Here’s a New York Times article guaranteed to make this vegan feminist groan: Be Yourselves, Girls, Order the Rib-Eye. (H/T: Feministing)
It begins:
MARTHA FLACH mentioned meat twice in her Match.com profile: “I love architecture, The New Yorker, dogs … steak for two and the Sunday puzzle.”
She was seeking, she added, “a smart, funny, kind man who owns a suit (but isn’t one) … and loves red wine and a big steak.”
The repetition worked. On her first date with Austin Wilkie, they ate steak frites. A year later, after burgers at the Corner Bistro in Greenwich Village, he proposed. This March, the rehearsal dinner was at Keens Steakhouse on West 36th Street, and the wedding menu included mini-cheeseburgers and more steak.
Ms. Wilkie was a vegetarian in her teens, and even wore a “Meat Is Murder” T-shirt. But by her 30s, she had started eating cow. By the time she placed the personal ad, she had come to realize that ordering steak on a first date had the potential to sate appetites not only of the stomach but of the heart.
Red meat sent a message that she was “unpretentious and down to earth and unneurotic,” she said, “that I’m not obsessed with my weight even though I’m thin, and I don’t have any food issues.” She added, “In terms of the burgers, it said I’m a cheap date, low maintenance.”
Yikes.
One serious problem in talking about veganism/vegetarianism in a feminist context is that so many people associate not eating animal products with the desperate attempt to conform to an ideal of thin-ness. Those of us who embraced vegan living out of a desire to live cruelty-free are keenly aware that there is a lamentable perception that others, particularly women, use the vegan label to mask an eating disorder. As is often pointed out, it may seem more socially acceptable for an already slender woman to say “Oh, I don’t eat meat or cheese, I’m a vegan” than for her to say “Oh, I’m on a diet.” The former suggests a commitment to justice and kindness; the latter suggests self-absorption and narcissism.
Of course, the reverse is also true, as the Times article suggests. If a popular perception develops that vegetarianism/veganism is simply a socially acceptable way of masking an eating disorder, than being an enthusiastic carnivore becomes a clever way to announce (like Mrs. Wilkie) that you’re “unneurotic.” It also subtly suggests a strong libido. There’s a strong (and may I say, as a vegan man married to a vegan woman, utterly false) perception that a woman with a strong appetite for steak may also have a stronger appetite for sex than a woman who avoids meat altogether. (Some Victorians certainly believed this, and discouraged female carniverousness for reasons that had damn all to do with animal rights.)
For those of us committed to gender justice and to animal rights, the challenge is to make the case that veganism has nothing to do with neurotic self-denial. We do need to do a better job (I know I need to do a MUCH better job) of making the case that living a life without consuming animal products can be a life filled with pleasure, delight, fulfillment. My own character runs to the Puritanical side these days, but I know plenty of vegans who are, as Martha Flach Wilkie claims to be, “unpretentious and down to earth and unneurotic.” It is possible to be very interested in the “pleasures of the flesh” while being firmly committed to not eating animals. The “female carnivore = sexy” trope is a false one.
The article notes that for some women
…especially those who are thin, say ordering a salad displays an unappealing mousiness.
“It seems wimpy, insipid, childish,” said Michelle Heller, 34, a copy editor at TV Guide. “I don’t want to be considered vapid and uninteresting.”
My wife is a salsa dancing, weight-lifting, Pinot-drinking, kick-boxing force of nature. There’s not a self-denying bone in her body; she does not share my censorious, neo-Calvinist outlook on the world. Her appetite for life and its pleasures is immense; it awes me and inspires me everyday. And though she was a carnivore for years and years, she joined me in a vegan commitment at the beginning of 2007. She’s loud and proud and unpretentious — and she’s living and eating cruelty-free. She’s the epitome of a healthy, happy, hedonistic vegan, and if there are two things she is most definitely not, it’s “vapid” and “uninteresting.”
Sigh.
This smells like PR rather than any real trend.
I wouldn’t be surprised if it is indeed nothing but PR. You’d be amazed at what passes for a “trend” story in journalism these days. Some reporters are so lazy that if they find three people who say the did something recently, they write a “trend” piece (”Many people are doing x”) and it makes the New York Times. Even if it’s not a trend at all.
I admit that I cannot see a future for myself as anything but an omnivore. But this business about how a man assumes a woman with an appetite for food–with the emphasis here on red meat–also has an appetite for the “pleasures of the flesh,” and may prefer such a woman over one who doesn’t eat red meat, is just so much, well, of the stuff that the bull excretes.
Note that the women quoted here who claim that they prove their lack of an eating disorder, and their “appetite for life,” by eating red meat, are very carefully described in the article as being thin…WITHOUT having an eating disorder. In other words, now it’s no longer enough that a woman be thin, a woman has to be thin “naturally”–even if she has huge appetites. The new ideal woman is effortlessly thin, and completely unaffected psychologically by the pressure to remain thin, because, unlike women who can only remain thin by dieting themselves into a neurotic frenzy or developing an eating disorder, she can eat like a trencherman and yet not gain an ounce. Observe that it’s the one who calls herself “curvy” who says “It’s better not to have a jalapeño fajita plate, especially on the first date.”
I’m curious how “attractive” and “sexy” these women’s allegedly lusty appetites would appear to men if they didn’t also have naturally slender frames. I wonder how many responses Martha Flach’s profile would have received had it said “I love architecture, The New Yorker, dogs … steak for two and the Sunday puzzle. And, by the way, I weigh 230 pounds.”
It’s like one of them says: “Everyone wants to be the girl who drinks the beer and eats the steak and looks like Kate Hudson.” They don’t want to be the girl who drinks the beer and eats the steak and looks like Rosie O’Donnell.
Oh, and how pretentious is it to “drop into conversation the fact that steaks of Kobe beef come from Wagyu cattle, but that not all steaks sold as Wagyu are Kobe beef” to “demonstrate one’s worldliness”? Sigh. That was definitely one of those “Someone needs to tell this person the world is not Manhattan” remarks…
Debra asked: “I’m curious how “attractive” and “sexy” these women’s allegedly lusty appetites would appear to men if they didn’t also have naturally slender frames.”
Clue time: Appetites are not sexy, people are.
She continues: “I wonder how many responses Martha Flach’s profile would have received had it said “I love architecture, The New Yorker, dogs … steak for two and the Sunday puzzle. And, by the way, I weigh 230 pounds.”
Like it or not, normal healthy men are attracted to women with hourglass shapes, not shapes resembling a refrigerator. It’s not our fault, so deal.
Mr. Bad, that is out-and-out cruel and nasty.
“It’s not our fault”? Bull. No matter what so-called “natural” urges you have, you can make a conscious decision to give in to them or not. You, dear sir, are trying to pass the buck.
Resembling refrigerators? Good lord. I’m running through the various typical body shapes of people who carry lots of weight–even those who aren’t large–and I do wonder what wondrous new organically-shaped refrigerators you must be aware of.
And more importantly, where can I get one? Think of the never-ending, flowy design possibilities! The tapering, rounded pear shape of the latest Frigidaire! The friendly, squat little deep freeze. The pleasantly plump wine chiller! Even–dare I suggest–the luscious hourglass shape of a microwave.
Too long, I say, have we confined our personal aesthetic demands merely to the women of this world! Why settle for complaining that women look too much like refrigerators, when refrigerators can look more like women? I request–nay, I demand!–sexually attractive appliances for all!
That is, sexually attractive *female*-shaped appliances for all. I wouldn’t want you to think I’m some kind of pervert. It’s just what I am attracted to, in an appliance.
Ha ha (snort!)
Hypatia wins teh Interwebz!!
Hugo-
In reference to your last paragraph - that’s because you know your wife so well, better than most people do. This article is encouraging people to make snap judgements about people, and I really don’t think there’s much you can tell by a person by what they order on only one occasion. How they treat the waitstaff, now that’s another story.
The idea that carnivores have healthy appetities while veg*ans are neurotic seems to be tied in to an implicit “steak or salad” dichotomy. I remember filling out a profile on some dating site long ago and it asked you what kind of food you liked. I don’t recall the exact wording of the options, but it basically forced me to pick between hearty food like steak and potatoes, and health food including vegetarian dishes. But I like hearty vegetarian food.
Boy, you folks are so clueless.
Obviously you haven’t heard of William “The Refrigerator” Perry.
Like shooting fish in a barrel, overly-sensitive and quick to anger political types (wink wink) rise to any hint for a chance to wax indignant.
Ok, how about ‘women with figures like big, badass male football players?’ Better?
I still think most normal, healthy men are going to be attracted to women who look like, oh, I don’t know, like women, rather than chicks who look like ‘big, badass male football players.’ And it certainly is not our fault that we do so.
Unless of course you happen to be of the political persuasion that’s overly-sensitive and quick to anger (wink wink).
Bonnie said: “No matter what so-called “natural” urges you have, you can make a conscious decision to give in to them or not.”
Ok, so, e.g., eating disorders are completely the fault of the persons (mostly women) who have them and have no bearing whatsoever on societal norms? After all, those (mostly) women “can make a conscious decision to give in to them or not,” right?
Right?
For the most part I have little opinion on the times article or this sexually-attracted-to-people-who-look-like-refrigerators tangent it seems to be on. It’s a world of six billion people, you can probably find somebody to whom your attracted and who is attracted to you if you look long and hard enough, no matter what you look like or what you’re looking for. If you’re looking for or you represent something really extreme–very tall, very short, very fat, very thin–you’re probably going to have to look harder than somebody who’s looking for the mean average or who represents the mean average, and you may have to make some compromises on other aspects of the relationship. If you’re only attracted to people who weight 300 pounds or more, for example, you may have to write off the idea of also having somebody who can go skydiving with you.
But I had to respond to this from Bonnie…
“No matter what so-called ‘natural’ urges you have, you can make a conscious decision to give in to them or not.”
Yes, but why should I? If I want a slender woman or a woman with an average frame, why shouldn’t I pursue my natural urge? As I said on another thread a few months back, I’ve heard dozens–hell, hundreds–of women say “I’m not losing weight for any man.” Seems to almost be a mantra in our ever widening society, and that’s fair enough. But that being the case, why should men try to change what they’re attracted to so that you’ll have a bigger pool of men to date?
As a strict vegetarian feminist, I can attest to what Hugo is saying.
I live in the South and “Oh-My!” when I order a salad with no meat for dinner. I must be one of those (insert anti-fem body-hating slang here).
My favorite/least favorite comments usually come from men, who assure me :::winkwink::: they like “A woman with a little meat on her bones.” This is typically said while they scan the ass of a prepubescent girl, all of 90-100lbs, walking by in her best imitation of daisy dukes.
Blech.
And really. Are people talking about “natural urges”? The social ideal for female bodies has included such a vastness of size and shape throughout time that for anyone to relinquish said “urges” to some natural order is laughable–hilarity ensues. It’s about as natural as what your mother looked like, how many times People Mag calls Paris Hilton “sexy” and how many hours a day one spends with mass media.
The word “natural” used in feminist discussion is *almost always* a qualifier for misogyny.
As somebody who regularly reads size-acceptance blogs, I have to wonder what little bit of Heaven you live in, Hugo, where it’s no longer socially acceptable to say “I’m on a diet.” Even for slender women.
Pisaquari: So if a man isn’t attracted to you because of your size, you’re angry. Especially since you know better than him what he should like.
But if he is attracted to your size and tells you so that makes you angry too.
I’m going to invest in a cat food company.
My husband and I, both lustful, vibrant vegetarians, found the Times article patently offensive. We met because we’re vegetarians, not despite being vegetarians. And our first date was coffee, not a meal.
The article was sexist, anti-vegetarian, and ignorant. Thank you for writing about it.
The Chief, please cite in my post where you may infer I have asserted:
men not finding me attractive: “I’m angry” (since I know better)
and
men finding me attractive: “I’m angry”
Thanks.
Carlavii - It’s only acceptable for non-thin people to say “I’m on a diet.” Thin people cannot say it, especially around non-thin people, without hearing criticism that they’re anorexic, bulimic, or have body dysmorphic disorder.
Still, saying you’re a “vegan” is often met with criticism, too. But “vegetarian” is fairly acceptable.
—
The Times article offended me in a number of ways:
1. It was sexist, even the title it said “girls” instead of “women”
2. It was anti-vegetarian, calling veg*ns neurotic and whatnot
3. It emphasized thinness and sex appeal, as though that’s all that’s required for finding Mr. Right
4. It acted like men are idiots who care more about perception than reality, who like being lied to
Thin people cannot say it, especially around non-thin people, without hearing criticism that they’re anorexic, bulimic, or have body dysmorphic disorder.
Wow, the shoe’s on the other foot. We must be behind the times, here.
pisaquari, you may not believe it but, ahem, ‘body language’ can come across loud and clear on the web: Just like some can claim to tell that I’m being “nasty,” so can we tell that you are angry.
And similarly, just like it’s your right to eat yourself into a coterie of people-of-Sumo-Wrestling-size if you so choose, so is it my and other men’s right to say “thanks, but no thanks” when it comes to choosing whether or not to find such people attractive. For me, I’ll stick to normal, healthy specimens between 100-150 lbs.
Or is choice solely for women in these heady, post-Third Wave days?
Mr. Bad, apologies on having not been put in my place sooner. I had no idea my anecdotal experience with men in the South, along with my general annoyance for the word “natural” in feminist discussions, was not veiling my “!!anger!!” enough. I should have used the cyber “body language” of crossing my legs and keeping my pretty little mouth shut like a good Patriarchy-Princess.
Now, for those of you who can read: I have never once said who someone should or should not be attracted to. I mentioned the fickleness of attraction following a general description of the contradictions with men I have known to say one thing but act on another.
If you are going to engage in a disagreement please have the courtesy to at least quote what you take issue with–otherwise these ad homs only cause further confusion.
Just like your name suggests- You really think you are Mr. Bad. You are exactly the type of slime that has women feeling insecure about themselves. You are gross for classifying women in a weight range. Are you a doctor? I would love to see the 100-150 lb. range validated. If you have the resources to do such. If these numbers come from an uneducated assumption, then i may stoop down to that level as well and say that you are gross for seeing women as superficial “trophy wife” type objects. I also believe that for you to assume things like an imbecile is your right to be such.
Okay, and with that, all the name-calling stops and we get right back on the topic of this post. (In other words, Mr. Bad, you don’t get to respond to the comment immediately above.)
The issue is what meat signifies in dating relationships, and how that plays in with animal rights and feminist issues. Stay narrowly — and respectfully — on that topic.
Yeah, the idea that vegetarians are self-denying is false. Some are, of course. But in my experience, it’s a minority. I’m anti-self-denying and a vegetarian.
OK. But just one more thing…I have yet to see a 230-pound woman who “looks like big, badass male football players.” Most women, whatever their weight, have hips and breasts–and many, even heavier ones, have waists whose dimensions are smaller than their hips and breasts. Whether or not a man finds such women personally appealing, they don’t really look very much like male football players. Or refrigerators.
OK, to get back on topic…Hugo, you probably won’t find anyone who summed this whole thing up better than Rebecca Traister at Salon:
http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/2007/08/09/red_meat/index.html
I don’t agree with everything she writes, but this assessment is, I think, spot-on. The whole article is sexist as hell because what it really boils down to is women choosing what to eat on a date as “strategy” for “catching a man.” It does us as a gender no good to trade the presumably sanctimonious salad for a lusty chunk of steak if, in the end, the bottom line is choosing to eat something based on the impression we think it will make on the man we are with. (Especially if what we eat will only be seen as a positive reflection upon us if we are able to eat it while remaining effortlessly thin, because to be un-thin is to fail at pleasing the man.)
You have every right as a vegan to be offended at the assumptions made in this article about people who eat meat vs. people who don’t, with those who don’t characterized as wimpy, weak and neurotic, and with the assumption that men are all meat-eaters who want a woman who is one, too. But as a woman, what offends me far more is that I have been handed yet another piece of “trend journalism” that adds to the drip, drip, drip of stories out there that confirm for me that women haven’t come all that far in the past few decades…that if anything we’ve had a setback…because now it’s OK for us to eat meat on a date, but why? Only because it will, supposedly, make men think we are tigers in bed who can’t wait to rip off our clothes and ravish them.
If we are thin, the thought of this will thrill them to death…but, if we’re not, it will terrify the crap out of them.
Once again, it’s all about what men want…much like the sexual revolution of the 1960s, which was supposedly about freeing both men and women to follow their sexual appetites without shame, but proved to suit men more than it did most women. How many women feel pushed into having sex with a man during that era, when when they didn’t want to, because they were afraid of appearing “uptight” and “repressed” and “frigid”?
I only hope this doesn’t start a trend of women downing meat on dates whether they want to or not, just because they’re afraid of appearing “weak” if the idea of a juicy steak doesn’t turn them on.
How unbelievable that this sort of thing gets printed in the New York Times!!!!! It reminds me of the kind of article you used to find in the first girl’s teen magazines in the early 80s (before they developed any self consciousness).
They must have been really desperate to fill column inches.
Does any real people actually consider this sort of thing on a date?? I mean surely the only extra criteria one would have when choosing food for a date would be potential for embarrassment, ie maybe you’d avoid a messy spagetti sauce etc
Really - is there nothing happening in America?
btw I’m also intrigued by the possibity that some American men insist on weighing women before they’ll go on a date with them. Is this some kind of outdated patriachal founding father’s thing??, I don’t know, boats etc but yes Hugo we shouldn’t feed these people (Mr Bad etc I mean and no pun intended) so will understand if you delete this.
leapfrog said: “I’m also intrigued by the possibity that some American men insist on weighing women before they’ll go on a date with them.”
Personally I’ve never known any man to do this, let alone even heard of such a thing. leapfrog, do you have real, verifiable proof that this actually occurs or is another urban myth going around in feminist circles?
As for the whole ‘meat vs. veggie/vegan’ thing, I think what this represents is more of a ‘I’m-not-a-self-obsessed neurotic’ reaction to the stereotypes presented in women’s magazines, etc. Which by the way, are written by and for women, so trying to link it to men, ‘the patriarchy,’ etc., is nothing short of ridiculous. Unless of course you want to suggest that Oprah et al. are ‘misogynist tools of the patriarchy’ or other such nonsense.
clean up your own house and stop trying to blame this stuff on men.
Mr. Bad it was just a bit of humour in response to your very definite weight criteria of 100 to 150 pounds per date - not a serious comment.
I find it very odd that anyone thinks this much about what they or their date eats early on in a relationship and find it hard to believe that they actually do. Surely this article is silly season column inch filling material - no woman or man I know would give a flying hoot.
Not that I have to worry about it anymore, but the idea of someone weighing me before a date is utterly ridiculous. To me that’s a sure sign that person isn’t worth my time. You’re either physically attracted to me or you’re not. Why should a scale reading change that? I know it’s easier to make judgments based only on numbers and what they eat on a date, but that’s exactly why I don’t like it. People are not always as easy to categorize as they may appear at first glance. Why is how we look so overwhelmingly important, anyway? So many women (and I see this happening with young men, too) seem to be slaves to what other people think of how they appear. I know the fashion, cosmetics, and plastic surgery industries are loving it, though. Throw more money at them!
As long as your clothes are clean, you’re clean, and you have a good attitude, why does it matter that wear size 2s or size 12s? Or that you buy your clothes from Goodwill or off the racks at Macy’s? I’ve worn basically the same kinds of clothes since early high school. I not very fashionable, I will readily admit that. But I want people to know me for my mind more than what I wear, or eat. If I have to look a certain way or eat a certain way for someone to listen to me, then I will just find someone else to talk to.
As for meat, I’ve been eating less and less of it over the years. The likes of the Jungle and Fast Food Nation are excellent appetite suppressors where meat is concerned. While I do think humans are supposed to eat meat (why else would it taste good to us?) I object to factory-farming. I was shocked to learn about it. Where I grew up, cows graze in big ole pastures and are often butchered and sold locally. They taste better that way, too. Now that I live in a city, I abstain from meat often. To me, it’s not self-denial and hardly neurotic to just not pay for poor meat and instead settle on salads or roast veggies for my meal.
What is neurotic eating behavior is to drink a cup of coffee as your meal of the day, and say you feel guilty about eating anything else, and also feel guilty about even watching someone else eat. Whatever the reasons, that to me says there are some deep-seated issues going on, and it’s probably best not to get romantically involved with such a person.
This aricle was also refered to in the British Times today - just a couple of inches along with a report of meat sales going up in NY restaurants. Could this be a case of sponsorship by the meat industry? the whole thing seems so absurd.
I bet a lot of women reading were fantasizing about eating and enjoy a nice juicy steak rather than picking on a piece of tasteless fish or salad just to impress their date that they try to be healthy and that they probably won’t blow up after marriage. Don’t think that women especially here in New York City aren’t aware of the impression every morsel of food makes on boyfriends/employers/husbands. Many only eat in private or in front of girlfriends. They are never “hungry” in front of the men in their lives. This article gave them a different approach, or at least the opportunity to contemplate.