dodi’s Reviews > The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory > Status Update

"We give them life and later we can take it, precisely because in the beginning we gave it. Based on our knowledge of how the story is going to end we interpret its beginning. [...]; we allow animals existence and we begin to believe that animals cannot exist without us."

"Patriarchal language insists that the male pronoun is both generic, and specific. Similiarly, "it" refers to either to non-animate things ır to animate being whose gender identity is irrelevant or unknown. But just as the generic "he" erases female presence, the generic "it" erases the living, breathing nature of the animals and reifies their object status."

"The institution of butchering is unique to human beings. All carnivorous animals kill and consume their prey themselves. They see and hear their victims before they eat them. There is no absent referent, only a dead one. [...] If you believe yourselves to be meat eaters, kill youself what you wish to eat. [...] We have no bodily agency for killing and dismembering the animals we eat; we require implements."

"The male prerogative to eat meat is an external, observable activity implicitly reflecting a recurring fact: meat is a symbol of male dominance.
It has traditionally been felt that the working man needs meat for strength. A superstition operates in this belief: in eating the muscle of strong animals, we will become strong."

"The end of macho marks the end of the meat-and-potatoes man."