maine at Orono, University of Michigan, University of North Texas, University of Florida, University of Oregon, University of Pittsburgh, University of Redlands, University of Rochester, University of Southern California, University of Tennessee, University of Texas at Austin, University of Texas at Arlington, University of Wisconsin, Virginia Tech, Yale Law School, the World Vegetarian Congress in Toronto, the North American Vegetarian Summerfest, the Animal Rights conferences, 2000, 2001, 2003, the Michigan Federation of Humane Associations and Animal Advocates, 1997, and Liberation Now, 2002, 2003.
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