A friend and I were talking about the toll that veg*nism takes on feminists. She said, “We are animals and we need to eat to survive.” This is a view I share with her, deeply. I’ve begun to think of veg*nism as Carol Adams Disease. Carol Adams is the acolyte of Mary Daly who picked up on the idea that meat is brutally, violently ‘male,’ and blasted feminists for being patriarchal in the penchant for consuming animal flesh.
Feminists have taken up the charge 
of ‘meat is masculine’ in a way that must surely delight the patriarchs, at least those who are not in the industrial animal business, feedlots and confinements, meat packing and distribution. And most of them are not. No, the passion, the very health-devastation fury of righteous veg*ns, could not have been better orchestrated with Bernays-level propaganda. Instead, this vengeful version of ‘divide and conquer’ seems to have originated from within. In our frenzy to divorce ourselves from all things patriarchal, we forgot somehow that our assignment, our bestowal, is not fact. And that sometimes the connections we make aren’t entirely valid.
Or, as Paleosister likes to say, based on an apt Lierre Keith quote, “Wheat is murder.”
What happened here? Why did a woman of Mary Daly’s inner circle jump off this particular cliff of philosophizing? And as hard as it is to admit, the fact Rush Limbaugh hates something is not enough to make it true.
Part of the problem, I think, is that when we oversimplify things into opposites, it’s too easy to overlay ‘like’ and ‘dislike’ with ‘right’ and ‘wrong.’ The enemy of my enemy has to be my friend, and so forth. Another part of the problem, though, which is even harder to break down than flawed dichotomies, is the part mature responsibility has to play.
As females, we are expected to be drawn to cute, cuddly, flighty and fluffy. It’s all those butterfly bands and daisy-chain hair clips, and braids and pony tails pulled so tight they warped our girlish perspectives. “Whatever you see is fine; my eyes are pulled back nearly over my ears today, so I will take your word.” It’s all the pink and soft and delicate fabrics. And angry mothers when one climbed trees in dresses, and invariably ripped them. Cause and effect. And it happens so very young that we’ve no real chance of challenging it. And that’s kind of what pushes females into the veg*n world. Animals are “cute,” and they have “faces” and “mothers.” We liked being “cute.” We received high praise for it then; sometimes we still do. We have “faces,” and then there are those “mothers” of ours that we wish would approve of us. And support us and defend us against the patriarchy. Ever. Just even once. So we mother ourselves through vegan/tarianism.
And how apt is this? Food as nurturance. Food as redemption. Food as our deepest connection to female-kind.
Except that veg*nism is dangerous; it is not nurturance at all, and most have health consequences, and mood consequences. Sometimes these are deadly; never can they be discussed!
And how apt is this? Silence between women, silence for discomforts and lies made transparent, silence as ritual expectation. Dishonest silence as our deepest connection to our own kind.
This scares me a lot! Doesn’t it at least unnerve you a little bit, too? What about that adult responsibility thing?
In his book Long Life, Honey in the Heart, Martin Pretchel writes of the Mayan people and their concept of kas-limaal, which translates roughly as “mutual indebtedness, mutual insparkedness.”5
“The knowledge that every animal, plant, person, wind, and season is indebted to the fruit of everything else is an adult knowledge. To get out of debt means you don’t want to be part of life, and you don’t want to grow into an adult,” one of the elders explains to Pretchel.
The only way out of the vegetarian myth is through the pursuit of kas-limaal, of adult knowledge. This is a concept we need, especially those of us who are impassioned by injustice. I know I needed it. In the narrative of my life, the first bite of meat after my twenty year hiatus marks the end of my youth, the moment when I assumed the responsibilities of adulthood. It was the moment I stopped fighting the basic algebra of embodiment: for someone to live, someone else has to die. In that acceptance, with all its suffering and sorrow, is the ability to choose a different way, a better way. – Lierre Keith, The Vegetarian Myth
Lierre closes The Vegetarian Myth with these words. Actually these are followed by breakfast; she is such a nurturer!
“It’s time to put away the fairytales, all of them, and assume our responsibilities, the adult responsibilities that begin with adult knowledge. Our planet needs us. She needs us to think like healers and act like warriors. And if you think that’s a contradiction, then get out of the way.”
It’s not fair to lay this all on Carol Adams, though. Certainly she wrote the tome that led the charge, but she is an accessory of patriarchy, only its agent. I wish I had a better name for this malady, something that blamed patriarchy foremost. So far I’ve taken to calling it the Vegan Contagion or the Vegan Plague, and only subtitling it Carol Adams Disease.
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October 5, 2010 at 9:53 PM
secondwaver
The Keith quote about adult responsibility, and thinking about veg*nism as in essence juvenile, and even feminine, is compelling.
I have both books (Adams’ & Keith’s) waiting for me here, and meanwhile, I eat as I’ve always eaten, omnivore (including that killer wheat!)
I have VERY warm feelings for both authors. I really do wish you’d reconsider the disease subtitle-name!
My dear daughter is a vegetarian. All but one of my close local friends are vegetarians (only one is vegan).
The issue of what is healthiest to eat is interesting to me, but I really have my hands full. When I can, I will explore the question and decide–but that’s not happening in 2010.
I’m looking forward to informing myself and taking responsibility for knowing and deciding.
October 5, 2010 at 10:51 PM
Treesister
I’m fine with changing the name. It’s interesting. I’ve gotten some good feedback on this post, here and privately.
My comment about the hair bows was not meant to trivialize the ethical reasons that girls become veg*n. It was meant to show how the process of trivializing girls, placing an emphasis on cute and sweet keeps us from approaching life squarely, maturely. It keeps us little girl-like in the desire to avoid killing, in the belief that somehow we can do this. It is a view both patriarchal and shallow. It keeps us locked into the hierarchy, reinforces for us what really matters. As if somehow what gets measured in the hierarchy is all that counts. That would be things with faces, and with nervous systems very like our own. Beef cattle? Yes. Bacteria? Not at all. Accepting that hierarchy is to reinforce patriarchy. But it is also to reinforce the juvenile level of our thought. It justifies our not being taken seriously. It justifies trivializing us, in our fear of death.
It becomes, then, OK to swath whole fields, or to dig out roots wholesale, meaning the end of the line for that year’s progeny as it’s carted away. It’s OK to cut down forests. There are those who swear they hear trees scream as they are felled; they’re called loggers. And they become immune to the trees’ sounds. Because these things aren’t like us. They have no faces and no mothers. They have their place on the hierarchy, and we have ours. And suddenly the justification for fighting the oppression of women is on shaky ground: it’s not the hierarchy that feminists have challenged; it’s our place on that hierarchy. Those who are ‘for’ death have the power to terrorize those who are ‘against’ it. Men’s work is very often the work of making death. Think nuclear energy facilities, as well as war and armaments.
The only option left to women is, then, the assurance of life. Either/ or. Dichotomy. Dualism. And a huge part of that dualism is juvenile female/ older, wiser male. I was attempting to draw this parallel.
And yet there are other, better views. Views that remove the hierarchy, turn it instead into a female-affirming circle. The sacred hoop. The circle of life. The cycles of Nature. The forest as a whole, mycelium threaded to trees to ferns to nourishment for bacteria for deer for bears for wolves for bacteria. The prairie as a whole, mycelium threaded to trees to perennial grasses to sunflowers to nourishment for bacteria for prairie dogs and bison for wolves for bacteria. And so on for other niches, predator and prey, fauna and flora, the food for one being the life of another. These are more-mature views. And they take into account far more mature ethical considerations.
This is the greater part of what I am trying to say.
I have a great difficulty with Carol Adams. She appears to be bending her reality to shape her theory. A number of writers have suggested we bend theory to our needs, but she does something a little more sinister. She begins an argument, and then backs out of it as if she’d won.
Historians have suggested that vegetarians were attempting
to subdue their animal nature and disown their (feared)
beastliness by their focus on the cruelty of meat eating for
which there are no animal parallels: the use of implements
to kill and butcher the animal, the cooking and seasoning of
meat. (Ppg. 162-163, Adams, 2000.)
Adams continues on, attesting briefly to the issue of cooking, assuring us that vegetarians aren’t concerned with Nature, only that which is unnatural, the cooking, and the cultural intervention — the distancing from death.
There are, however, human parallels to the animal way of being. Not all human groups cook their meat. In People of the Deer, Farley Mowat’s 1952 book, the Ihalmiut people of Northern Canada eat their meat raw, and unseasoned except by time. And until very recently, people living within non-Inuit cultures everywhere outside the most central parts of cities often did their own butchering. There was no ‘distancing.’ These arguments are left unaddressed, and Adams continues on.
The distorting perspective of the dominant culture is
evident in the accusation that vegetarianism is racist.
[…] Thus, the encounter the late Pat Parker describes in her
poem “To a Vegetarian Friend” is troubling yet revealing.
Apparently her vegetarian friend was critical of Parker’s meat
consumption. Parker reminds her friend that the chitterlings
and greens, necklines and tails she was eating connected her
to her ancestors who had survived generations of slavery and
racism: “This food is good for me,” Parker writes. “It
replenishes my soul.” Do us both a favor, Parker suggests, if
you cannot keep quiet about my food, stay home.
Parker’s poem implies that two oppressions–racism and the
eating of animals–are in opposition to each other. (Ppg. 164-
165, Adams, 2000.)
Actually, Parker implies that racism and the racist prerogative of telling an oppressed sister what to eat might be the same thing: racism. That Parker felt the need to write the poem suggests that the argument had gone on long enough to require the harsh words. “Stay home” to another marginalized being is a strong statement.
If I don’t particularly care for Adams, I know others find her works worthwhile, even inspiring. I’m torn between overstating that I find her work extremely dangerous, and understating liberally that each woman decides for herself. We die — not when we’re wrong so much as when we’re entrenched in a position and we can’t leave it without losing our sense of self. A large part of veg*nism has been described as a cult. Let that echo through every sister’s decision at every blessed meal.
Is that good enough for now?
October 6, 2010 at 4:09 AM
Bev Jo
Oh Treesister,
That is beautiful. I agree completely. I’m not happy with a world where most eat someone to survive. But we must and I have never trusted the hierachy we were taught, with men at the top, then women, primates, other mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, etc. I’ve had a “vegetarian” Radical Lesbian Feminist friend announce to me that she still ate fish because “they don’t feel as much.” I asked her if she’d ever met fish personally and she hadn’t. I love all animals, but have seen every emotion I feel in wild fish. They are not less than mammals. (This friend killed a spider in front of me, saying “I suppose you don’t approve.” Well, no, actually. I feel about the same as she’d feel if someone killed her dog.)
Ants are the closest to human in terms of what they do (including growing food and keeping domestic animals), yet most humans think nothing of killing them. I wonder if plants actually feel more than animals. I can’t imagine they feel less. I certainly feel as upset about seeing a tree killed as I do about an animal needlessly killed.
But we all need to eat and I know that being an omnivore is the healthiest way to eat. I also believe Lierre, that if done carefully, it’s the best for the earth.
October 7, 2010 at 6:22 AM
Paleosister
I appreciate your post on this subject.
That said, I feel calling Adams “an accessory to patriarchy” is rather unfair. It is true that she is promoting a diet that causes terrible suffering to girls and women, but her goal is to bring feminism to the AR movement, not vice versa. She is willing to listen to what women have to say, and she is willing to stand up for women in large groups of mixed audiences.
I would like to believe if she knew how much suffering she was promoting, she would think differently about this issue. But, when one’s whole identity revolves around a specific lifestyle, how likely is that??
October 7, 2010 at 6:56 AM
Radical feminism meets the post-collapse world « Paleosister's Blog
[...] has posted is on the subject of the feminist promotion of veg*nism and animal rights. In her post, The Sexual Politics of Food, Treesister [...]
October 7, 2010 at 11:57 AM
Treesister
My reading of Adams’s history is the opposite, that she worked first to bring veg*nism into feminism.
The “accessory to patriarchy” is a bow to the debate that has raged across feminist spaces, ongoing, over how we, as feminists, name those acts from the hierarchy. In thinking about it, I might even say that to act racist or classist within feminism is to act, decidedly, unfeminist. Because to do so is acting from the hierarchy. Some, like Bev Jo, use the full-force word “oppress.” I don’t disagree. And I also see the pained reaction from sisters when this word is used. They fold in on themselves, and lash angrily at the speaker. Or circle the wagons. So I opt for the gentler term “accessory” and that, too, gets challenged? I might as well just have said, “Certainly she wrote the tome that led the charge, but as an oppressor, she is only patriarchy’s agent.”
Because sometime we really need to examine how deeply we can hurt one another by clinging to the hierarchy. Bev Jo co-authored an excellent book explaining the best-use definitions coming out of the 1980s: Dykes-Loving-Dykes. I strongly suggest it at a place to begin the discussion.
October 7, 2010 at 1:30 PM
Bev Jo
The problem with “one’s whole identity revolving around a specific lifestyle” is that is can become a cult, which is how Lierre describes veganism. I’ve seen absolute hysteria just over the subject of soy on a rat health list, where a woman who’s email is “soycrazy” ranted until I and another woman who had written about how toxic soy is, stopped, and then the soy fanatic started spewing right wing, anti Lesbian and gay, and anti-abortion crap. It was truly bizarre. But it was further proof of the “vegan rage” that Lierre wrote about.
This issue has done more damage to the Separatist community I used to be in than any other. What a loss for us all.
Thank you so much for this space, Treesister.
Bev
October 12, 2010 at 6:10 PM
paleosister
Treesister, I read an interview online where Adams says her goal is to bring feminism to the AR community, not vice versa.
I may well be defending Adams only to be disappointed; I just know the couple times I interacted with her she treated me kindly. She was the first radical feminist I met, so she holds a special place in my heart that way.
If she was ever to start attacking you or Lierre or any other womon, that would quickly change my feelings towards her.
October 31, 2010 at 1:03 AM
Aileen Wuornos
hey all, this is a really interesting discussion! I haven’t read kieth’s the vegetarian myth but i have read adam’s the sexual politics of meat it was actually one the first real radical feminist texts i’d ever read.
I’ve been a vegetarian for three or four years now, and a radical feminist for considerably less than that, and i found adam’s text a good starter for my understanding of rad fem ideology/issues, however, i can see where the issues that you and others have pointed out with her text make sense. Like paleosister pointed out, i think adams bringing the message of womyns liberation to animal liberation is a fair call.
What i’ve noticed from my brief involvement in animal lib seems to be a view of animals as disenfranchised, and then a promotion of this disenfranchisement slapped with a picture of a naked womon (peta i’m looking a YOU) and that veg*n rage that bev jo and kieth have mentioned. Don’t get me wrong i think that the exploitation of animals en masse via factory farms that we’re seeing now pisses me the hell off, but i loathe the hostility so many veg*ns have towards meat eaters is even more frustrating.
Mind you, i’m guilty of this too, but sometimes meat eaters are so hell bent on bellittling veg*ns for their consuming choices and people who offer me fish as a vegetarian dish grind my gears! Damn, i wish those people would learn the correct term ‘pescatarian’. Hell, I’d rather a ‘boring’ old grilled veggie stack over a poor dead fishie any day.
Bev, you’re a fountain of knowledge i didn’t know that about ants, but now i do. Thanks for that gem. The needless destruction of nature is definitely upsetting.
The Vegetarian Myth is a book I will invesitigate, this is the first time i’ve found a positive review of it, so you’ve all peaked my curiosity.
As others have mentioned on the thread, I did find Adam’s failure to mention Indingenous meat-eating irritating as well. The Australian Aboriginals have lived in harmony with the land for 40 000 years, and while as far as I know, many of their tribes were nomadic and grazed from the land, no farming, but a hell of a lot of reverence for the land, Australian Aboriginal culture is fascinating.
Witchity grubs, which i ate before i went vegetarian are actually very tasty. Kinda like snails or butter garlic brains!
Sorry this comment is long and ranty, trying to get yr thoughts out on an issue as complex as what we ingest is a bit difficult. But once again, thank you treesister for starting this discussion and to the wonder-full womyn who participated in it. This has been an eye opening read to say the least!
Xx
October 31, 2010 at 1:33 AM
Treesister
Yes, that whole indigenous living with the land for tens of thousands of years thing is impressive, and the only real measure of sustainability. I hope you get a copy of Lierre’s book. I really respect her view. This is an interview where Lierre really shows what an incredible, radical feminist she is: http://www.inthewake.org/keith1.html
And no apologies needed for long comments. I really appreciate every one of these, here.
October 31, 2010 at 3:21 AM
Aileen Wuornos
Wow, that was an *incredible* interview. Thank you so much for sharing that Treesister, that’s just cemented my need to get a copy of her book.
I really love what she says about one of the most effective strategies for fighting oppressive power weilding institutions is to think of where their power and weakness ends and where your own strength begins over lapping. Esp. What she says about liberalism compared and contrasted to Radicalism, and how putting a direct stop to rapists is the only thing that will help over throw the rape culture we live in. I’m all in favour of rape survivors exacting genuine justice, my own experiences have certainly led me to believe it (a broken nose and ribs is certainly a better way of stopping a rapist than trying to press charges, that’s for darn sure!)
It’s especially awesome that she’s so knowledgeable about political ideologies, ah it’s so hard to find these days especially amongst my peers (i only just turned 21.)
Wow, just wow. that interview was amazing, words can not express!
October 31, 2010 at 9:18 AM
Treesister
I’m really glad you found the same kind of inspiration in the interview as I did. Fighting back is too often taken as “using the master’s tools” and I think that makes as much sense as saying that breathing is using those same tools. So good for you for exacting justice!
November 2, 2010 at 11:10 PM
Aileen Wuornos
Well, I’m a Gen Y’r and grew up playing hideously violent video games so that probably was good for something!
I’ve learned from all the bullying and abuse (sexual and non-sexual) that I’ve put up with in my brief life that taking shit is not worth it. And besides, maybe by taking some violent action, I might encourage/inspire other womyn to do the same and stick it to the man
November 3, 2010 at 12:51 AM
Bev Jo
Hi Aileen,
Yes, it drives me crazy when “vegetarians” happily eat fish in any form, which ignores the fact that fish are meat, while feeling superior to omnivores because they can pretend they are vegetarian.
Lierre’s book is wonderful. I’ve been harassed for almost 40 years by vegetarians in my Separatist community, and the issue of eating pretty much damaged and destroyed our community internationally. Lierre’s book is a great way to answer many of the charges against us.
August 24, 2011 at 11:49 AM
dreaming of an ecofeminism of infinate possibility « Paleosister's Blog
[...] “We die — not when we’re wrong so much as when we’re entrenched in a position and we can’t leave it without losing our sense of self…. Let that echo through every sister’s decision at every blessed meal.” –Treesister, on The Sexual Politics of Food [...]