Meaty Gender Post

Over at Pandagon, Amanda Marcotte has an excellent post about the gendered politics of eating meat.

While this idea isn't a new one to me, this is the first time that I've seen it explicitly stated. Up until now I only had it internalized, and a vague awareness of that internalization.

What I mean is that it's always surprised me when I find out that a man is vegetarian. The more manly and heterosexual that man is, the more surprising I find it (and the more effeminate the man is the less surprising I find it). I've been aware that it surprised me, and I've often wondered why that's the case, but I'd never consciously made the connection between eating meat and manliness.

Amanda does an excellent job of pointing that out, and of tying it in with other ways in which misogyny is used to market (self-)destructive products or behaviours (like newer, faster cars, and joining the army) to men*.

Not having a television, I'm generally not in a position to know what's going on in the world of TV marketing, but I have to say that Amanda's descriptions of the fast food commercials hardly surprised me.

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*Any commenters of the PHMTAIWJTFI variety will be spanked.