It’s a thin line between worshipping a woman and lacerating her. Are women victims of a capitalist cannibalism? In our patriarchal society, as we know, there are many strategies by which women’s bodies are disempowered, controlled and degraded to (pleasure) objects. Something similar happens to (farm) animals, which are literally branded as mere consumer goods, and have to satisfy the culinary lusts of their oppressors. Is the trade in female flesh as sexual and social capital comparable to the animal meat market? Are not both based on exploitation and/or violence? An exaggerated idea? Or simply a fact too painful to be allowed to be true? Perhaps it is time to put our finger deeper into the wound…
BOTANIC MIND FERTILIZERS:
»The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory« (1990) by Carol J. Adams: In her book Adams illuminates the connections between sexist and racist discrimination and the dictate to eat meat, and draws a link between feminism and vegetarianism. In her argument, she elaborates a cultural link between fanatical meat-eating, masculinity mania, and violence. She shows the masculine lustful view of women and animals that is bent on consumption. In her view, refusing to eat other living beings is an act of solidarity and a meaningful form of resistance to patriarchy.
»Figure with meat« (1954) by Irish-born artist Francis Bacon. The figure in Bacon’s painting is based on the Pope Innocent X portrait by Diego Velázquez. In the Bacon painting the Pope is shown as a gruesome figure and placed between two bisected halves of a cow. Bacon weds the imagery of worldly decadence, power and carnal sensuality, and he contrasts those things with his own far more palpable and existential view of damnation.
Beat your mind!
THE MIND BOTANIST
D.B.
Botanic Mind 