Glam Green, Haute Organic

As a sort of continuation of my last post about the construction of identity on the basis of shopping at trendy food stores that have become associated with elite status and privilege, I hope to now extend this observation to include what we wear. This was partially inspired by our in-class discussion of J. Crew's "Naturals" line, in which a dozen male "green" advocates model environmentally friendly yet unmistakably chic clothing, as well as my own observation of my favorite clothing stores and websites jumping on the (very green) bandwagon of selling ecological products. H&M recently launched its "Conscious" collection, and websites like "Earth Creations" feature products with the ever-popular Bohemian chic aesthetic.

But we're not just talking about organic cottons t-shirts and baggy hemp pants here. Just as Miracle-Gro capitalized on contemporary desires to grow personal gardens at home as a way to be greener and healthier with their launch of "Groables" (discussed in an earlier blog post), the fashion industry has recognized this recent trend of green absolutely everything and has begun to exploit these new ambitions. And this even extends beyond the controversial TOMS company with its release of its "Vegan" line. You can now buy green wedding gowns and attend an Eco Fashion Week, where only environmentally friendly yet still terribly expensive and luxurious garments are permitted to take on the catwalk. The popular series "Project Runway" also came out with a green challenge to draw in eco-minded viewers, during which designer contestants had to create gorgeous gowns that were both green and red carpet-ready. Celebs, too, are drinking the Kool Aid, coming up with their own conscious clothing lines, like Emma Watson and her "ethical" line,  to target this quickly spreading trend.

As a consumer, I can go online and watch a tutorial about how to shop for organic clothing, read a directory of online and in-store organic clothing lines, and even acquire a DIY manual for starting my own organic clothing line. I find it terribly ironic that many of these green advocates are also anti-capitalism, and yet these companies and business endeavors are about as capitalist as it gets. Will the true green advocates and these businesspeople snatching up opportunities to target a new (and growing, pun intended) audience eventually clash? 

Bougie Foodies

As this class quickly draws to a close, I'm realizing that one of the biggest components of the food movement that I'm still grappling with in a big way is its trendiness. A good friend of mine shared a hilarious article from the satirical website "Betches Love This," referring to a select breed of elite women who cast themselves as "betches" (defined by Urban Dictionary here and the source site itself here) on the basis of their wealth, constant acknowledgement of their material goods, and elite preferences and habits. This particular article related to these self-proclaimed "betches" and their affinity for the ever-popular Whole Foods chain, for reasons not directly related to the quality or activist ambitions behind the food, but rather simply for the high prices of their food products that give them an elite status. The author writes, "Betches love Whole Foods for the obvious reason that it is so f***ing elitist...the fact that our bag of grapes is certified organic gives us the right to be certified superior." 

This page pokes fun at the trendy foods of the contemporary food movement's most avid followers, ranging from kale to flax seeds to soy. I find it fascinating that this site is simultaneously poking fun of these conceited elitist consumers the same way I find myself doing so, but also providing a justification that I can, sadly, actually believe. I can definitely testify that I've come across these types of people--not necessarily those who walk around preaching about how "bougie" they are, but who cling to the prestige that shopping at a store like Whole Foods supposedly gives them. Take a good friend of mine, for example, who is a standard yoga-doing, tea-sipping, Anthropologie-shopping, Southern California-bred foodie. If you ask her what she's eating, the answer you get will never be "chicken and snap peas," but rather "organic chicken and organic snap peas." It's like she's expecting me to say "ooh, ahh" in response to this deliberately added descriptor, but it really just makes me roll my eyes.

             

I came into this class thinking that the reason I opted for Shaw's or even Trader Joe's (which, I might add, is definitely high up on my foodie list but not nearly at the Whole Foods level) on my Sunday shopping trips instead of Whole Foods was because it was too expensive and I am healthy enough (read: never get sick) that I didn't feel like I needed to buy everything organic. From this class, I've learned that while some people live and eat organic and trendy smart/health foods for reasons relating to food justice/activism or substantial personal knowledge relating to nutritional value of such higher quality food, there are so many others out there who do it just for the status, like my friend. I've realized that these latter people make me nuts. Now that I've taken this course and exposed myself to the world of food activism, I've told my elitist, Whole Foods-shopping, organic label-clinging friends that I actively opt out of participating in that superior grocery shopping habit because I don't want to be associated with those, betches included, who make such decisions as consumers on the basis of status and not on the basis of true principles. I told my self-proclaimed 'foodie' friend about issues of food deserts, justice, and sovereignty that we've discussed in class, and she had no knowledge of such contemporary problems, which made me even more infuriated. After all, the very people we proclaim to be fighting for in the world of food justice couldn't afford to buy your organic this and that at Whole Foods anyway, right?

(An alternative perspective)

I originally gave this blog the cliché title of "I Am What I Eat," and I now support that statement and its application to my status as a consumer more than ever. I still haven't developed my own complete stance on organic food in relation to its adoption as a status marker, but you probably won't catch me at Whole Foods anytime soon (unless it's for their hand-ground peanut butter, because you can't beat that, bougie or not).

Dragon Fruit & National Identity

This past Friday, I found myself at our semi-annual Anthropology Symposium here on campus, where fellow Anthropology students have the opportunity to present both longer research papers and brief, innovative projects or proposals. One of my classmates, Mae, shared a portion of her thesis about the role of dragon fruit in Vietnam, where they are considered to be a staple item of both the local diet and culture, despite having originated in Central America. Through this presentation, I was most struck by her discussion of how this fruit that has become local, though foreign in origin,  has substantial political, economic, historical and symbolic value, all of which contribute to the identity of its Vietnamese consumers. I found Mae's presentation to exemplify the goal of this blog: to illustrate how food and the movements surrounding its production and consumption contribute to both individual and communal senses of identity.

According to Mae's presentation, not only is this precious dragon fruit representative of the contested relations between Vietnam and China, but it also represens both a point of commonality between the two neighboring nations and a symbol of authentic Vietnamese identity. This contradictory yet dually purposeful role of dragon fruit, as highlighted by Mae, is exemplified in grocery store observations, where the color of the inside of dragon fruits (Chinese red or Vietnamese white) is hotly debated and where customers reveal their trust in dragon fruit, for it is surely authentically Vietnamese and undoubtedly free of chemicals that may have been injected in foreign fruits. While Vietnam competes with China in the fruit market, the dragon fruit seems to contribute to the Vietnamese national identity by both straddling the border between these two countries and yet continuing to be labeled as securely Vietnamese.

These roles played by dragon fruit as a symbol of Vietnamese food values with political, economic, social and historical implications not only secure the fruit as a local food, as argued by Mae, but also seem to contribute to a national identity, further solidifying what is perceived to be Vietnamese, and what is not. Mae's presentation of her research reaffirmed in my mind just how crucial a role food can play in the formation and reinforcement of identity on both an individual level, for those grocery store customers reinforcing their nationalism by selecting a fruit they believe to be truly local and therefore safe, and on a national level, as the dragon fruit symbolizes the nation's past and present relations with neighboring China. After listening to Mae's presentation, it seems clearer to me than ever before that we truly are what we eat.

To Meat or Not To Meat? Vegetarianism in Morocco & Beyond

In light of my recent review of Carol Adams’ The Sexual Politics of Meat and its prevalent appearance in class discussions, I’ve chosen to explore the topic of vegetarianism for this post, but within the context of traveling abroad. Many college students, myself included, choose to spend a semester studying abroad in order to gain cross-cultural experience and apply what they’ve learned in the classroom to the physical world. When I left for Morocco last winter, I didn’t anticipate that so many of my peers would a) be vegetarian and b) struggle as much as they did with the beliefs and practices at the core of this life decision. While in our seminar we largely focus on contemporary food activism in a very American setting, it is important to relate these discussions to the world at large, on scales ranging from the state to individual levels.

As a non-vegetarian, I came into this class hoping to be more exposed to the varying arguments as to why different people choose to remove meat from their plates. What I’ve noticed between this experience and my travels to North Africa is that meat eaters like me are just as lacking in knowledge about vegetarianism as some vegetarians seem to be about how meat eating is practiced abroad, specifically in the developing world. While there are hundreds of articles and blogs speaking to the ways in which vegetarianism can save the world like this one or this one, as well as those adamantly against this proposition like this one or this one, there are also those examining how vegetarianism might become a reality given the current nature of global food systems. However, many of these pieces fail to address the specific significance of meat within the cultural context of these developing nations, for meat eating contributes as much to their identities as it does to those of people who choose to avoid it.

In numerous developing countries including Morocco, meat is viewed as a luxury good, and to refuse to consume it may be insulting. For this reason, many of my peers chose to ditch their vegetarian practices while abroad in order to better immerse themselves in the Moroccan culture, in which meat eating is a crucial and symbolic part of daily life. My 40 year-old host sister, for example, told me a story of the last student her family hosted and how she refused to be in the house at the end of Ramadan, which is marked by the slaughter of a goat, let alone consume the grand sacrifice. For this reason, she believed that the girl was strange, disrespectful, and rude. Not only did many Moroccans simply not understand when one of my peers tried to explain that they did not eat meat for reasons aside from allergies, but such a conversation, as I personally witnessed, instantly created a sort of barrier between these Americans and Moroccans.

From doing some informal searches around the internet, it seems as though many budding travelers may not grasp the concept that vegetarianism is not a universally held lifestyle, evidenced by forum posts like this one. That being said, enough travelers have recognized that traveling abroad with the baggage of a vegetarian identity in tow is enough of a defining characteristic to specifically plan around when traveling. There are dozens of tips for traveling as a vegetarian like this one circling around the web, providing non-meat eating travelers like my Morocco-bound peers with tips on how to handle new environments with different perceptions of meat eating. While some of my friends chose to abandon this lifestyle as a way to better comprehend Moroccan dietary and social habits, others stuck to their guns and saw discussions surrounding meat eating as opportunities to expose Moroccans to a different way of approaching food. Ultimately, instances of vegetarian travelers in largely meat-eating developing countries illuminates a broader concept of how we have to consciously think about our own identities as consumers before traveling abroad, where our choices of what's on our plates might be brought into question.

Buying the 'Local'

For the past few weeks, many of our class discussions have found their way back to the central topic of the strong contemporary desire to consume locally, as a means of pushing back against corporate agriculture and environmentally unfriendly consumption of products being imported or shipped across the country. We've spoken to representatives from our dining services here at Tufts and from a local farm, all of whom mentioned the importance of consciously seeking out local produce and facilitating the connection between producer and consumer as best as possible.

This morning, a certain television commercial caught my attention and invoked a sense of 'local' again in my mind, but from a different angle. This ad was sponsored by Miracle-Gro, showcasing its new "Groables" product. As the commercial states, these easy-to-use pods are perfect for those who are either too inexperienced or, to be frank, too lazy to grow plants the traditional way; they make planting as least labor-intensive as possible.

 So what does a product like this indicate about the current state of food activism? For starters, as mentioned in a previous post, the last decade or so has been dominated by a "back to the land" movement in which many consumers are trading in their canned or imported foods for fresh, local products, especially those whose labels read "organic." The decision and ability to consume locally becomes part of an individual's identity as someone demonstrating his/her personal awareness of choices made pertaining to food, accompanied by the joining of a growing (pun intended) community of self-proclaimed "foodies."

The epitome of consuming locally comes in the form of gardening, because it allows a consumer to be as close to the food to be consumed as physically possible. This sense of 'local,' accompanied by the desire to distance oneself from the capitalist corporations behind agribusiness, has unfortunately been captured by companies like Miracle-Gro. In transforming the idea of growing locally into an industry, evidenced by the sales of products like "Groables," major companies like Miracle-Gro are capitalizing on the desire of many Americans to identify with the consumption of local food. There are upscale "Grow Your Own" shops, expensive workshops focused on how to create a sustainable home garden, and dozens of highly-grossing gardening magazines that have turned the 'local' into a national industry. Ultimately, the corporate, capitalist-driven industry that has given way to disgruntled consumers seeking to go back to the land themselves has managed to exploit the very consumers seeking to avoid them at all costs.

Review: The Sexual Politics of Meat

In my last post, I extended Carol Adams' argument pertaining to the meat-based language used to describe women in a sexual context to explore the use of meat-related language by men to describe their genitals. I have posted my overall review of The Sexual Politics of Meat below:

In her 1990 book The Sexual Politics of Meat, Carol Adams explores the ways in which the feminist and vegetarian movements intersect by drawing parallels between the oppression of women and animals at the hands of men, who drive our capitalist society. Adams outlines a clear, comprehensive and impressively detailed theory comparing women and animals as victims of male violence in many facets of society, ranging from war to common language use. Her argument culminates in her characterization of women and animals as absent referents created during this process of abuse, meaning their natural life form is absent from the act of their consumption by men. While the presentation of her argument is consistent throughout, making it easy to grasp how each example connects her overall theory and allowing the reader to analyze contemporary, capitalist patriarchy through the perspectives of both women and animals, Adams’ writing leaves something to be desired. Despite the clear presentation of her beliefs, the argument is weakened by a lack of concrete data coupled with the detailed integration of obscure historical works, as well as an oversimplification of patriarchy in only a small portion of the world. Ultimately, it is Adams’ lack of consideration for how the ties between feminism and vegetarianism in our corner of the planet affect the consumption of both women and animals in the rest of the world that is my most striking critique of this text.

Because of the limitation of Adams’ argument to Western, male-dominated, capitalist societies, she neglects to address the numerous matrilineal and vegetarian societies for whom her theory would not necessarily hold true. In her description of our American patriarchy, Adams notes that men control meat and therefore our food supply, as the historical hunters, farmers and breadwinners of American families. The connection she facilitates between the oppression of women and animals, however, cannot automatically hold true for the numerous societies in which women represent the heads of households, such as those of the Navajo or the Indonesian Minangkabau, for it cannot be assumed that men hold the same positions of power that would allow for them to oppress women and animals to the same extent. The focus of my critique in considering Adams’ theory in light of the numerous societies across the globe that are not male-dominated is not that it is inapplicable to other areas of the world, but that Adams failed to address the limited scope of her argument.

A second component of the critique that Adams fails to discuss her theory on a global scale arises in the oversimplification of the inherent connection between the oppression of animals and women. While Adams provides the reader with a detailed description of the ways in which animals, namely female, are treated in the United States, she fails to acknowledge that one cannot assume that such treatment occurs outside this country. Furthermore, because of the inability to assume the universality of such a connection, one cannot assume that animals are oppressed in societies in which women are mistreated. In some areas of India, for example, women are entirely controlled by men and yet cows, the American symbol of oppression of consumable animals, are largely worshipped by Hindus. Though Adams’ theory is not applicable in all global societies, her argument is weakened by the fact that she does not address such geographical and cultural restrictions in the reach of her theory.

Despite my several critiques of this text, I find it crucial to illuminate the strong points Adams puts forth in her theory. The presentation of her argument is especially characterized by the consistent restatement of her thesis, which provides extra clarity for the reader. Although many may get lost in Adams’ inclusion of historical texts relating to feminism and vegetarianism if they are not familiar with these prominent authors, the fact that she integrates the work of so many crucial voices in both fields, especially in their overlapping territory, evidences the amount of research Adams conducted in order to place her argument in some historical context. Conclusively, Adams’ writing is clear, powerful and direct, making it accessible for a reader with less experience with either of the overlapping fields at the core of this book. Overall, I would argue that Carol Adams’ detailed work with the intersection of vegetarianism and feminism in our male-driven society has its merits, but is ultimately restricted by her failure to acknowledge the scope of her argument, which is limited to the small, capitalist corner of the world. If Adams were to discuss how the connected oppressions of women and animals are significant on a global scale, namely the food-insecure developing world, her argument would be more comprehensive and useful in terms of challenging the food injustice of our contemporary world.   

Men & Meat

Upon finishing Carol Adams' The Sexual Politics of Meat, which facilitates a multi-layered connection between feminism and vegetarianism while drawing parallels between the oppression of women and animals, I began to think about how such discourses about meat eating have infiltrated today's realm of pop culture. In her discussion of how language reinforces the abused position of both women and animals in our largely patriarchal and capitalist society, Adams describes how the use of language relating to violence against animals, such as referring to women as pieces of meat, makes it easier for men to equate women with animals, whose meat they are accustomed to eating; they consume meat physically and women sexually. The fostering of such a connection between women and animals as entities equally available to be exploited and consumed prompts men to view women as consumable objects over which they have control, just like they have control over the meat on their plates. Thus the use of language pertaining to the equation of women with animals, or rather with meat once the animal is slaughtered, provides men with power both in the dining room and in the bedroom. The manipulation of language to equate women with pieces of meat places men in the positions of power, but what about men referring to their own body parts as a sort of meat? If men manipulate sexual language that connects their own genitals to slaughtered animals, how does this relate to the type of meat connected to females? (*Please note that this post contains some suggestive language relating to male/female dynamics in a sexual context as it relates to meat consumption).

Meat is everywhere. Women are like meat when they are being sexually exploited or dominated by powerful men who also slaughter and exploit animals for their meat, and men are like meat in their attempts to convey their socially expected high level of masculinity. Most people have heard of the expression "meat head," commonly referring to a young man, often in high school-based films, who cares more about muscles, ego and aesthetics than academics. Such a use of meat to assert one's masculinity confirms Adams' argument that men need to eat meat in order to achieve the desired level of manliness as a means of reinforcing social status and patriarchal power. But what happens when men define themselves in terms of meat in relation to women as meat to be sexually consumed?

In recent years, there have been countless films targeting a humorous teenage and young adult population in which a man's description of his own genitals has focused around meat. In the 2010 film Easy A, high school teacher Mr. Griffith tries to seduce his guidance counselor wife by suggestively saying that he will be eating "meat" and "balls" alone for dinner while she attends a parent-teacher conference, only to appear sexually frustrated when his advances don't solicit a positive response. In the classic and repeated segment of an Austin Powers film, a penis-shaped rocket prompts random individuals to shout out different names for the sex organ, which include "weiner," accompanied by cooking hot dogs on a grill. Even Deborah Cameron, in her article entitled "Naming of Parts," confirms the overlapping nature of male-given penis names, as suggested in the Austin Powers example, that are related to both food and weaponry, such as "meat spear". The use of meat terms as identifying penis descriptors also ranges from the academic, like the research described in Cameron's article, to the crude. On UrbanDictionary.com, a popular R-rated website that provides definitions for what seems like every slang word ever uttered, a search for "meat penis" yields a whopping 1,000 results for slang terms, amassing 143 pages. These examples, along with other terms like "sausage"or the British "meat and two veg," are evidence of a common American phenomenon involving male-created language that compares the penis with different cuts of meat.

But if meat is what women are thought to be in a sexual relationship in which the male dominates, as suggested by Adams, why would men purposefully equate their genitals with meat? In taking Adams' theory to a new level, I propose that there are multiple layers of connection between sexual politics and meat occurring in such a sexual context. For example, in the case of a woman performing oral sex on a male partner, the woman is consuming 'meat' while also being visually consumed by the man, who is ultimately in the position of power, as if she were a helpless piece of meat begging to be consumed. The reason that men would want to be equated with meat just like their female sexual partners is because meat is representative of two different meanings dependent on gender. Women are equated with the helpless animals in slaughterhouses, whose consumers will not establish a connection between the dead carcasses on their plates and the idealized animals that children visit during school trips to the farm. Men, however, connect themselves to meat because meat demands and signifies power. Meat in this context is associated with muscle, strength, and the opposite of fat; the basic principle of meat craving meat, as in the lifestyles of carnivorous predators, is at work here. 'Male meat' is not the oppressed but rather the oppressor.

Ultimately, I propose that meat as a sexual entity has the ability to function beyond Carol Adam's comparison between oppressed animals and sexually dominated women. Men often actively choose to identify themselves with meat because of their ability to manipulate its definition in our patriarchal society into one characterized by power, not victimhood. Perhaps we should take PETA's advice and challenge men's use of meat-based terms to name their genitals by replacing them with vegetables, as a jumping off point towards Adams' goal of reduced oppression of women and animals. What, then, would happen if the penis went vegetarian?