this post was submitted on 29 Mar 2025
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Meat eating ties into a lot of people conceptions of masculinity. The idea that you might be eating something that didn’t have to die takes the power and dominance out of it - a sexual politics of meat if you will.
I’m not saying this is true of everyone who eats meat - but there is a certain type that this unambiguously true for. Think of the guys with the aviator glasses sitting in the truck pfp - eating dead cow is as American and masculine as fucking women.
(Think about how much the absolutely stupid “if vegs hate meat so much, why do they make fake meat?” sounds like “if lesbians don’t like mean, why do they use dildos?)
That's... A theory, pretty sure it's more that meat just tastes good though
Yes - it is that way for normal people. Notice the amount of qualifiers in my original statement.
There is a disturbing undercurrent to some people’s understanding of meat - to the point where people like Jordan Peterson (others too) have made themselves sick on “carnivore” diets.
I am talking about the kind of people mentioned in the OP that are upset that fake meat options exist. Part of the reason these people are upset - because any rational meat eater would be like cool, more food options - is that they view synthetic meats or even people choosing not to eat meat as an attack on their personal identity, which for these individuals is constructed around this weird patriarchal nationalist thing.
When I get a honey butter chicken biscuit from Whata, I’m doing it because I’m hungry and those things taste like crack. For some men, eating meat is something they have this complex about - you eat a steak because you aren’t a weak little soy boy.
You nailed it. I love a steak as much as the next dude but you put a piece of synthetic meat in front of me that looks and tastes near enough - I’d be happy to compromise to cut out the killing.
I hope to never meat the kind of people that you're talking about. That's pretty weird
It’s a strange phenomenon.
When I was vegetarian as a teenager, my mother would do things like secretly cook my fake bacon in bacon fat and then reveal the trick afterwards - “oh that tasted better than usually didn’t it?” The TTI facility I was at for a bit would only provide me with just plates of unseasoned canned vegetables, and then crow about how I didn’t care that much about being veg because I wouldn’t eat just a straight bowl of peas.
I think some of it is a weird discomfort/projection thing, because many meat eaters haven’t really seriously engaged with the ethics of eating meat and the existence of other people who have can be seen as a threat. Again - not all people who eat meat - but I think in a world where we are very abstracted from that process of killing the animal the existence of vegans/vegetarians and their food forces some folks to confront their own cognitive dissonance on the matter.
I'm sorry you had to go through that. Sounds awful
Sounds like you've unfortunately run into a lot of unkind people in general.
I suppose if I really think about it, I have faced some weird toxic masculinity when I've order salmon or chicken caesar salad instead of steak but mostly with older people. Similar to getting a drink with an umbrella in it instead of a pint of ale.
If you start to look a lot of the advertising is highly masculinized. Meat is definitely masculine in Western culture.
I don't disagree with the fact that a lot of men obsessively eat meat and act like it is the only food worth eating is because of toxic masculine culture. I have met plenty of those type.
I do just want to add, in the context of this post, I think the motivation for the group being against meat eating is that it is a farming group, and I'm assuming, at least in some capacity, they represent animal farmers. They have a vested economic interest in stopping the push of lab grown meat. This is not me thinking they should, just thought I would point that out.
Like I said, my comment is not to take away from your post, just to add what I think is important context to the original post.
No Farmers No Food looks to be one of these right wing conspiracists outfits associated with this phenomenon.
Edit: the guy who runs it isn’t even a farmer.
I think that specific account strengthens my argument even more.
Interesting, yeah thanks for looking into that. Like I said, do it disagree with you
I think this also speaks to the fact that cattle farming (that’s for the US, but I think this also applies in the UK, where this group is from) is heavily monopolized industry. A lot of people claiming to “speak for small farmers” are bad actors who are advocating policies which actually benefit big Ag.
Citations Needed: Episode 80: Animal Rights as Media and Pop Culture Punchline
Episode webpage: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/citationsneeded/CN80_20190619_animal_rights_Gruen_Ko.mp3
The interviews on this episode are pretty good, Aph Ko talks about how meat eating is an integral part of the patriarchal white supremacy society we line in.
I will always upvote a reference to Nima and Adam's fantastic work.
It is an artificial politics though. As in we don't naturally have this association with masculinity, it's propagandized by the industry. If we somehow got to the point of society actually divesting from animal farming, I think we'd already have started tackling the masculinity propaganda to some degree. It'll be a long hard fight though.
100% it is artificial and socially constructed. I don’t think Adam’s Sexual Politics of Meat has it all right but it has some interesting ideas about cultural messages about meat and masculinity and got me started thinking about it. (It was written for a Daly class, and Daly is the reason there’s a strain of radical feminism that things womyn are magical spirit beings that are tainted by being in any form of contact with an XY chromosome. There’s a reason Limbaugh attacked Dworkin and not Daly and Raymond cough)
It’s honestly bewildering to me that people like you actually exist; the “straw man” people on the right like to belittle.
It does no favors for anyone to have and openly express this opinion.
Eating meat, especially steak, is very clearly a part of masculine identities in many western nations. That's self evidently true. It's well represented in media and if you've ever had to eat with men you must have noticed it.
I ~~do~~ don't understand what there is to object to in OPs pointing out of a fact of our culture.
Edit: don't
I think that most rational people don’t think about it.
Lemmy is full of the fringes (both sides) from Reddit and it’s disconcerting.
Pointing out this simple observation will likely garner downvotes, further validating my point
What? What am I a straw man of? I currently eat meat. This is a clear phenomenon that exists.
But is the opinion wrong? Do these people on the right you mention not have a slur for effeminate men based on the preference of meat and dairy alternatives?
What part bewilders you? The "sexual politics of meat" part, or that fact that they chose a conservative stereotype to demonstrate an example? Because their theory is absolutely a thing in our society, meat is unarguably and demonstrably tied into masculinity for a lot of men as the result of advertising and social conditioning. If their example is what bewilders you though I think I can empathize, because this phenomenon is not at all something exclusive to conservatives or the right. Maybe just more pronounced on that side of culture. Plenty of liberal men conflate meat eating with masculinity, to degrees.