Is the Meat Industry Sexist?

If the system is sexist, then so is factory farming

Factory farming is based on using living beings as a commodity. When this happens with people, as in advertising , objectionable pornography, or trafficking, we call it sexist.

Anytime we exploit another, be they human, plant, animal, or place, we are imposing our domination hierarchy values as though they are the norm. When this creates an obvious imbalance, this is exploitation that threatens natural support systems.

We already know that male animals are often killed at birth, such as chickens, and some pigs, cattle, goats, and turkeys. Then if follows that there is more suffering for the females. Egg cages, cut off beaks. Sows for example, must be confined, bred, and suckle their young. Dairy cows must have their babies taken, and there is mental, as well as physical anguish, not just for them, but indirectly for consumers of dairy products — often young mothers — who suffer the many diseases of our broken food supply and healthcare systems.

The deforestation of the earth’s surface might also be called sexist, if we regard the mother earth as female, and the male domination of all resources as driven by unfair hierarchy. Of course, any unfair hierarchy also hurts those who are male, but it does temporarily benefit a few of the elite who wield the power to run things.

I grew up a logger, farmer, and a cowboy. These were overwhelmingly male occupations, wherein females were looked upon as “the help.” This entire attitude spills into every niche of food production, from the critter wrangling to the truck driving, to the back-yard grilling.

New diseases are unleashed upon us all

By now, everyone knows that COVID-19 came from our reckless treatment of vector host animals, likely bats.

This week’s terrifying study acknowledges that our disruption of habitats is on target to release three thousand new zoonotic cross over diseases in mammals alone. Bird flu, and insect borne vectors data, is not yet known but predicted to be very high, unless we address climate and extinction.

COVID- 19 also brought out pandemic hotspots in meat packing. It also exposed (to some) the racist, sexist, and unjust safety standards therein, the pollution, the overconsumption, the obesity, metabolic, and heart disease, the failure to invest in greener, cleaner agriculture, the colossal waste, the under-appreciation of living beings, and our continuing disconnection from our fellow creatures and nature.

There is then, the entitlement mentality that says some people can afford meat at every meal while others starve. Looking at the trash, packaging, plastic and overfishing of our oceans, (often for the sexually dimorphic, larger female trophy fish), we can again see how integrated abuse is within our systems.

Meatless Mondays And Waste Less Wednesdays

The world does not have to give up meat. The “if you kill it, you should eat it” rule still applies, but ethically, few people are incentivized to do so. Fully 40% to 50% of suffering meat, (and other food) is wastefully just thrown away.

To reduce meat would make the biggest difference. That, and eating more locally, and much more produce than meat.

If you eat local meat, more directly such as local farms offer, you are also cutting down on carbon, packaging, distribution, and other wasteful practices.

As human beings, we need to honor the magnificent masculine, that which helps procure meat and produce, but also the sacred feminine, creativity which promotes biodiversity, creation and birth, and respects all life of the food web.

Honoring mother Earth takes courage, strength, and determination for all good people to stand up for diversity in every circumstance. Human diversity. Biodiversity. They are the same.

A habitat for insanity?

Food waste is a huge problem. The energy, carbon, waste, and even human health toll is very high. We also have our mental health, and good conscience to think of, if we are to feel effective in these drastically changing times.

More and more we are finding meat alternatives that are produce based. There is also lab meat, or cultured meat, which must be brought to fair market status. Good jobs in clean meat production should be supported rather than what we now subsidize, which is unsustainable cattle, deforestation, dangerous jobs, and monopolistic corporations who like profit, not people.

Cultured meat. This is not artificial meat. It is actual meat grown from animals cells but without the cruelty, land, pollution, hormones, and zoonotic risk.

Race and Sex

Meat-backing plants and factory farms, to stay profitable, hire immigrants and low wage workers. Many low wage workers, of course, are women. Abuse, lax safety standards, repetitive motion injuries that go unreported and worse happen every day. PITS, the lesser known trauma related to PTSD, is common in meat-packing jobs.

In the first year of our cruelty-to-animal-induced plague, 2020, serious outbreaks of COVID 19 took the lives of many, many workers who should have been protected by OSHA, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, our government, and their own employers. Not only this, but the simple moral safety net of a civilized society should observe that whole golden rule thing when it comes to public health, and essential workers.

In agriculture and factories, women are routinely harassed, and workers who report upon it are often retaliated against, or simply fired from their jobs. Both men and women, out of fear of deportation, often to not admit injury, abuse, illness, or anything that may jeopardize their wages.

Trash and waste

The greater majority of all costs is put upon tax payers, consumers, and those least able to benefit from our consumption habits.

Our human psychology, our defense mechanisms, particularly denial and projection, allows us to very effectively look the other way. The reason why our immoral production of meat continues is that we are not, basically, comfortable with knowing the truth. We shield our psyches, and even avoid the sights and odors, of making living creatures into school lunches, or carbon monoxide belching drive-thru lines.

The truth is that we love animals. We can not bear to see what is done to them to fill a plate and empty a planet of all but monocultural, chemically processed “food.”

Like admitting zoonotic illness is real, we need to snap out of denial and admit nutrition, and eating better food, is a moral calling we cannot ignore much longer.

The hotter our huge urban areas become, the more terraced gardens, parks, and farm plots we will need. It is a paradise waiting to happen, but it has to happen first in sensing people seeing what is happening now.

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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

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White Fragility: Talking to White People About Racism

Escape the “Act Like a Man” Box

Why I Don’t Want to Talk About Race

What We Talk About When We Talk About Men

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