What is Sexy? Women or Meat? Or Both?

Carol Adams is a feminist that draws distinct parallels between the oppression of women and non human animals especially when it comes to advertisements. She states at the beginning of her book, “The Pornography of Meat” – that advertisements are carefully constructed and nothing is there by accident (Kemmerer. page 2). We can see depictions of pornographic meat and how it coincides with the oppression and objectification of women everyday in the marketing habits of our society in just about anything from Hardees commercials to Pepsi advertisements. Adams argues that given the images, people may feel “aroused” or have feelings of

There are many different ways that the above image could be analyzed. The consumer that this image is working to arouse is a masculine man – as we learned last week that eating meat, particularly a lot of, is deemed as manly. In terms of “meat-eating” (consuming nonhumans), this advertisement is selling that pork is also a white meat, when most people would probably think of chicken as a staple white meat option. We can take this a step further in that the advertisers are working to reach a wider male audience through their use of the words “the other white meat”  – this wider male audience possibly being Muslim or Jewish men, as these religions see pork as unclean. In this picture, obviously those being consumed wanting to be consumed is the chicken and the pork – because they are both white meat. according to this image. Also, the words “the other white meat” directly tie into the objectification of women because what part of the chicken is known as white meat? The breast. So now, women are also the ones being consumed in this image. As women are all too often referred to as a piece of meat. Thinking about white meat as the breast of the chicken and simultaneously as women sexualizes eating meat and makes it pornographic because our sexualized society has redefined a woman’s breasts as something that is there for a man’s sexual pleasure rather than its intended purpose nourishing children – and making the connection between eating a chicken breast while thinking of a woman’s breasts as something that is sexually pleasing to a man could make eating that chicken breast an arousing idea to some consumers. Adams sums this idea up in her interview by stating that “women are animalized and animals are sexualized and feminized.” (Potts, page 13).

Image 2:
Living in the South a bumper sticker like this is not an uncommon sight. I actually find it quite odd that I have never seen this particular one. This image takes the “masculinity” of eating meat a step further by insinuating that one would be more of a man if they hunted their own meat, as the directed consumer of this bumper sticker would be a hunter. This sticker id depicting the ultimate man as one that hunts their own meat and consumes much like they would consume the women in the image as well. In the south, when hunting your skill is going to be determined by how many “points” the deer has on their horns when it is killed – the more points means the bigger the prize. In this picture the deer is being hunted and consumed but so is the woman. She is standing in what some would say is provocative manner, much like the deer with the most points on it is most appealing to the hunters. This is diminishing the woman to something that is hunted and caught rather than willfully entering a relationship with their manner. The words depicted in this image make it obvious that its purpose is to sexually appeal to men. As stated previously the more points on the deer antlers the bigger the prize. This sexualizes the woman because in the word “horny” is used in modern language to refer to someone’s levels of sexual arousal; and this image is stating that the more horn a deer’s antler has, the more useful it is in determining the skills level of the hunter, while also stating the more “horny” a woman is determines the masculinity and sexual “skill” of the hunter. Adams goes on to state in her interview that a “process of objectification/fragmentation/consumption connects women and animals in a patriarchal society” (Potts, page 13). And in the south that aren’t many things that are more patriarchal in nature than the amount of purpose and masculinity men find in hunting and how many points their deer had on their antlers. And that “the visual joke that substitutes one fragmented object for another can be found throughout our culture.” (Potts, page 13). This bumper sticker is a direct example of that because this bumper sticker is meant to be funny and used as a joke. It’s purpose is to make a joke about hunting and killing deer while also making a joke of the woman as something that can be hunted based on her level of sexual arousal.

I find it funny though because I believe that most women would agree seeing a man with a sticker such as this on the back of their vehicle screams everything BUT a “skilled, sexual hunter”. 

Image 3:

I found this image the most profound living in our post Roe Society. Many would say the consumer of this advertisement would be the one that enjoys hamburgers. But to me, analyzing this from a post Roe perspective, the consumer is government. And the consumed is women’s reproductive freedom as the women is depicted giving birth. As previously stated women are inherently referred to as pieces of meat; and meat is consumed, objectified and controlled for whatever use the consumer has in mind. And that is exactly what the Supreme Court and far too many state and local governments have in mind for women’s reproductive choice. The government has taken away a woman’s right to choose whether to carry a pregnancy or have access to abortion care and that has inherently put women in a position of forced birthing just as factory farm animals are made to do. This image objectifies that lack of choice through showing the woman “giving birth” to hamburger, showing that women are just going to give birth to something else the government can control, especially if it is a female. Far too often people do not think of the horrid conditions of factory farming because this is an industry done in mass and that takes away an uniqueness. As stated by Adams, in The War on Compassion, “objects referred to in mass terms have no individuality, no uniqueness, no specificity, no particularity.” (Adams, page 6). Reproductive choice is also seen and defined in mass terms as a black and white decision on whether women should have the right to abortion care and services, by defining it in mass terms it takes away the individualism of each situation and thus makes it easier to redact that right to access care. When the Supreme Court made the access to abortion care about just the procedure itself, it took away the humanity and uniqueness of each woman seeking reproductive healthcare – much like factory farming taking away the individualism and humanity that is owed to the nonhuman animals.

Image 4:

“All animals have the same parts”

While I can understand the goal of the image is to liken nonhuman animals to human animals, analyzing this image from a perspective that aligns with Adams, this image is not without sexualizing and objectifying consuming meat and women. Pamela Anderson is what many would call a pop culture sex symbol, in the days of Baywatch she depicted the “perfectly sexy women” that many men would love to consume, with men being the consumer in this ad. Using her image along with words that describe “cuts of meat” outlined on her body shows that women have “cuts of meat” similar to non human animals that human animals enjoy eating and this sexualizes meat eating along with women by giving the same connotation to nonhuman animals’ body parts as a woman’s body parts have. While this image is meant to deter people from eating meat, in reality it does just the opposite. It makes eating meat and therefore consuming women that much more appealing and masculine because “consuming” Hollywood’s ultimate sex symbol would make any man an example of “prime masculinity”.

In a society where sex sells and women are constantly reduced to a piece of meat, a heifer, pussy etc, and seen as conquests for men – WHY would an advertisement that depicts women as having the same body parts as non human animals, that are factory farmed and consumed in masses, deter men from eating meat??