Smart. Helpful. Challenging.
"Equality, justice, fairness—these aren't ideas; they are a practice."
If I could go back in time: I'd become vegan sooner and I'd read Carol J Adams The Sexual Politics of Meat (SPOM) sooner. And, yes, it's a book so notorious that it gets an abbreviation. This collection of Adams' essays and interviews is a "Read this!" for vegans and feminists, an excellent companion to SPOM. It adds to, reinforces and clarifies ideas explored in SPOM. Inspiring!
Smart: Adams, a great communicator, has a gift for making connections. She also makes complex subjects accessible through her clear, conversational writing style. I appreciated hearing more about Adams' activist roots as an advocate for housing rights and for women affected by domestic violence.
Helpful: In a hierarchically structured society, Adams writes about the challenge of forwarding ideas that are not in the dominant position — discussions begin from a defensive or even antagonistic stance. She talks about ways to promote vegan-feminist ideas in ways that are in keeping with vegan and feminist structures (oriented towards inclusion, non-heirarchical and engaging caring and emotion). Instead of trying to "win arguments," let ideas incubate. Art and creativity can be engaged to shift perspectives.
Ooh, I want a copy of The Art of the Animal: Fourteen Women Artists Explore "The Sexual Politics of Meat".
I found this essay clarifying: "Abortion and animals: Keeping women in the equation" — "What does abortion have to do with animal defense. Nothing."
I could not refrain from highlighting several passages in: "Ecofeminism, anti-specism, and eco-activism: An interview with Carol J. Adams by Matteo Gilebbi".
Challenging: Some of the essays and conversations dove into areas of art, philosophy and criticism beyond my ken. I've added French philosopher Jacques Derrida and his "The Animal That Therefore I Am" to my to-read list.
Notable: Often in this collection, Adams uses the words "amelioration" — "the act of making something better; improvement" — and "ontological" — "dealing with the nature of being" and "showing the relations between the concepts and categories in a subject area or domain". Not words I've heard much — and I'd like to hear them more.
For further reading: Living Among Meat Eaters: The Vegetarian's Survival Handbook, Animals and Women: Feminist Theoretical Explorations, Ecofeminism: Feminist Intersections with Other Animals and the Earth http://caroljadams.com/books/.
I am also looking forward to Adams' forthcoming books "Burger" and on Jane Austen and caregiving (read her excellent essay Jane Austen’s Guide to Alzheimer’s in The New York Times).
Quotable: "What if the radical truth were: people can be perfectly happy as vegans but the dominant culture can't or won't acknowledge this?...Being vegan is an exciting, wonderful culinary experience and we probably don't even know hat's possible because it's so new. So vegan, or animal ecofeminism is an intervention that critiques and is visionary; that looks at individual and at social structures, that deconstructs but also offers solutions."
"We believe that feminism is a transformative philosophy that embraces the amelioration of life on earth for all life-forms, for all natural entities. We believe that all forms of oppression are interconnected: no one creature will be free until we are all free—from abuse, degradation, exploitation, pollution and commercialization."
"So I'll also say that we can change the world in the United States government, for one, stopped subsidizing animal agriculture, stopped holding milk prices low, started charging for the water that is used by animal agriculture. Just removing federal subsidies would cause the price of meat to go up. And suddenly the free market would prevail for veganism. We don't actually have a free market economy for dairy, not even talking about the federal government subsiding the healthy diet or subsiding the environmentally more appropriate diet. All I'm saying is if the federal government removes the subsidies for the disastrous diet..."
"Equality, justice, fairness—these aren't ideas; they are a practice."
If I could go back in time: I'd become vegan sooner and I'd read Carol J Adams The Sexual Politics of Meat (SPOM) sooner. And, yes, it's a book so notorious that it gets an abbreviation. This collection of Adams' essays and interviews is a "Read this!" for vegans and feminists, an excellent companion to SPOM. It adds to, reinforces and clarifies ideas explored in SPOM. Inspiring!
Smart: Adams, a great communicator, has a gift for making connections. She also makes complex subjects accessible through her clear, conversational writing style. I appreciated hearing more about Adams' activist roots as an advocate for housing rights and for women affected by domestic violence.
Helpful: In a hierarchically structured society, Adams writes about the challenge of forwarding ideas that are not in the dominant position — discussions begin from a defensive or even antagonistic stance. She talks about ways to promote vegan-feminist ideas in ways that are in keeping with vegan and feminist structures (oriented towards inclusion, non-heirarchical and engaging caring and emotion). Instead of trying to "win arguments," let ideas incubate. Art and creativity can be engaged to shift perspectives.
Ooh, I want a copy of The Art of the Animal: Fourteen Women Artists Explore "The Sexual Politics of Meat".
I found this essay clarifying: "Abortion and animals: Keeping women in the equation" — "What does abortion have to do with animal defense. Nothing."
I could not refrain from highlighting several passages in: "Ecofeminism, anti-specism, and eco-activism: An interview with Carol J. Adams by Matteo Gilebbi".
Challenging: Some of the essays and conversations dove into areas of art, philosophy and criticism beyond my ken. I've added French philosopher Jacques Derrida and his "The Animal That Therefore I Am" to my to-read list.
Notable: Often in this collection, Adams uses the words "amelioration" — "the act of making something better; improvement" — and "ontological" — "dealing with the nature of being" and "showing the relations between the concepts and categories in a subject area or domain". Not words I've heard much — and I'd like to hear them more.
For further reading: Living Among Meat Eaters: The Vegetarian's Survival Handbook, Animals and Women: Feminist Theoretical Explorations, Ecofeminism: Feminist Intersections with Other Animals and the Earth http://caroljadams.com/books/.
I am also looking forward to Adams' forthcoming books "Burger" and on Jane Austen and caregiving (read her excellent essay Jane Austen’s Guide to Alzheimer’s in The New York Times).
Quotable: "What if the radical truth were: people can be perfectly happy as vegans but the dominant culture can't or won't acknowledge this?...Being vegan is an exciting, wonderful culinary experience and we probably don't even know hat's possible because it's so new. So vegan, or animal ecofeminism is an intervention that critiques and is visionary; that looks at individual and at social structures, that deconstructs but also offers solutions."
"We believe that feminism is a transformative philosophy that embraces the amelioration of life on earth for all life-forms, for all natural entities. We believe that all forms of oppression are interconnected: no one creature will be free until we are all free—from abuse, degradation, exploitation, pollution and commercialization."
"So I'll also say that we can change the world in the United States government, for one, stopped subsidizing animal agriculture, stopped holding milk prices low, started charging for the water that is used by animal agriculture. Just removing federal subsidies would cause the price of meat to go up. And suddenly the free market would prevail for veganism. We don't actually have a free market economy for dairy, not even talking about the federal government subsiding the healthy diet or subsiding the environmentally more appropriate diet. All I'm saying is if the federal government removes the subsidies for the disastrous diet..."
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