Women Nature Association

In The Politic of Meat  Carol J. Adams explains the connection between animal and human sexualization along with concepts of anthropronography and the intersections between objectification between women and animals.

 Looking at this picture at first glace my attention goes to the man that I recognize. This is hip hop artist Ludacris. In this chicken advertisement he is clearly pouring salt on a woman’s leg with a plate of fried chicken in front of him. Growing up I’ve seen many photo’s similar to this where  women’s body’s are used in comparison to food. We all are aware of the sexualization of women, but what about animals. The concepts addressed today  challenge the idea that women sexualization and non human sexualization aren’t related. In fact, they are much more related than anything else. Adams breaks down how the objectification of women and animals are the same and even used to influence the oppression on one another. For example, when women are objectified by their bodies and then when animals are objectified in the same way to look like the woman’s body. A good visual for this is the picture below where the pig has a woman’s body with curves, lip stick, and a big butt. This kind of advertisement is called Antropornography. Much like pornography the images are used to appeal to the male audience. The animals are seen as sex objects like the women. Adams coins the term ‘anthropornography’: “the depiction of nonhuman animals as whores” (p.109). We have all seen anthropornographic ads, but for most of us, we didn’t register what we were looking at. A cartoon with a cow standing like a sexy lady; a pig drawn with lipstick and a voluptuous rump; a chicken lifting her miniskirt to reveal her tasty feminine legs. Such ads, Adams notes, suggest that not only do women promiscuously want sex, but the same desire is applicable to others in the ‘Not A’ category – nonhuman animals (p.111). Adams holds no punches in her analysis of how these ads sugar-coat the flesh industries. “Anthropornography gives you a hooker on your plate. Nonhuman animals are whoring for you. Nonhumans want you, too. Suffering? Slaughtering? Inhumane acts? No. They want it” (p.111). I’ve never thought of my food sexually but after analyzing these photos I know see that i’ve been subjected to these kids of pictures my whole life and have not once stopped and thought about the comparison between animal sexualization in relation to women sexualization. One point Adams makes is also that social and political stands are also used to oppress animals and women. The same oppression women face with face, class, and gender are the same for animals. African Americans are subjected to more degradation because the oppressors are the white middle class. The sexual exploitation of women is to appeal to that specific type of person, at least for the western cultural. Heterosexual politics is dominate so in animal sexualization it’s also a factor. It is clear who the primary consumers are, the intended audience of these advertisements, but who are the consumables? Adams provides an insightful quote: “Meat is like pornography: before it was someone’s fun, it was someone’s life.” Those in category ‘Not A’ are the consumables: women, people of color, and animals. Adams analyzes advertisements with African American women, revealing African Americans as more likely to be linked with animals and nature, available to white men, and insatiable. She offers examples of African American men being linked with beasts, portrayed as savage (p.53), and as of less worth than their Caucasian counterparts (p.134).

Also female animals are the ones who are abused the most because they have more demand to reproduce for the consumers. The feminized animal is the animal who is violable, able
to be marked upon, the domesticated animals who
become “meat.” In meat eating, as I argue in The Sexual
Politics of Meat, all animals become symbolically female.
(And humane welfare laws often don’t apply to animals
used as meat.) Conventions include fragmentation (“are
you a breast man or a leg man”?), consumable females
(barbecued pigs as sexy females with thrusting hips and
pendulous breasts), and strip teases (animals in various
stages of disrobing), rendering all domesticated animals
being consumed as female. Moreover, female animals
are the ones who are the most abused in the
production of meat which can only exist because female
animals are enslaved reproductively to produce more
“meat” for consumers (and artists) page 16. In this last picture from Adams it states “free range grass fed strippers”. Now when I looked at this picture aka advertisement I had to really think about this. There’s big talk in the media now about cruelty free products and how animal lovers are now seeking rights for animals to live a cruelty free life before they are consumed for food. Many meat lovers have switched over to products who provide a better quality of life for the animal. This is cage free, no harmful chemicals added, and killed humanely. More strives have been made over the years to hold farmers and major food production companies accountable for the quality of life provided for these animals.  I myself thought this was great. I know I would feel so much better eating some chicken if I knew it had the opportunity to live a happy life before becoming my dinner versus being caged it’s whole life and miserable. Adams totally disagree, he believes this whole idea opens up a door that is taking away from the point that an animal shouldn’t be eaten for the pleasure of someone else. Her points are valid.

The focus on suffering creates a new
category “humane meat” that helps people reduce the
issue to “they aren’t suffering, so it’s okay to eat them.”
Of course, there is something insidious in the way the
dominant culture incorporates critiques and makes them
digestible (just decrease the suffering), but something
else obtains here as well. We have to remember that
some people get off on the suffering of others and that
for others, their pleasure narcissistically outweighs any
consideration of another’s suffering.
Why, in the end, do we parse another’s
suffering and try to calibrate what is acceptable and
what is not acceptable for them to experience on their
way to becoming dead flesh? Why not stare what we
actually are doing in the face — causing another’s death
for our own pleasure? Avoiding confronting this is
symptomatic of one aspect of The Sexual Politics of
Meat — it is hard to eliminate one’s dependence on the
instrumentality of another being. p 14

 

African women and African-American women already bear such an association with “wild” sexuality, uncontrollable (again why they are often shown as wild animals), if a darker pig were used, it would have overwhelmed the anthropornographic staging of the photo. Because of the race hierarchy that still is inscribed so strongly in Western culture. I chose this picture because it’s shows a perfect example of how women are dehumanized by animals and also how African American women are the most common to be compared to animals.

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/54792ff7e4b0674c74cb719d/t/55dc8dace4b0ad76d7277cb7/1440517548517/ANTENNAE+ISSUE+14.pdf

https://caroljadams.com/examples-of-spom/

https://goo.gl/images/g4CxF4