THE MILKMAID'S TALE: VEGANISM, FEMINISM AND DYSTOPIAN FOOD FUTURES

Canadian Food Studies, 2018

New food technologies are touted by some to be an indispensable part of the toolkit when it comes to feeding a growing population, especially when factoring in the growing appetite for animal products. To this end, technologies like genetically engineered (GE) animals and in vitro meat are currently in various stages of research and development, with proponents claiming a myriad of justificatory benefits. However, it is important to consider not only the technical attributes and promissory possibilities of these technologies, but also the worldviews that are being imported in turn, as well as the unanticipated social and environmental consequences that could result. In addition to critiquing dominant paradigms, the inclusive, intersectional ecofeminist perspective presented here offers a different way of thinking about new food technologies, with the aim of exposing inherent biases, rejecting a view of institutions like science and law as being objective, and advancing methods and rationales for a more explicitly ethical form of decision-making. Alternative and marginalized perspectives are especially valuable in this context, because careful reflection on the range of concerns implicated by new food technologies is necessary in order to better evaluate whether or not they can contribute to the building of a more sustainable and just food system for all.

This paper examines a debate that has been active within feminism for many years around the subject of vegetarianism and specifically veganism. Some feminists argue that eating any animal products is incompatible with a feminist ethic. In this article, which is adapted from a chapter of my PhD thesis (2008), I examine both sides of this argument from moral, health and environmental perspectives. While it is understandable that some people will choose to avoid animal products for ethical or other reasons, I consider that the inclusion of some animal products in one's diet is not, per se,, incompatible with a feminist ethic.

The Future of Meat Without Animals, ed. Brianne Donaldson and Christopher Carter (Rowman and Littlefield International, Summer 2016) Plant-based and cell-cultured meat, milk, and egg producers aim to replace industrial food production with animal-free fare that tastes better, costs less, and requires a fraction of the energy inputs. These products are no longer relegated to niche markets for ethical vegetarians, but are heavily funded by private investors betting on meat without animals as mass-market, environmentally feasible alternatives that can be scaled for a growing global population. This volume examines conceptual and cultural opportunities, entanglements, and pitfalls in moving global meat, egg, and dairy consumption toward these animal-free options. Beyond surface tensions of “meatless meat” and “animal-free flesh,” deeper conflicts proliferate around naturalized accounts of human identity and meat consumption, as well as the linkage of protein with colonial power and gender oppression. What visions and technologies can disrupt modern agriculture? What economic and marketing channels are required to scale these products? What beings and ecosystems remain implicated in a livestock-free food system? A future of meat without animals invites adjustments on the plate, but it also inspires renewed habits of mind as well as life-affirming innovations capable of nourishing the contours of our future selves. This book illuminates material and philosophical complexities that will shape the character of our future/s of food. To review an advanced copy, please contact Brianne Donaldson.

Between the Species: An Online Journal for the Study of Philosophy and Animals, 1995

Journal of Political Ecology

Many political ecologists and geographers study ethical diets but most are curiously silent on the topic of death in the food system, specifically what or who is allowed to live and what is let die in the "doing of good." This article aims to show how the practice of eating produces the socio-ecological harm most ethical consumers set out to avoid with their dietary choices. I examine the food systems that produce ethical products for 1) the hierarchical ordering of consumer health in the Global North over the health and well-being of workers in the Global South and 2) how vegetarianism involves the implicit privileging of some animals over others. The article takes take a genealogical approach to the political ecology of food ethics using Black and Indigenous studies in conversation with animal geographies. I draw on Mbembe's (2016) necropolitics, Weheliye's (2014) "not quite human" and Lowe's (2015) critique of humanism to develop a conceptual frame...

A small but vocal group of feminists—including Carol J. Adams, Josephine Donovan, Greta Gaard, Lori Gruen, and others—have passionately argued that nonhuman animals are oppressed, and the appropriate feminist response includes the adoption of ethical vegetarianism (if at all possible). Though most feminists continue to exclude nonhuman animals from their praxis, remarkably few have responded to these arguments. One exception is Kathryn Paxton George. Her recent publication—Animal, Vegetable, or Woman? A Feminist Critique of Ethical Vegetarianism (AVW 2000)—is the culmination of more than a decade’s work and encompasses standard and original arguments against the feminist-vegetarian connection. In this thesis, I sketch the arguments offered in favour of the feminist-vegetarian connection and defend ethical vegetarianism against all of the central challenges that George raises. As she claims to offer A Feminist Critique of Ethical Vegetarianism, I set an evaluation of her key arguments within a feminist framework. First then, I review shared precepts of feminism, with a focus on ecofeminism, as it is in this terrain that the feminist-vegetarian connection is most often discussed and defended. Second, I outline George’s arguments against ethical vegetarianism and present the “quasi-ethical” diet she advocates in its stead (feminist aesthetic semi-vegetarianism). Third, I demonstrate that none of her key arguments succeeds. Among other flaws, she equivocates between dietary and ethical vegetarianism, improperly applies the principle of nonarbitrariness, relies heavily on problematic hypotheses, makes false and un-feminist assumptions, and begs the question against central issues of the feminist-vegetarian debate. Fourth, I demonstrate that support can be found throughout George’s book for two inconsistent applications of her preferred dietary proscriptions. I examine each of these and find both to be problematic. On the first count, abidance by George’s “quasi-ethical” theory would require us (Westerners) to live a lifestyle that is nearly reducible to the vegan ideal that she takes great pain to disparage. On the second count, she needlessly condones actions that she takes to be “morally wrong in any case,” while simultaneously encouraging people to protest against them. I conclude that, as each of the key arguments that George offers fails, the cumulative weight of her critique of ethical vegetarianism is nil. She does not prove that feminists cannot consistently or should not ethically advocate vegetarianism. Moreover, an analysis of what is required for opponents of the feminist-vegetarian connection to offer a persuasive defense of their position reveals that their prospects are bleak, if not utterly hopeless.

Contemporary Sociology, 2003

Global Media Journal: Canadian Edition, 2019

Vegan ecofeminism growing out of ecofeminist ideas has been one of the first critical theories that explicitly politicized food and its cultural representations in terms of gender. As a diverse body of scholarship and activism, it has cogently demonstrated how meat has historically figured and continues to do so in interrelated oppressive structures, practices and meanings inscribed in diverse media. Nonetheless, ecofeminism in general, and vegan feminism in particular, have assumed an ambivalent trajectory ranging from prolific to dismissal as essential thinking. Feminist and critical media scholarship seem to have had its due share out of this dismissal of vegan feminism from broader critical theory as current feminist media research preserves its anthropocentric focus in dealing with diverse contemporary media phenomena. This paper attempts to reintroduce the theoretical and practical contributions of vegan ecofeminism for critical media scholars in an era of rapidly expanding digital landscapes and transnational media industries and growing global social inequalities and ecological destruction. The introductory part of this paper tries to make this paucity more clear within the landscape of feminist media research. This point leads to a brief revision of (vegan) ecofeminism’s history and presentation of Carol Jay Adams’ The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist Vegetarian Critique as the epitome of the field illustrating intersections of oppressions around gender, species and other social categories forcing their way into dominant cultural imageries and media in terms of meat eating. Subsequent sections review the charged reception of (vegan) ecofeminist insights and their demise and comments on contemporary theoretical discussions on gender politics of veganism and related growing trends. Having forefronted the history of and current debates on vegan feminism in scholarship and research, the final part highlights some potential arenas of media research where this versatile body of knowledge problematizing intersecting social categories may be extended to compensate for its mainly anthropocentric focus. Mots-clés: Vegan feminism, ecofeminism, feminist media studies, gender politics

Society & Animals Journal, 2024

With there being so many compromises necessary to mainstream veganism in a deeply speciesist society, how has the scholar-activist community negotiated its commitment social justice for Nonhuman Animals? Giraud’s Veganism: Politics, Practice and Theory examines these emerging conflicts at a historical point in which the cultural and political expansion of veganism allows for (and necessitates) philosophical reflection. Veganism is at a crossroads, and careful thought must be exercised to determine the most effective and inclusive strategies moving forward. How can veganism be promoted in such a way that highlights its accessibility while also remaining sensitive to pervasive food insecurity? How can veganism celebrate the diversity of traditional plant-based foods without appropriating or obscuring their cultural linkages? How can Nonhuman Animals be included in vegan advocacy without demeaning them or repelling the public with particularly violent imagery? What roles do social media, sanctuaries, and anthropocentrism play in advancing the interests of Nonhuman Animals? These conundrums, and many more, challenge the reader as they traverse the pages.

Hypatia, 2005

Kathryn Paxton George’s recent publication, Animal, Vegetable, or Woman? (2000), is the culmination of more than a decade’s work and encompasses standard and original arguments against the feminist-vegetarian connection. This paper demonstrates that George’s key arguments are deeply flawed, antithetical to basic feminist commitments, and beg the question against fundamental aspects of the debate. Those who do not accept the feminist-vegetarian connection should rethink their position or offer a non-question-begging defense of it.