Pastrami - Most Sensual of all the Salted, Cured Meats

An interesting review at National Review about an "ecofeminist" book called The Pornography of Meat. By Carol J. Adams, the author of The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory, it is about how the eating of meat and the objectification of women are actually two sides of the same (predatory, patriarchal) phenomenon.

The review is, as you'd expect from NRO, highly critical — and it seems to me, rightly so. I haven't read the book, but from the description and quotes it seems to fall into the common academic trap of explaining everything with a single ideology du jeur — in this case the never-dull, white male patriarchy explains everything. What could be an interesting subject area — the juxtaposition of food and sex, the erotic qualities of food, the common imagery used to sell food and sex, cultural symbols of "otherness" — turns into an ideological screed against modernity and men.

Things are always more complicated than a single theory of power relations would imply. Or rather, in most cases, their are a plurality of simple reasons that explain it — in this case, the fact that, hey, sometimes people just like to eat meat. But that never sells as well as one, over-arching theory of oppression.

One thing I'm very proud of The Wife for is that she's working very hard to avoid that trap in her dissertation. In her study of the roots of "shareholder democracy", she's eschewing the easy management/capital bad, labor good, class-warfare argument and going for a more nuanced approach. Yes, it's still about power relations and interest groups, but it's a much richer, and hopefully accurate, view than just slotting yet another historical moment into a nice, neat framework. Here's hoping it gets the good reception it deserves.