meat and toxic masculinity...
Embedded into our very cultural fabric is a connection between meat and the stereotypical masculine realms of American life: sports, weight lifting, bar culture, cars, running a family. Imagine the Super Bowl without buffalo wings, or watching March Madness over salads instead of burgers and beer.
Violence In Many Forms - toxic masculinity.
This concept, defined as the “socially-constructed attitudes that describe the masculine gender role as violent, unemotional, sexually aggressive, and so forth,” is one of the many ways the patriarchy hurts not just women, but men. And it could be hurting them when it comes to what they eat, as well.
In our culture, men are shown that they are valued if they are comfortable with and able to participate in violence and stand up for themselves in a physical way. Being “a man” in the traditional sense means distancing oneself from compassion and empathy, and these rough and tough characteristics in turn foster more violent actions against others.
Moreover, men are told that they should be sexually dominant toward women, pursuing them in a sport-like manner. These sexual and behavioral dynamics are at the root of rape culture in America, where one in five women report having been sexually assaulted with approximately 98% of rapes against women perpetrated by a man.
It’s not just the bodies of other people that men are told to oppress and domineer; animals, too, are seen as theirs to dispassionately dominate. Ninety-one percent of hunters are male—and of course, it’s men who are told that eating meat, even to their health detriment, is the manly thing to do.
Corporate and cultural influence is clear in America’s popularized dietary choices. Menus vary greatly across countries and religions all over the world, in particular regions like Southeast Asia, where the traditional palate does not include nearly as much meat as in America. Many religious philosophies even teach vegetarianism, unlike the dominion-over-animals view embedded in the United States through a long Christian heritage that devalues non-human lives.
