I believe this image can show many things regarding the ecofeminist view on nonhuman animals. I believe this image was chosen for this section because it shows the violence and oppression nonhuman animals face by humans. We see a knife going through this piece of meat, clearly this animal is dead and now ready to be eaten by humans. We see the little human figure cutting the meating into slices. I believe this shows that animals are oppressed and exploited even after they are killed. This can show the connection between the oppression of women and the oppression of nonhuman animals. In Curtin’s piece she talks about another author Carol Adam and her piece “The Sexual Politics of Meat.” In this she presents, “the connection of women and animals through pornographic representations of women as “meat” ready to be carved up.(Curtin)” Even though women are compared to meat in the previous statement. It is more common that meat is used when describing men or masculinity. Most people have this perceived idea that if a man eats meat they are more masculine. In the Eisenberg piece he talks about the issues of this quite false perception, “The strongly pronounced gender-food linkage presents a dilemma for traditionally masculine persons when it comes to deciding what to eat. (Eisenberg)” In Curtains piece she talks about how meat is often given positive connotations, for example if someone said “that was a meaty question!” they would mean it was a good and dense question. She then says, “men, athletes and soldiers in particular are associated with red meat and activity(to have muscle you need to eat muscle, whereas women are associated with vegetables and passivity. (Curtin)” This statement is another example of gendered foods, relating women to vegetables. As Curtin said vegetables seem more passive which can say a lot about the oppression of women and their subordination. In Curtains piece she mentioned she is a vegetarian and mentions an ecofeminism concern about what humans are willing to eat and consider as food. She believes vegetarianism can be seen as an ecofeminist ethic of care. Being a vegetarian shows a strong care and sympathy for nonhuman animals. She even says on vegetarianism, “Moral vegetarianism is a fruitful issue for ecofeminists to explore in developing an ecological ethics because in judging the adequacy of an ethic by reference to its understanding of food one draws attention to precisely those aspects of daily experience that have often been regarded as beneath the interest of philosophy. (Curtin)” What she means by this is basically that issues regarding food seem to be sort of swept under the rug by philosophers but vegetarianism can help ecofeminists bring these issues to light. She mentions that she is aware that depending on where you live the choice of being a vegetarian may be out of the option, she gives the example of the Ihalmiut people.There land is frozen so they are unable to grow vegetables so they rely on deer for subsistence. Yet these people have traditions of thanking the deer for giving them life. People of other cultures often have traditions like this in order to show their strong appreciation for the animal giving them food. She mentions how killing animals for food when there is a choice and inflicts pain on them is unnecessary. She then mentions how this violence against animals affects us. “An ecofeminist perspective emphasizes that one’s body is oneself and that by inflicting violence needlessly, one’s bodily self becomes a context for violence.(Curtin)” In the Gaard piece she talks about the linkage ecofeminists see between sexism and speciesism as well as the oppression of animals and women. She goes into describing the different forms of oppression that animals and women often face- exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, cultural imperialism and violence. She also mentions that, “ecofeminists have investigated the ways that nonhuman animals function as an exploited underclass of workers whose “jobs’ ‘ end up costing them their lives. (Gaard)” This explains the oppression nonhuman animals face by humans that often end up to their death. Just as Curtin does, Gaard also talks about vegetarianism and that by choosing this lifestyle is helping to end suffering for many animals. Throughout the whole story Gaard is talking about her compassion for Bella the bird and how she wanted her to live in better conditions. “To intervene successfully, ecofeminist activists need to bring an awareness of the ways that oppression reduces the humanity of the oppressor at the same time that it subjugates the oppressed.(Gaard)”
