The Sexual Politics of Meat


The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory is a 1990 book written by Carol J. Adams, in which she develops her Vegetarian-Feminist, Pacifist, intersectional critical theory. The book was first written as an essay for a college course taught by Mary Daly and includes material such as interviews from vegetarian feminists in the Boston-Cambridge area. The Sexual Politics of Meat has been translated into nine languages and re-published for its 25th anniversary edition as a part of the Bloomsbury Revelations series.

Summary

The book is composed of three parts, "The Patriarchal Texts of Meat", "From the Belly of Zeus", and "Eat Rice, Have Faith in Women", as well as an epilogue entitled "Destabilizing Patriarchal Consumption". In these sections Adams looks at the connections between as well as the comparisons of ingrained cultural misogyny and what Adams sees as an obsession with the consumption of meat and masculinity.

Reception

The Sexual Politics of Meat has been reviewed by multiple outlets, which includes the NWSA Journal, Etnofoor, and The Women's Review of Books. In a 2010 article for The Guardian, Nina Power wrote that "It's 20 years since the Sexual Politics of Meat was published, yet it is still as relevant as ever".