The above is a brief video from Dr. Melanie Joy, author of Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows: An Introduction to Carnism. Joy discusses carnism in the following passage from an interview with U.S. News and World Report:
The system [of carnism] . . . is structurally similar to other systems that are built around exploitation, in that it uses one group, in this case its animals, in particular farmed animals to serve the interests of another group. And it uses certain defenses to prevent humane people from recognizing what they're doing when they're participating in the system. . . . It is coercive in that it prevents the average person from being aware of what they're contributing to, what they're participating in, and prejudices they may have in the process. . . . There's a growing body of literature looking at the connection between meat and masculinity and it's very interesting.
We'll discuss the topic of eating animals in the last unit of the semester. Meanwhile, it may be useful to think about Joy's notion of carnism vis-a-vis moral, ethical, psychological, social, and cultural factors that inform a person's decision to use (or not use) animals as food. We'll also talk about what Joy notes above as "the connection between meat and masculinity." A good place to start is Carol J. Adams's The Sexual Politics of Meat. We've already looked at the ideological connections between gender rights and animal rights in Josephine Donovan's work, and you'll notice Carol J. Adams has an essay in the "Animals for Food" section of The Animal Ethics Reader.
I may be wrong here, but it seems that there are more female scholars than male scholars working on the connections between gender politics and the politics of eating animals. If anyone finds any information on this, feel free to share it here.
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