Have you ever considered the alternate or subliminal messages behind many advertisements, especially ones for meat? I hadn’t, or at least, not to the extent that Carol J. Adams, author of The Sexual Politics of Meat, The Pornography of Meat, and many other feminist-vegan books, has. Adams has been researching and writing about the oppression and marginalization of animals for decades, as well as the connections between their oppression and the oppression of women, especially in Western society. The way animals and women are connected in advertising is yet another example of the connection between women and nature that is the basis of ecofeminism. Adams compiled a slideshow, also entitled “The Sexual Politics of Meat,” comprising images of meat advertisements as well as images depicting logos or cartoons used by restaurants, to showcase some of the common images that degrade and oppress both animals and women. As Adams notes in her interview with Annie Potts for the journal, Antennae, images such as these are widespread in our culture here in the United States and work to define who the consumer is and who is being consumed, which strengthens the idea that there is some essential difference between men and women and between humans and animals. This belief that there is an essential difference supports one group’s domination over the other (Potts/Adams 15). So, to me, it’s basically a cycle. Patriarchy and male dominance over females, as well as speciesism and human dominance over animals, is upheld by the images we see in media and culture, and those images are accepted and proliferate throughout society because of patriarchy and speciesism. It is also important to note that these images Adams writes of, as well as the majority of advertising and/or pop culture images, are designed with a white, straight, male viewer and consumer in mind. Now, I’m no writer or theorist like Carol J. Adams, but I’m going to try my best to analyze some of the images she has curated for her slideshow to try to demonstrate what we mean when we say the oppression of women and animals are linked in advertisements for meat.
The first image I’ve decided to analyze is this sign, presumably outside a restaurant/bar. This ad for the business’ “late nite menu” utilizes the image of a hamburger with a woman’s legs in high heels. The hamburger is saying “Eat me.” The use of a hamburger makes the actual animal, the cow, an absent referent, as Adams calls them. The business is not talking about a cow as an animal, as a living and breathing being; they are talking about a product made from the cow’s dead body with no mention of the cow. The burger has women’s legs with high heels. and what appear to be fish nets. This image sexualizes women and was clearly made for the straight male, and therefore portrays the message that he is the consumer, while the woman and the cow are the consumables. The image doesn’t even use the full body of the woman, just her legs, eliminating her personhood as well. She is an object to be looked at and used to entice men to visit that restaurant for a late-night burger, which is also only part of a cow made into an object to be eaten. Using the words “eat me” also invokes a sexual undertone. The burger is asking to be eaten; the animal actually wants you to kill and eat it, much like the woman wants you to objectify her and sexualize her. This image implies that both women and animals want their subordinate position; they exist for the purpose of pleasing men.
The next image I chose to analyze is this picture of “Dairy Air Ice Cream Co.” The name and logo are a play on derriere, the French word for buttocks, but what also sounds like “dairy air.” The logo sexualizes the cartoon cow by featuring prominent, human-like buttocks facing towards the viewer, tail raised so we can be sure to see her full buttocks, looking seductively over her shoulder at the viewer with eyebrow raised. The image is sexually suggestive and reminiscent of a pornographic (or at least sexually suggestive) image of a woman at a bar. Obviously dairy products come from female cows, so its assumed a cow on the logo for an ice cream shop would be female, but this cow is also very feminized, with long hair and eyelashes, with her cattle tag appearing like an earring – a mere accessory, not a tool used to mark her as property. While visiting an ice cream shop is often thought of as a fun activity to do with children, I can’t imagine that children are the intended target of this logo. Once again, the straight male is the consumer, and the sexualized female and sexualized animal are the objects being consumed. Even so, I imagine a lot of children probably see this logo, and this furthers the cycle of oppression. Children see these images and see how girls and women are supposed to be viewed as well as how animals are supposed to be viewed – as things to be looked at or used for their own needs, not as individuals with needs of their own. This logo also makes light of the fact that cows’ reproductive systems are abused to produce dairy products, such as ice cream. This logo acknowledges that cows are needed for ice cream, but makes it seem as though this is something the cows want. They want you to use their bodies for your needs.
This ad is for a rack of ribs, but that’s not what the caption or imagery implies! The rack of ribs is down the bottom of the photo, definitely not the focus. “Rack” is a common term for a women’s breasts, so using an image of two women with large breasts in low cut dresses with the caption “we’ve got the best racks” immediately makes one think of that use of the term rack, not meat. A part of the women’s bodies is being used to sell part of a dead animal’s body. There is a lone male sitting between the two women, and there are so many possibilities for why he’s there in the center of the image. The creator could have been trying to center a male and imply that he is going to have both the ribs and the women. The male also comes of sort of like a pimp, like he is the one in control of the women and their bodies. It also shows a male viewer, hey look at this guy! He’s surrounded by two women with a rack of ribs on the table that he’s about to eat! He’s so manly, and you could be too if you only ate here! The message is that the women are being used to sell the meat, meaning they are the consumables along with the meat, whereas the man in the ad and the man the ad is made for is the consumer. All humans in the ad are also white, further showing that white men in particular are the intended audience.
The final ad I’ve chosen to analyze did not come from Adams’ slide show, but easily could have. This is an ad for Carl’s Jr., a fast-food restaurant. I actually found this ad as an example in a 2018 article from The Washington Post entitled “6 ways the meat industry objectifies women.” This ad does not feature any women or images of their body parts. It does not feature sexualized images of animals or food items, but it is still an ad that oppresses both women and animals. The viewer/consumer is a straight male, while the consumable is the chicken and the woman. The line “everybody loves big breasts” is front and center in large font, all caps. This is focusing on a specific body part of a chicken that is killed to make food, while also using the phrase to imply something about a women’s body part as well. It is doubly bad because chickens raised for meat are often genetically modified to have large breasts, so much so that they often cannot stand due to their weight. I am sure they don’t love big breasts, but it doesn’t matter what the animal prefers. This ad again emphasizes that animals and women exist for people to look at and comment on their bodies, nothing more.
What an interesting topic this week! I can’t wait to read some of Carol J. Adams’ books!
Sources:
Adams, Carol J and Potts, Annie. “The Politics of Carol J. Adams.” Antennae: The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture, issue 14, Autumn 2010, pp. 12-24. ANTENNAE+ISSUE+14.pdf
Kemmerer, Lisa. “The Pornography of Meat by Carol J. Adams.” Philosophy Now, 2006. The Pornography of Meat by Carol Adams | Issue 56 | Philosophy Now.
Image Sources
Images 1, 2, and 3: Adams, Carol J. “Examples of the Sexual Politics of Meat.” Carol J. Adams. Examples of The Sexual Politics of Meat — Carol J. Adams
Image 4: Carl’s Jr. Located in “6 ways the meat industry objectifies women,” The Washington Post, 21 February 2018, Rachel Krantz (author). 6 ways the meat industry objectifies women – The Washington Post.
To broaden the discussion, it’s important to consider how these advertisements affect society views on consent and free will. They often show women and animals as passive beings meant only for male pleasure or consumption, which can foster a cultural mentality that undermines their autonomy. This portrayal may encourage harmful behaviors and attitudes in real life. Also, exploring how these ads influence younger audiences who are still developing their understanding of gender roles and relationships between species could shed light on the long-term consequences of such typical media messages. Advocating for change in advertising practices through increased consumer awareness could be a crucial step toward reducing the dehumanization continued by these ads.
You point to a tremendous argument involving these ads, which perpetuate male dominance by rendering both women and animals as objects of consumption. Another dimension to consider is how humor facilitates the acceptance of such messages. As Carol Adams notes, humor is often used by advertisers to make the impact of sexist or speciesist imagery more acceptable, enabling people to laugh it off without questioning it. Thus, this mechanism hinders many from standing up against or challenging such ideas since they are camouflaged under the guise of mere jokes. Race and class should also be considered—who is depicted, through these ads, as a consumer, and who gets relegated to being most frequently portrayed as the object? By analyzing these ads through an intersectional lens, deeper layers of exploitation and inequality may be revealed.