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Recommendation RequestAny decent books on the connection between animal and environmental oppression and women's oppression?
Posted May 17, 2022 by alpinepunch in FeministBooks

I recently saw https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/cow and it's got me in a mood. The cold commercialization of the dairy harvesting process reminded me so much of the reproductive oppression of human women. Does anyone know any radfem writers who explored this sort of connection between animal rights and women's rights?

9 comments

[Deleted]May 17, 2022(Edited May 17, 2022)

I have not read it yet, only bought it: The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory by Carol J. Adams. It was written in 1990.

Here's a summary "it explores a relationship between patriarchal values and meat eating by interweaving the insights of feminism, vegetarianism, animal defense, and literary theory.".

The author is a second wave feminist and was accused of transphobia (and being anti-prostitution) over a decade ago, I found a blog article of the author explaining the harassment: "I was one of the best examples of vegan-feminist transphobia and needed to be called out on it.". So, maybe a radfem.

alpinepunch [OP]May 17, 2022

I started reading this last night and it's SO GOOD.

[Deleted]May 17, 2022

I second the recommendation to look into ecofeminism or vegan feminism for more authors/books on that.

Carol J. Adams has a number of works on the subject, including "The pornography of meat", "neither man nor beast: feminism and the defense of animals", "animals and women: feminist theoretical explorations", and as user Moebi already mentions, "The Sexual politics of meat: a feminist-vegetarian critical theory". I have only read "the pornography of meat" so far. The rest are on my 'to read' list still.

There is also Ariel Salleh, I've read one work by her so far ("Ecofeminism as politics: Nature, Marx, and the Postmodern") which was a bit of a tough read just with the more academic jargon she used, but I still found it quite good overall, she mixes postcolonialism, environmentalism, socialism and feminism together. There's also "Eco-sufficiency and & global justice : women write political ecology", which I have not yet read, but plan to.

I've really loved the works I've read by Carolyn Merchant so far. I've read "The Death of Nature", "Radical Ecology: the search for a liveable world", "Ecological revolutions: nature, gender and science in New England". I loved all of them. She is an ecofeminist and definitely includes a lot of class-based analysis in her work. I have many others of her works on my to read list still, including "Reinventing Eden: the fate of nature in western culture", "Earthcare: women and the environment", among others. Merchant has definitely been a major source of inspiration for me in my own feminist approach, so I highly recommend her for anyone looking into ecofeminism.

HesitantHyenaMay 17, 2022

Like others said: dive into ecofeminism!

I also remember reading an anthology of essays/articles about this topic with several different authors, maybe in there you can find some more authors to explore further. The title is Sister Species, the editors are Lisa Kemmerer & Carol J. Adams

[Deleted]May 17, 2022

You might find ecofeminist literature right up your alley because that's exactly their focus. Rape of the Wild by Andrée Collard and Joyce Contrucci comes to mind first. Your comment on the dairy harvesting process and its parallels with the reproductive oppression of women put me in mind of parts of Janice Raymond's book, Women as Wombs, which critiques reproductive technology among other things.

If you want to explore ecofeminism further, you may want to check Vandana Shiva's work as well. Lots of life-affirming, environment-conscious feminist theory out there!

alpinepunch [OP]May 17, 2022

Thanks! These are exactly the sort of things I was looking for

otterstromMay 17, 2022(Edited May 17, 2022)

I wonder if Lierre Keith's ( of DGR & WoLF) works might be of interest here.

[Deleted]May 17, 2022

Does she ever get into that? She's feminist and deep green but does she ever compare how men treat women and nature? I didn't think that was her angle. I could be wrong.

[Deleted]May 17, 2022

You might be interested in Woman and Nature by Susan Griffin. I haven’t read it so I can’t say if it’s worth reading but I’ve read other books by Susan Griffin and they didn’t disappoint.