Via Our Bodies, I found this interesting Salon article that I can’t believe I missed when it first came out. It’s about that “Skinny Bitch” book you see everywhere and how the veganism preached within allows the writers and their audience to have the excuse to finally make explicit what’s implicit in our culture, which is the notion that body fat is a moral flaw. Convinced of the righteousness of veganism, the authors apparently feel entitled to berate their readers in the same voice women the country over use to berate themselves for fat-based imperfections like cellulite and weight gain, voice that holds fat not to be just unhealthy or unattractive, but to be sinful.
The relentless bullying peppered throughout the authors’ advice accounts for much of the book’s humor, including quips like “you need to exercise, you lazy shit,” “coffee is for pussies” and “don’t be a fat pig anymore.” It was a formerly anorexic friend of mine who nailed it when she read excerpts from the book. “When you have an eating disorder,” she told me, “that’s the voice you hear in your head all the time.”
Thanks to “Skinny Bitch,” women who hate their bodies no longer need rely on their own self-loathing to stoke the flames of what seems like motivation but is actually self-flagellation — penance for the sin of being too fat. Now dieters can have the convenience of a former model (Barnouin) and a former modeling agent (Freedman) putting their transgressions in the black-and-white terms of right and wrong. “If you eat crap,” they chirp, “you are crap.”
I’m a vegetarian in the barely mode, who indulges in occasional bouts of fish-eating, though I’m well aware that’s a moral contradiction of sorts. I’d be lying if my conversion to this diet many years ago didn’t come with a hope that I’d be skinny easily if I didn’t eat meat, but in fact I packed on a few pounds for while there that I had to then lose. While I’m perfectly capable of berating myself for fat-based imperfections in the same moralistic tone that most women learn from the cradle, I can safely say that it never occurred to me to link any kind of moral implications of vegetarianism with the moralistic-like attitude our culture has about fat. Maybe it seemed obvious to me that the number on the scale doesn’t actually have genuine moral implications. Maybe it’s because not eating meat comes easily to me. Who knows? Let’s just say I was genuinely shocked to hear that gluttony was considered one of the seven deadly sins. It seems so self-evidently not a moral issue.
But what I do know is that this shit described above is insane. You’re not a bad person if you gain weight, overeat, just are naturally kind of chubby, or refuse to believe there’s some sort of holiness to living on 1,000 calories a day. But with this cover story about animal protection, now suddenly there’s a reason to put being fat into the same category of people as adulterers, racists, and guys who yell “cunt!” at women from their cars. Eating disorders are a neurosis, albeit a perfectly understandable one. It’s more than a little alarming to see such a neurosis mainstreamed so easily. You definitely see more social resistance to the sexual neuroses that drive the right wing Christian crew. But this is the first I’ve heard about this book being more than offensively titled, but a manual on how to develop an eating disorder with veganism as your cover story. I will say that veganism as a diet fad does go a long way to explaining to me why on earth hyper-libertarian Megan McArdle went vegan, which initially struck me as an insufficiently rah-rah Wal-Mart capitalism thing to do.
I’m surprised more people didn’t immediately throw the book away when it told you to give up coffee. Any calorie-conscious woman worth her diminishing weight knows how to drink coffee with minimum calorie consumption doing it. The book must be really good at channeling the berating inner voice to get women past the skepticism you’d have to have being told not to drink what is basically a minor metabolism booster.
This book gets more horrifying the more that I read about it. And as a chubby vegan, I’m more than a little annoyed that it’s perpetuating the “all vegans are super skinny” stereotype.
And while there are certainly plenty of ethical/political reasons to go vegan (depending on your personal ethics/politics, of course) that shouldn’t be linked to the idea that being fat is wrong.
Vegan doesn’t mean skinny. Skinny doesn’t mean righteous.
It wasn’t very long ago that people could starve to death even in the most advanced societies. Gluttony was a sin because it meant you were placing your own pleasure above other people’s lives. At least that’s always been my take on it.
This punishing attitude is very tempting for people who are already beating themselves up for these imperfections. The thought that maybe you just need to beat yourself up harder, or have someone do it for you, is always a tiny voice in your ear.
It’s worse when you quit anti-depressants to stop the weight gain, and it takes forever to bloody well reverse the effects, and you don’t even have the help of the antidepressants anymore. At those times, anorexia starts to sound less like a horrible disease and more like something you could do if you weren’t so lazy and sinful.
Grimgrim, that does go a long way to explaining how people can’t tell greed from gluttony. Our culture now has a tendency to be harder on gluttony than greed. High sex drives and doubling up at the buffet raise more eyebrows than, say, running a company that makes money off blatant usury.
Thanks for blogging this, I started and then gave up.
aimai
I’ve never seen this take on the body image thing, but the self-righteous moralizing streak within the vegan/animal rights/straight edge continuum is nothing new. I have more than a few unpleasant memories of rather ugly debates with some of them who wanted to liberate the precious zygotes at the same time that they were liberating the factory-farm chickens. Honestly, those people always made the left (if you want to call them that) feel like Catholic school to me.
Is it any wonder why eating meat increased the size of our ancestor’s brains?
I’m not into fat shaming, but there is something odd about some (not all) American meat eaters, who insist on large portions of meat at every meal. People can, as Grimgrin points out, place their desire for meat above the health of the environment, and the fairness of the food distribution network. Of course, stupid epithets about “fat pig” or “coffee for pussies” are out of place, but as a culture, we could investigate our insistence on having meat, when others do not have grain, and the meat industry will not end its abuses of the environment. I suppose I would want something in between the sentiments of the book and the I deserve to stuff whatever into my maw whenever, regardless of who it hurts, attitude. Eating local meat, butchered one animal at a time (but costing more) is one way to work beyond the simple dichotomy between meat gluttons and the people who make jTuba so uncomfortable.
Funny; I’d never thought before about the fact that most anorexics are, in practice, vegans. Can you be a vegan if you don’t eat anything at all? It’s sort of like a Zen koan… what’s the sound of an anorexic chewing?
I don’t think it’s crazy for people to assign a moral value to their physical fitness, particularly if they live in a society where individual bad health outcomes have social costs. Of course, our society not only values “skinny” over “healthy”, it also over-emphasizes its moral value relative to, say, the value of not supporting sweatshop labor. But this is standard operating procedure for Americans (and, to be fair, everyone else): it’s the same phenomenon as Christians spending 99% of their time screaming about the sinfulness of abortion and homosexuality, but 0% about the sinfulness of owning more material goods than you need to survive when many of your fellow children of God live in dire poverty. By assigning different weights to different components of a comprehensive system of morality, you can start pretty much anywhere (e.g., a middle eastern apocalyptic gnostic cult of personality spun off from the cult of the Hebrew sky father) and end up with just about any set of social pressures you need (e.g., an ideology that promotes production of economic value above all else, deference to authority, and military aggression).
How does one confront a problem like this? The argument that moral weights are being assigned improperly is a subtle one to make, which is why you never hear it from politicians: they know that most people don’t want to acknowledge that level of complexity in their moral calculations. But your tactic — denying that eating and exercising can ever have any moral relevance — strikes me as dishonest, and the people who buy books like this probably sense some of the dishonesty in it. How does one go about convincing simple people that their moral calculus needs to be re-weighted?
Oh, awesome. I can just buy this book, carry it around with me, and read it whenever I’d like to experience high school again.
I suppose I would want something in between the sentiments of the book and the I deserve to stuff whatever into my maw whenever, regardless of who it hurts, attitude.
That’s where 90 percent of us omnivores fall — between “eating meat is sinful” and “eating meat is Godly.” Most of us just consider it, you know, food, and not a marker of morality.
I’m actually not surprised by this book at all. It’s well-known that veganism and vegetarianism are not uncommon covers for an eating disorder, especially among teenagers. I know at least a couple of people who have gone from vegetarian to vegan to diagnosed anorexic.
Wait. So if you disagree, explain how eating and exercising is a moral issue. Note that you didn’t say meat eating, so arguments about slaughterhouses don’t fit. How is weight loss (which is, let’s face it, what you’re talking about with ‘eating and exercising’) a moral issue?
What in the name of Dog is that “RICE DREAM” stuff???
I think our culture glorifies gluttony, but disparages physical imperfection (particularly in women, of course). It’s just the sort of conundrum our self-flagellating Puritan forbears needed to keep their show on the road, so to speak. Similar to their impossible take on sex. Even anorexia/bulimia is a kind of out-of-sorts self-indulgence. Bulimia, in particular, mimics the binge-purge proclivities of the Puritan > Victorianism arc. Well, it’s home; the only life we’ve ever known.
As far as diet goes, it all grows so tiresome. Can’t we just say that a huge number of vegetarians/vegans are self-righteous boors and so are a huge number of omnivores? There is a finite number of online flamefests on the subject that one monkey can withstand per lifetime.
Wow. I’ve been vegan for 7 years but not for the reasons the authors have!
There are wonderful health benefits to a plant-based diet - not to mention getting away from processed food in general - but there’s no need to have a harsh tone like this! I like eating vegan (beans and brown rice and veggies, not diet coke and fries) because it will reduce liklihood of heart disease, diabetes, and many cancers. Sure, I’m still 15 lbs overweight (I blame beer and guacamole) so being vegan won’t guarantee skinniness. (Although when I ate meat, I was 45 lbs overweight…)
When I saw this book in a bookstore, I thought it was a joke! How sad that these people aren’t making an Onion ™ like spoof on the ridiculousness of the perfection-seekiing model-wannabees.
P.S. If I may be so blunt, why does that chick have tits on her back? Is this the latest thing with the kids or something?
What in the name of Dog is that “RICE DREAM” stuff???
It’s vegan ice cream substitute. And it tastes about as good as it sounds.
“What in the name of Dog is that “RICE DREAM” stuff???”
A frozen dessert made from rice milk. Not all that bad if you aren’t expecting ice cream and just want something cold and tasty. It does have a funny texture though.
I want to preface this statement by saying that I do not buy the “vegetarians/vegans are a bunch of self-righteous fanatics” line, nor am I trying to equate veganism with mental illness. Furthermore, if a meat-eater can engage them in a non-antagonistic way, most vegetarians and vegans are perfectly mellow about omnivorous folks, unlike Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin.
…but I know that for troubled individuals, especially troubled young girls, I have seen a not-at-all-subtle association between veganism, annorexia, and extreme hatred of the physical body. One girl in particular that stands out in my mind had suffered abuse and tried to self-medicate the feelings of mortification she had for her body. She went from pesco-vegetarian to vegetarian to vegan to raw foods, without really understanding the nutrition of any of it, just wanting to get away from her body and seeing food as a frustrating reminder of her body’s needs.
While she wasn’t doing it “to be skinny,” I think that the sort of abusive vegan propoganda that appears to be in Skinny Bitch would definitely have fed into that mindset that was destroying this girl.
Rice Dream is a frozen rice mylk food, akin to ice cream.
I’ve never read the book, have no desire to, and have not yet found a vegan friend who has read it, but I have a question for those who may have:
Does it explicitly decry carrying excess body fat as a moral wrong, or the overeating as a moral wrong? I could see a justification for a global argument that consuming too much, when so many are going without, would be considered an ethical flaw. One of the tenets of hardline (vegan, anti-alcohol/drugs, anti-abortion….) veganism was an avoidance of exotic produce and foods that were produced overseas, due to its impact on the locals (who are often treated harshly producing food that they can’t afford, so that it can be shipped thousands of miles away for the enjoyment of people in wealthier nations).
The Hare Krishnas whip up something similar made out of white rice, coconut milk, a dash something piquant (cardamam seed?) and some kind of sweetener (tastes like white sugar to my palate). They serve it as a kind of pudding/milkshake thing. I have to say, it’s pretty good, although the Ben & Jerry’s empire can certainly rest easy. It may have some actual milk in it, tho, I’m not sure.
Matt, anorexics usually eat something. If you ever drop by one of those bizarre pro-ana sites, it’s immediately evident that it’s not completely abstaining, but more this who game of seeing how long you can go without or how few calories you can consume when you do eat. And it’s not vegan for a lot—apparently a cube of cheese and half an apple is sort of the daily food intake of many an anorexic.
Vegan: If you eat crap, you are crap strikes me as a non-ambiguous statement.
I missed that one…thanks!
If memory serves me correctly, this book was torn to shred on the Vegan Freak podcast a few months ago. That was the first I heard of it.
www.veganfreak.net
Mighty Ponygirl,
I wrote the following comment before reloading the page and reading your comment on a similar issue (veganism, diet, self-image/hatred). I think you’re right about how they fit together. Anyway, here’s the comment I wrote:
On the general topic here: I worked for a number of years with a woman who’d had eating disorders as a teen (she was very open with her coworkers about this) and went through a series of very conscious, strongly-held views about food and diet, from vegetarian to vegan to a few others. My sense of it was that her underlying issues regarding food and self-image were still inside her, but that the way she was manifesting that struggle was much less unhealthy than it had been before. That is, expressing whatever conflicts or self-negation or whatever as bulimia or anorexia or binging is much worse for you than expressing them as veganism.
That experience made me feel that in some cases we might be looking at a harm reduction situation. Not everyone who’s a vegetarian or a vegan or is into calorie restriction does so because of deep issues relating to their sense of self. I’d bet that most people have completely unrelated reasons. But to some people, whose self-image/hatred issues have led to severe dangerous eating disorders, I wonder whether veganism or whatever could be the equivalent of methadone treatment, a way to prevent a serious, underlying disease from ruining their lives through incredibly self-destructive behavior.
That being said, that book sounds really poisonous, like it’s evangelizing self-hatred and negative body issues. Reinforcing those issues is about the last thing we need to do.
For some of the religious there’s the idea that the human body is given to you by your deity and you should take good care of it, but that’s pretty much gone by the board with the patriotic duties to support fast-food manufacturers and watch Fox News. If it were possible to make money for someone by exercising that would be OK, though.
This sounds more like the mortification-of-the-flesh side of established religion than the body-is-a-temple side.
I’m really, really sick of people using “Skinny Bitch” as a reason to discredit veganism. REALLY sick of it. That’s like using “Sex And The City” to discredit feminism.
People with eating disorders also tend to have self-punishing relationships to exercise. Should we ban going to the gym? I’ve known plenty of people who’ve used going to the gym every day as a cover for their anorexia.
My diet is vegan for ethical, health, and environmental reasons. I don’t even think of it as a “diet” since my relationship to food has completely changed since eliminating animal products. In addition, from a feminist point of view, when I personally started realizing that non-human animals are their own subjects, not objects for my consumption, it really changed my relationship to my own body as subject, and I found myself “objectifying” myself a LOT less.
#25 Paul:
Your comment reminds me of a post I read last night by Sarma, the owner of Pure Food and Wine in NYC. She talked about how years ago, she was impressed by the notion that Bain Capital, Mitt Romney’s company, would use Mormon guidelines against tobacco and alcohol to refrain from purchasing certain companies….until they bought Dunkin Donuts. She details several harmful ingredients in Dunkin Donuts food, and how it seems unethical (following Romney’s own “body as a temple” philosophy) to promote something that was also so unhealthy for the body.
god this shit makes me mad.I mean the book. Earlier today I went bought “The complete Light Kitchen” by Rose Reisman. Like so many women, I want to lose weight *shocker* But the book I bought is a far cry from the “skinny bitch”. As in, actually had healthy foods, veggie and meaty. And guess what!? OH MY GOD, some of the recipes actually have more than 10 grams of fat!!! ahh oh no! jk.
Anyway, as for the whole vegan thing, a friend of mine and I have noticed this trend in our friends and aquaintences (sorry i can’t spell) where its obvious they don’t so much care about the poor animals, but want to consume food that has no fat content and perpetuate an unhealthy diet or 700 calories a day. Yes we actually know people who live off of 700 calories a day… it’s pretty sick.
Furthermore, the reason I think this whole vegan fad got started, (aside from the activist part of things, which is really noble and all) is partly due to the restaurant industry and our need to get more bang for our buck. Have you ever noticed the portions of meat at a restaurant?! they’re insanely unhealthy to be eating on a regular basis. If you take a look at your national food guide you’ll find that the portions of meat and almost everything is double and thripple a healthy meal portion! I think people were like “oh meat makes me fat” not realizing that they were eating way more of it than they should. It doesn’t mean you have to get rid of it all together. Let’s not throw the baby out with the bath-water… unless you really do have some huge moral problem with eating meat, and then , I really hope you’ve done your research.
As for eating disorders, I think we all understand there’s a lot more to it than just the want to be skinny, but it’s shit like this that perpetuate the unhealthy obsession so that you can get down to the bitter roots of the problem..
and hello!!?? giving up coffee? I gave it up for a year because sitting in my office wired all day wasn’t so fun, but seriously, I drink at least three cups a day again, and I don’t see myself giving it up again unless my doctor tells me to for serious medical reasons.
Yeah, well….I expect a lot of women who fall for this sort of book to have *real* problems later on in life. Like osteoporosis starting at age 30, for example. Heart failure. (e.g. Karen Carpenter) And all the other wonderful stuff associated with a diet where you’ve got to be very careful about getting sufficient protein, calcium, B12, and all the other stuff.
Snapping bones at 30 is a hell of a price to pay for being skinny and morally pure in your 20s. I’d rather be a little overweight, throw a little meat into my diet, and live to be a feisty old broad with strong bones at 70.
At least one recent study has questioned whether or not this is even the case. Researchers found that obese people did not live quite as long but actually cost less to treat overall.http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22995659/wid/11915773/
If this holds up, it pretty much refutes the “but obesity is so expensive to treat” argument that a lot of people like to throw around.
Then there’s the Flegal study that found the lowest overall mortality rates in “overweight” people - you know, what was considered “normal weight” before the BMI tables were revised to favor skinnier folks.
Lillet, would you chill out? Unless you have an eating disorder and are using your veganism to pretend that you don’t have a problem, this blog post is not about you. Actually, it’s hardly about being vegan at all. We all know healthy vegans and non-healthy ones. It’s about using something that could be a positive lifestyle (veganism) as a moral sledgehammer to make women stop eating, which is not a good thing. The book this post is about is not actually about veganism, it’s about fat-shaming
Technically, the whole “vegan fad” was started in 1944 with the founding of the UK Vegan Society in London. The rise in veganism can be attributed to several factors, but the largest is, hands down, a concern for animal welfare/rights. Ask a vegan what got them to go vegan, and the majority of responses will center around the treatment/slaughter of animals.
And to clear up a common misconception…
The vegan diet is certainly not fat-free. Tofu and tempeh have good amounts of fat, and processed vegan foods (soy products, Rice Dream, Tings, etc…) can contain unhealthy processed plant fats. Even most raw vegans, who consume nothing heated over 118 degrees (F), note the need for fat in the diet (good fat though, not processed saturated and trans fats).
Wow, I had never seen the book “Skinny Bitch” but it’s pretty interesting, another version of physical perfection = moral perfection. It seems to go along really well with Peter Singer’s version of animal rights, the “because they are better than disabled people! who totally suck!” version.
It’s particularly upsetting since these versions give apologists for animal suffering so much easy reverse ammunition.
(full disclosure: I am in the category of “hypocrite”. I eat meat bought at the regular grocery store several times a week, even though I do think the ways that meat gets there are horrifying and oughta send me to hell for participating. Also — not to harsh on the SB dogma — I’m skinnier now as a regular consumer of animal fat than I was as a college vegetarian. For whatever that’s worth)
I thought we were talking about pretend vegans… who actually have eating disorders.. ?
Obviously there are healthy ways to be vegan. Somehow i don’t think thats the conversaton… is it>?
It seems like people aren’t quite getting the point of the Salon article… The author is saying that the book is using women’s weight/body issues to shame them into veganism, not the other way ’round. That this book is essentially a cynical political ploy to play on body shame and consciousness in our society to force women to embrace a vegan lifestyle.
Vegan: If you eat crap, you are crap strikes me as a non-ambiguous statement.
Which is ironic, because the authors have now come out with a cookbook, filled with recipes that rely on heavily-processed, albeit vegan, crap.
Which tells me that their focus is not on health or nutrition, but on thinness.
It seems like people aren’t quite getting the point of the Salon article… The author is saying that the book is using women’s weight/body issues to shame them into veganism, not the other way ’round. That this book is essentially a cynical political ploy to play on body shame and consciousness in our society to force women to embrace a vegan lifestyle.
PETA uses that ploy a lot, too, with some of their campaigns. Such as their version of “Got Milk?” that features woman-as-milk-cow.
Zuzu -
I saw the cookbook version, which amazingly, is a lot crappier than I eat - ironically, I think I would *gain* weight if I ate all that heavily processed “food”. I was expecting the cookbook to be heavy on salads and veggie stir-fry items, not soysage and all those super expensive faux meats and the like.
Will the authors yell at me for gaining weight from eating their recipes? Geez.
There’s a freaky subset I’m sure you’re all aware of — they eat only 1000 calories a day, and obsessively monitor the content, in the firm belief that they’ll live to be 150 years old. Very well-written profile of some of these nuts in the New Yorker, if you can find it. Since the hook is immortality rather than svelteness, the discipline claims a surprising number of male adherents.
All eating disorders are a kind of obsessive-compulsive disorder. You can tell women they’ll be skinny or tell men they’ll live forever, but is this the fundamental enticement? No, even though the anorexic her/himself would say so emphatically. It’s an arena in which to practice obsessive-compulsive tendencies and rationalize it as a legitimate regimen.
Zuzu, thanks for posting that article. These two comments really stood out to me:
Kimberly Latham, a fashion publicist in New York, said: “I would never have read ‘The Omnivore’s Dilemma.’ I’m not even sure I know what an omnivore is. But I know what a skinny bitch is, and I know I want to be one.”
Debbie Rasmussen, the publisher of Bitch magazine, a feminist journal in Portland, Ore., has mixed feelings about the Skinny Bitch phenomenon. “Obviously I’m in favor of assaults on the food industry,” said Ms. Rasmussen, a vegan. “On the other hand, the constant equating of skinny and healthy is something I have a real problem with. And replacing junk food with vegan junk food is not my idea of how to change our unhealthy food culture.”
The rise in veganism can be attributed to several factors, but the largest is, hands down, a concern for animal welfare/rights.
I think we’re talking about two different groups of people here. Yes, a lot of people who are vegans got there from animal rights. But there are also a lot who did it because their favorite celebrity did it, or because they think it’s an easy way to lose weight, or because they have an eating disorder that they’re not ready to cop to. I think the second group is larger than you might think, especially in places like Los Angeles where they love nothing more than a super-trendy diet that sets them apart from the proles.
P.S. If I may be so blunt, why does that chick have tits on her back? Is this the latest thing with the kids or something?
Maybe Chris Muir was the illustrator.
I think curvy women are hot.
It’s not just women who develop a negative self-image because of weight issues. I look in the mirror now and coo, because I managed to lose all the weight I wanted to lose and I love how I look. But when I was overweight, I looked in the mirror and hated the way I looked. I looked down at random times during the day and hated on my gut. I’d tug at my double-chin in frustration. It really sucked. The last thing I needed was some book getting snippy with me.
We should all collectively write a book called “Hey, Skinny Bitch, We Can Lose Weight, But You’ll Still Be a Bitch!”
[I]t never occurred to me to link any kind of moral implications of vegetarianism with the moralistic-like attitude our culture has about fat.
Way to dismiss everything veganism actually stands for by reducing it to a woman-shaming technique. It’s like Lillet said. People with EDs exercise a lot. Why not pick on athletes?
This has been explained in the comments of half a dozen other blog posts about this horrible book, but it bears repeating:
Veganism is a lifestyle and belief system, not a diet.
Restricting your diet to lose weight is NOT veganism.
If you eliminated meat and dairy from your diet in order to lose weight, but still participate in using animals for clothing or entertainment, or you haven’t committed to the belief that exploiting animals is ethically wrong, you’re not a vegan. You’re on a diet.
I usually shy away from waving my magic vegan wand and declaring who does and does not get to be called “vegan,” but these women are not vegan.
I haven’t knowingly eaten animal products in over ten years, and I’ve never in my life been on a diet. This is true for all but a minuscule percentage of people who eliminate animals from their diet.
And in what alternate universe would the mainstream media try to “shame” women into being vegans? Shame women into being skinny, sure. But since when are vegans seen as anything short of pains in the collective ass of America?
F*&% this idiotic book and everyone who thinks it has anything to do with veganism.
People with eating disorders also tend to have self-punishing relationships to exercise. Should we ban going to the gym?
Did someone suggest banning veganism? Because I totally missed that comment. Some weeks I’m practically a vegan myself. I’m not sure how a ban on veganism would work. Mandatory cheese-eating?
Veganism is a lifestyle and belief system, not a diet.
For you. Not for every vegan.
It’s funny, because I’ve picked up Veganomicon and Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, both of which are 100% vegan cookbooks that are about enjoying healthy vegan food - not about being a ’skinny bitch’ or about my-diet-is-more-moral-than-yours. Funny how they aren’t marketed with the same enthusiasm; what’s the point in promoting a product that doesn’t shame women?
Mandatory cheese-eating? That would be awesome.
And to reiterate the comment to the angry vegans-this post is not about you, so un-knot your knickers.
I’m just starting a nutritional plan through my gym, the first month of which is vegan. Crazy, restrictive vegan, consisting of vegetables that are low in sugar, and protein. Since I’m vegetarian, that means a whole lotta tofu and protein shakes! And I am so glad I’m not eating like this for the rest of my life-a month I can handle, to ‘detox’ from all the sugar I normally consume, but spending the rest of my life feeling vaguely hungry and… spiritually unsatisfied? would suck.
That statement is not intended to offend vegans-they are welcome to their choices, I would just find it depressing to live like that.
To clarify-the diet isn’t vegan for everyone-meat eaters get meat, but I get none, which means defaulting to vegan.
Veganism is a lifestyle and belief system, not a diet.
That’s how you, and probably lots of vegans, view it. That is not how it’s viewed by the mainstream media. They view it as an extreme form of dieting. Hence it’s used to shame women with a little extra dollop of fakey animal-rights concern on top of the fat-shaming.
Since the authors of Skinny Bitch are specifically saying that veganism is a pathway to weight loss, are you saying that they’re not “real” vegans because they don’t believe the way you do?
I wish I could say that I find this surprising, but I don’t. Anyone who has followed PETA’s antics knows that the animal rights movement is perfectly happy to use fat-shaming and woman-hating tactics to advance their agenda. Anyone who has spent significant time with people with eating disorders knows that they’re adept at finding justifications and rationalizations for their basically self-indulgent behavior. (And I say that as a former anorexic and bulimic.) No surprises here.
In a lot of ways, I think what’s more significant is the movement towards a kind of self-conscious vegan epicureanism. There are definitely vegans out there who talk up the pleasures of vegan food, not the pleasures of vegan self-denial and superiority. That’s a kind of veganism that could potentially be appealing to me, although I’m not willing to take that step right now. But the other kind just feels too familiarly eating-disorder-y to me. Even if self-denying vegans don’t have eating disorders, it’s a way of thinking about food that is liable to make me crazy. I need to think about food as a healthy and pleasurable thing that fuels my body and makes me happy. Once I start thinking about it as a moral battleground in which I win through self-denial, I’m halfway to the psych ward, if I’m lucky.
For you. Not for every vegan
Sorry, those who abstain from animal products for health or to lose weight, but don’t avoid animal-derived clothing, etc aren’t vegans - they’re strict or total vegetarians.
http://www.vegsource.com/jo/qa/qatypes.htm
There are no such entities as “part-time vegans,” “partial vegans,” or “dietary vegans.” People who merely consume no animal products, including no eggs, animals’ milk, or honey are not vegans; they are “total vegetarians.” Until one’s commitment extends beyond the scope of food, the word “vegan” does not apply, regardless of how the media or certain individuals wish to employ it. Unlike vegetarianism, being vegan does not entail simply what a person does or doesn’t eat — it comprises who a person is.
Wow. I didn’t realize there was an official vegan council that was authorized to excommunicate people from veganism!
I gained weight after going vegan. I think it was because I started eating much tastier food, as implausible as that might seem.
Wow, I didn’t know that you could have your vegan card revoked. We feminists need to get behind this belief-based accrediting procedure!
And what Mnemnosyne said. This isn’t really about the One True Face of Veganism; it’s about making money off shaming women by equating limiting their food intake–in quantity and manner–with their worth as human beings. Animal rights are purely window dressing here. The issue about this bookisn’t “you’re a moral person because less animals die,” it’s “you’re a moral person because you restrict what you eat and are skinny.”
“Wow. I didn’t realize there was an official vegan council that was authorized to excommunicate people from veganism!”
There’s even a Vegan Agenda, which only committed vegans are allowed to see and use…
Sally:
Something’s not quite right there, ecological fallacy perhaps. Anyway, I share your disgust with the fat-shaming and whoman-hating tactics, but I would revise your sentence:
I’m not sure how a ban on veganism would work. Mandatory cheese-eating?
Speaking for the dairy-allergics in the crowd, I’d rather you didn’t… If I quit meat, I’d pretty much have to be a vegan (can’t eat dairy or eggs), but I don’t have the time or money to do it at this latitude. Veganism is easier when you live further south than I do.
I think “If you eat crap, you are crap” is pretty unambiguous too. I also resent the hell out of people like that infringing on perfectly legitimate body-hatred out of something as venal as looksism. I’d like my body a lot better if it worked better, but right now, I maintain a sort of suspicious armed detente here in the Meat Robot.
Kathleen, I want to thank you for drawing that parallel between physical perfection and moral perfection. Since reading that thread on the cop dumping the guy out of his wheelchair, I’ve been again wondering how the fuck there can be such things as anti-disabled hate crimes (which shocked the hell out of me). That halfway makes it make sense, if you use anti-logic. I’d never thought of my cerebral palsy as being a moral failing before…
I took a “look inside” at the table of contents on Amazon, and a misogynistic bent was immediately apparent there. I mean, chapter 10 is titled “Don’t Be A Pussy.”
Excuse me??? I LOVE my pussy!
Sorry. You’re absolutely right. I should have said “parts of the animal rights movement” or something like that.
That just said everything i was planning to think or say about the book, the post, and the thread. Rock on.
Huh, Rasmussen was just on CBC this morning criticizing this book. She was good. The book sounds like it combines the worst qualities of misogynist fat-shamers and self-righteous vegans.
This is the sort of thing that makes me reticent to admitting I’m a vegetarian. “Oh, did you do it because you love animals or to lose weight?” Um, neither, actually.
Sorry, but “meat robot” reminded me of one of my all-time favorite lines from “Futurama”:
“You’re just jealous! Nobody loves you because you’re tiny and made of meat!”
This book has 517 ratings on amazon.com. Fortunately, it’s only getting 3 1/2 stars average. I read the few pages they provide as a free excerpt.
Chapter 1, page 1: “Healthy = skinny. Unhealthy = fat.”
Bullshit.
The text on the rest of the pages makes me feel like I’m being yelled at by the authors. If I want to feel badly about my body, I can do that for free. Save myself the eight bucks buying this book.
I do believe there are moral aspects to how we consume and what we consume, but that there is no moral issue regarding the size of our bodies. Asking meat eaters to be cognizant of the treatment factory-farmed animals suffer is reasonable and a moral issue, or at least ethical; asking meat eaters to acknowledge the effects cattle farming (methane output and deforestation) wreak on our global economy and environment are reasonable. Asking people to think about a food economy in which oranges are more expensive than candy bars, in which a bottle of water is more expensive than a bottle of soda, making unhealthy food choices the affordable food choices - that is a reasonable moral issue. But if someone wants to eat cheetos all day or load up on fudge rounds and french fries or wants to overeat non-junk food but then not exercise… well, there’s no ethical issue there. Just a lot of fat shaming for not being eye candy. Cause really, that’s what chicks are here for. There’s really no honor behind fat-shaming, no matter how much people pretend their intentions are meant kindly, and the message isn’t any more tasteful when it comes from skinny vegan bitches.
Argh, sometimes I think that’s one of the worst things about PETA. Nobody who is vegan or vegetarian should have to apologize for what they do or don’t eat or wear.
They also don’t seem to get that their shaming isn’t effective for anything except making themselves feel better. Misogyny isn’t a requirement for spreading the gospel of veganism; it’s just something they enjoy.
Wow. I didn’t realize there was an official vegan council that was authorized to excommunicate people from veganism!
Well, call me crazy, but I think it’s a pretty fair that the guy who *coined the term* (Donald Watson) should be allowed to define what means. But I’m funny like that.
Perhaps I missed some comments, but I feel like no one has brought up the issue of health. Eating vegan takes planning and effort.
It is very very easy to live off tortilla chips and guac. or even frech fries. Just because you are eating “vegan” does not mean you are eating healthy.
Does anyone think the book promotes a malnourished lifestlye without really explaining what goes into maintainging a balanced vegan diet?
well, Jesus “invented” Christianity and we’ve all seen how good folks are about following HIS definition.
Exactly, a bunch of wannabe assholes keep corrupting the meaning of it - why encourage more of that shit?
not encouraging. but leaders of a movement lose their absolute authority once their movements reach the public. sucks, but that’s how it goes unless you’re willing to back your movement up with cyanide kool-aid.
just as we might say, “it doesn’t matter that Jerry Falwell never said a Christ-like word in his life, he flies the Christian banner and hides behind its cache,” we can say, “it doesn’t matter that this book’s authors are essentially fat-shaming malnourished bitches, they are claiming vegan cache and that means something.”
Otherwise you end up lost in a spiral of “no true Scotsman” fallacies.
er, correction: lose their absolute authority over definition
Touchy, much, Rebecca? I didn’t bash being a vegan for moral reasons. That was my point. It’s a legitimate moral choice, and it’s being superimposed on something that’s not a legitimate moral issue, which is the waistlines of America. Nothing about that is vegan-bashing. It’s actually saying that veganism has a legitimate moral component I agree with, even if I’m not ever really going to give up cheese to get there.
Well, call me crazy, but I think it’s a pretty fair that the guy who *coined the term* (Donald Watson) should be allowed to define what means.
So there *is* a Central Vegan Authority? Glad you cleared that up for us.
yazikus, have you been reading the thread? This isn’t promoting a healthy vegan diet. It equates body size with health. The authors think “pussy” is an appropriate term to hurl at women who don’t yet follow their diet. They extol junk food as long as it’s vegan and you’re skinny.
You should see how the Council deals with the breakaway evangelical vegans, whom you might know by their familiar name: Vegan-Agains.
This post at Feministing about “vegan strip clubs” makes a good companion to this post.
Wow. I’m making a big “T” here with my hands to ask any of you if you have read the book. It doesn’t sound like it. I happened to have just finished it–it interested me because I am currently hooked on the BBC Show “You Are What You Eat” and the advice in this book sounds quite similar (Although the BBC version does allow fish in the diet).
The tone of the book didn’t bother me at all, and as a fan of Michael Pollan and an adherent to the local foods/CSA movement, I had heard/read most of this before. Like the authors, I am one of those people who will tell you all about the evils of aspartame and the connection with Donald Rumsfeld, or of high fructose corn syrup, if you want to hear it. My husband is a biochemist and can give you the lowdown on why Splenda is awful if you need to know.
At any rate, the thing that seems to be the sticking point here–that the whole book is about shaming people about their body weight, well, I suppose it is there if you want to quote certain bits, but isn’t the overall message. (then again, I haven’t got an eating disorder, so maybe I’m missing it).
At the end of Skinny Bitch there’s a page that says something like (I don’t have it in front of me) “We have a confession to make. We don’t care if you get skinny at all. We just want you to be healthy and to use your head and think about what you put into your body.” They repeat “Use Your Head” over and over again, in every chapter. And it seems to me that getting people to think about what they eat, especially people who really don’t consider it much from a nutritional standpoint, is probably not a bad thing.
Yes, they go into detail about the dairy and meat industries and they have an agenda. They never mention the local foods movement and they plug vegan junk food. It’s not a perfect book. But it does focus on why eating chemical food is not good for you, and how eating well can make you feel good. And for a certain audience who think of dieting as drinking lots and lots of diet coke (and wondering why they never lose weight and have terrible headaches, to boot), this is probably a very eye-opening new away to look at the world.
…So you can say all sorts of horrible, fat-shaming, woman-hating things you want as long as you take it back in the end with some half-assed paragraph saying “just kidding!”
At any rate, the thing that seems to be the sticking point here–that the whole book is about shaming people about their body weight, well, I suppose it is there if you want to quote certain bits, but isn’t the overall message.
“Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?”
It’s not a perfect book. But it does focus on why eating chemical food is not good for you, and how eating well can make you feel good.
So does French Women Don’t Get Fat, but at least that book is up-front about what it’s trying to do and not pretending that they’re oh-so-concerned about the health of all of those fatties.
the “psyche! fooled you!” school of anti-feminism.
And they have really shitty poetry readings! Wait, that’s Vogons.
I was having this discussion on the train today with another ‘merkin about McMansions, which lead to a similar one on status symbols and conspicuous consumption.
If you are thin, athletic, and tanned, it means you are well-to-do, because you have leisure time to devote to working out and sunning yourself.
If you’re fat and out of shape it’s because you are a working stiff and/or too poor to afford healthy food.
The “sin” here is being poor, or more precisely, being in the weak underclass. The powerful over-class (is that a term used?) ever justifies its cruelty and dominance with morality. At one point they used the Church to endorse their bullshit; now you can plainly see that they’re superior, just look at them.
That said, I will admit to this much: when I fail to work out or when I stop for a kebab on the way home from work instead of cooking myself something healthy, I beat myself up and I feel as if it is a moral failing. I feel like I’m allowing myself to be lazy or something, and I feel happier when I work out…because I feel superior to people who don’t. So obviously I have internalized this idea more than I thought.
French women do so get fat. So.
I understand that vegan spokepeople are self-appointed. I do not understand their black-and-white all-or-nothing approach. Reeks of evangelism, and oh what a rank smell that is. Why not simply try to get people to eat less meat, to seek out hormone-free meat and free-range chicken? Why not lobby for more humane means of raising and slaughtering animals? Do they really think if they’re just shrill and sophomoric enough, human consumption of meat will vanish from the earth?
Again, I don’t paint all or most vegans with the brush so vividly illustrated by the self-appointed evangelists. But vegan-zealot tactics and woman-body-shaming are actually more related than has been acknowledged in this thread. At the least, those two forms of scolding dovetail perfectly.
“The “sin” here is being poor, or more precisely, being in the weak underclass. The powerful over-class (is that a term used?) ever justifies its cruelty and dominance with morality.”
The worst aspect is the dichotomy between the Over-Class’s intrinsic “morality” and the reality of how their lives are often conducted. Yet, somehow there are only a very few who will state flat out that the emperor has no clothes…
I don’t think this is OT, or not much, but I’m just going to drop a link to a Community-Supported Agriculture resource site. It’s the time of year when CSAs are starting to sign up members for the coming season, so get one while you can.
I’ve been a CSA member for over 15 years, and my observation is that this kind of local food makes for healthier vegans *and* healthier omnivores. And it tastes better, too — I never knew what a fresh potato tastes like, before, and the heirloom tomatoes from my NJ CSA are a religious experience. The strawberries are practially a sacrament.
Although people *can* certainly be OCD about local food, I think it tends to draw you away from that — partly because it’s much less controllable than more artificial food regimens. What you get varies from week to week depending on the season and the weather, in a very old-fashioned way. Also, there’s more likely to be dirt in what you get.
Some of my best friends are black.
Norbizness — if you don’t appreciate the profound beauty of Vogon poetry, you must be a fat worthless underclass lump.
Interrobang — yeah, the parallel is pretty gross and pretty weird. As a devoted hypocrite meat-eater, it also really upsets me because I think the case for animal rights should be made, and I’m even kind of grateful to PETA For making it (um, I do think rich people should be shamed for wearing fur!) — but I just would like to see it made NOT in that “because they are higher in the hierarchy of perfection that we previously supposed” way. I’d like to see the case for animal rights made in a “because the hierarchy of perfection crap is crap!” way.
Because if you think something is really, fundamentally wrong, you can’t argue that it should be reformed. It would be like arguing that the way to deal with female infanticide is to kill babies in a more merciful way. If you genuinely think that eating meat is murder, then you can’t settle for half-way measures. I don’t think that animal-rights activists should be required to lie about how they perceive the meat industry. If you think it’s slavery and murder and that the only way to rectify the situation is to abolish the practice of raising animals for food or clothing, then you should be permitted to say that.
Huh, Rasmussen was just on CBC this morning criticizing this book. She was good. The book sounds like it combines the worst qualities of misogynist fat-shamers and self-righteous vegans.
I heard this too — and the interview with one of the authors that preceded it. Rasmussen was quite wonderful, pointing out that it’s just a new spin on ‘good food/bad food’. The author was underwhelming. I sympathize with veganism as an ethical stance but she trotted out a lot of old, impossible canards as Truth! No, the intestines of meat-eaters are not packed with pockets of rotting meat, unless by ‘rotting’ you mean ‘digesting’; intestines are tubes through which things pass, as anyone who’s ever had a dog eat an important object will testify (I know what an iPod looks like when it’s been through a beagle).
I think, with Rasmussen, that the roots of body-hatred lie with the authors and not in their veganism, which is only a supplement to the fat = unwholesome skinny = virtuous mantra. I’d think that the eating disorders would lie in their background in the fashion industry, which frames a form of normalized, institutionalized anorexia for all its participants.
Oh, and all Vogons are skinny. That’s how you can tell they’re superior.
That, and the poetry.
If you think it’s slavery and murder and that the only way to rectify the situation is to abolish the practice of raising animals for food or clothing, then you should be permitted to say that.
You can certainly say that, but you shouldn’t expect to be treated any more seriously than someone who thinks that a zygote is the same as a fully-formed human being and so abortion should be abolished.
Yes, Sally, but such absolutism is kind of like abstinence education. We want the poeple believe that non-marital sex “is absolutely WRONG, and nobody should do it EVER,” to acknowledge that such a thing is just NOT going to happen, and so they should at least get behind harm-reduction measures for the reality that exists. We argue for such compromises all the time: I don’t think people should be locked up for nonviolent drug offenses, but that doesn’t mean I won’t argue for more humane treatment of people in prison at the same time.
We have to live in the real world and work for what is possible. You can think of attempts to get people to at least get their meat in a more humane way as a step in the right direction toward the desired world, where non-human animals are more valued. You’re trying to effect a HUGE change in a society’s worldview, and it’s not going to happen all at once; baby steps are at least steps. And when people feel shamed and castigated, they don’t take any steps at all, they just ignore the message entirely.
Amanda:
Matt, anorexics usually eat something.
Yes, I am quite familiar with the behaviors associated with anorexia nervosa, and apologize for my silly misuse of the term. It was a clumsy attempt to shore up my joke with a recognizable term, and English doesn’t have a good word meaning “someone who doesn’t eat anything”. I am all too familiar with the sound of an anorexic chewing; I just chose that word because it was the closest match I could come up with.
Aside from the dumb joke I lead with, though, I’m curious about what people think the solution is here. The anti-fat crowd can smell the disingenuity of the pro-fat crowd’s arguments about the separation of moral and aesthetic categories, and they’ll continue to stick to their “thin” fetish unless someone present a more convincing argument than “there’s nothing morally relevant about the decision to be obese in a society that pays some of my medical expenses”.
We pass judgment on people’s body shapes and eating habits all the time. An “eating disorder” is classified as a pathology for a reason. To pretend that overeating is any healthier than anorexia or bulimia is incoherent. And the social costs of unhealthy overeating are much greater overall. Look at the latest mortality figures on obesity and anorexia if you ever have any doubts.
Sure, both “skinny bitch” and “fat cow” are used to unfairly attack people with healthy eating habits all the time. That doesn’t mean that overeating and undereating can both result in pathological, socially destructive behavior that has moral consequences.
Hey, let’s play Mad Libs!
“If you genuinely think that ABORTION is murder, then you can’t settle for half-way measures. I don’t think that PRO-LIFE activists should be required to lie about how they perceive the ABORTION industry. If you think it’s slavery and murder and that the only way to rectify the situation is to abolish the practice of ALLOWING WOMEN TO KILL THEIR UNBORN BABIES, then you should be permitted to say that.”
See, the issue isn’t that vegans are too strident, or that animal-rights activists should STFU. It’s that this particular book pushes that agenda with misogyny and fat-hating. And the defenses of the book people have been posting are, what the hell, as long as it gets people to stop torturing cows, why not call women pussies or tell them that skinny and healthy are the same thing?
So should labels and identities be defined by whoever wants to take them, irregardless of how they fit it? Should we never, ever say Feminists for Life aren’t really feminist since they don’t care about women’s lives or choices or rights, since they “claim a feminist cache and that means something”? If Camille Paglia gets enough articles in the media that rape apology is sex positive feminism does that make it true? Hell, is Ted Haggard straight if he says it enough?
Veganism, as defined by the major organizations and groups going back to the founder, is more than just a diet, it’s about trying not to use animal products at all. That’s why my shampoo says “vegan” on it, which it wouldn’t if veganism was just a diet. Can we all accept the official definition instead of letting the mainstream media make up a very negative meaning that has nothing to do with the reasons most people who identify as vegan do so?
I’m pretty sure that my ‘vegan’ shampoo says ‘cruelty-free’. If it said ‘vegan’ I would be concerned what my shampoo was eating.
Matt - because you’re conflating food abuse with body shape. To pretend that the issue is actually pathological eating, rather than fat-shaming, is dishonest.
jrochest:
You can’t say something like that and expect us not to get distracted.
My question is, did it still work?
Well, Sally, nobody’s arguing vegans shouldn’t be permitted to say what they believe, and to be intractable, insufferable, even, should they so choose.
Such folks will change precisely zero during their years on this Earth. But hey, at least they’ll get to feel like the Lord’s Elect — and that’s the real victory for any Evangelist, no?
Sheesh. For some perspective, there actually are vegans out there seeking pragmatic, achievable ends. One of them, an Aspie, was profiled in one of the Oliver Sacks books — she has designed a type of slaughterhouse that minimizes the fear that animals experience during the process. That’s an actual achievement. Pontificating at a campus-area coffeehouse, god love it, never will be.
Maybe I missed something, but I think the only person defending the book (#76) is actually a meat eater who just thinks it’s good to tell people not to drink soda. The vegans on this thread I’ve just seen defending veganism, because, try as people might, every thread on this book on every blog or msg board devolves into attacking veganism instead of just the book.
See, the issue isn’t that vegans are too strident, or that animal-rights activists should STFU. It’s that this particular book pushes that agenda with misogyny and fat-hating. And the defenses of the book people have been posting are, what the hell, as long as it gets people to stop torturing cows, why not call women pussies or tell them that skinny and healthy are the same thing?
Sally was saying that vegans shouldn’t compromise their beliefs and work for harm reduction because they think that using animals is morally wrong. I pointed out that just because you think something is morally wrong doesn’t automatically give you moral weight over anyone else.
Or, as has been said throughout this thread, you’re not morally superior just because you’re a vegan, any more than being “pro-life” makes you morally superior. It’s the difference between choosing to be vegan because you feel it’s a more moral way to live and deciding that because you’re living in a way that you feel is moral, that means everyone who doesn’t do the same is immoral.
Sadly, the answer was “browner, with surprisingly small molar marks on one corner”.
If you mean “Work” as in “actually play things”, well, no. If you mean “work” as in “functionally hold together into a coherent Ipod shaped plastic square” it was as good as new! *
* Barring the earbuds and wires, which are apparently digestible. Who knew?
which would be exactly what most people in this thread are SAYING.
should we IGNORE the fact that Feminists for Life and Paglia are trying to co-opt labels they probably don’t deserve? No. Can we actually STOP them from doing that? NO. Does it do any good to stick our fingers in our ears and go la la la la la doesn’t matter they’re Not True Vegans la la la?
No. What DOES work is addressing their arguments, and the Skinny Bitch arguments, on their (lack of) merits, and not just saying “but they’re not reaaaaaaal vegans!” over and over.
Kajey, I read enough of the book to get to the part where they say that you should never take pain meds for menstrual cramps, because God-I-mean-Nature wants you to suffer wrenching pain in preparation for childbirth, which they must think women are not allowed to opt out of either.
Oh, they also tell you to stop taking medication for everything, and I do mean everything, else.
Face it. They’re misogynist douchebags.
(The proof.)
Giving more time to the stupid vegan propaganda than to this shit, which is actually intended to hurt and kill women for real, right away, is a little disturbing. There’s way worse in that book calling fat women worthless.
stuck in mods. but was replying to Marle’s idea that acknowledging that these authors call themselves vegan is somehow an attack WE are making on veganism. It’s too uncomfortably close to the idea that criticising lawbreaking, hypocritical Christians is an attack on ALL christians, everywhere.
I’ve seen the Anthony Bourdain threads on Salon, THOSE are attacks on veganism. This thread? not so much.
(And I don’t mean that hating fat women is a minor matter. It’s just that if you took out all the fat-loathing, it would still be a dangerous, sick book.)
Those two aren’t related. I can’t force you to be vegan, but that doesn’t mean I have to advocate for better farm conditions if I still don’t think that “better” is good enough. I can just be vegan and tell you why it’s awesome if you ask.
I also don’t think I’m morally superior because I’m vegan. I don’t buy fair trade chocolate (unless the vegan kind just happens to be) and I shop at Walmart and try not to worry if my stuff was produced in sweatshops. Nobody’s perfect, and I don’t judge people on the stuff they buy. Of course it’s better to buy stuff made without cruelty (to animals, humans, or the environment) but all of us can’t do that and none of us can do it perfectly. So I don’t put up a scale, I just don’t eat meat and you do choose what works best with your life.
Mnemosyne — I don’t think the parallel you are drawing works quite the way you think it does. I mean, what if obeying the speed limit made me feel moral — would I have NO right to promote laws to make everybody else do it too, but should instead keep my big fat ideas to myself?
I do think people have different ideas about what makes for a good society. Animal rights’ advocates ideas about this are more congenial to me than are anti-choicers’ ideas about this, but I don’t think they both need to shut up about ideas because they make them feel moral.
If a law was passed saying everybody had to be a vegan, I do think society would be better off than it is right now. (I say this as a meat-eater). I think championing veganism b/c it supposedly makes you sexy and superior is a bunch of crap, but again — b/c I think those ideas about sexiness and superiority are general social bads, not because they make certain people feel cool who are not me.
If a law was passed saying women could no longer get abortions, I think society would be worse off. I also think all kinds of shaming associated with abortion are social bads for *everyone*, but not b/c they make certain people feel cool who are not me.
but the vegans and the anti-choicers are welcome to make their arguments as part of a general argument about what society ought to look like. My version is pro speed limits, pro eating a lot less meat, and pro-choice. If that gives me some kind of moral pleasure, do I have no right to advocate any of those positions to anyone else?
Matt, I think the problem is the equation of unhealthy and morally wrong. I do think that some of the claims made by fat activists about how there’s no relationship between overeating and being fat to be disingenuous, but the claims about there not being a moral component are fair. Considering that fat women get it much worse than fat men, there’s also an unfair indication that women are morally obligated to be what’s commonly considered a minimally acceptable sex object. I reject the idea that presenting yourself as an aesthetically pleasing sex object is a a moral obligation. Do it or don’t, but acting holy about it is weird.
Even working with the idea that obesity is linked with poor nutrition and therefore bad health outcomes, I’m unconvinced that there’s a moral component to maintaining good health. I am also deeply annoyed about the way people who hate smoking are claiming a moral high ground. Sure, it’s disgusting to smoke and bad for you, but does it make you a bad person? No, and anyone who thinks that needs to rethink their priorities. Some of the kindest, most generous people I know are smokers.
I don’t think we’re attacking veganism as we are attacking the sanctimony behind it.
Historically, trying to “shame” the neighboring populace into avoiding particular actions only works if it’s an activity that the populace was sort of feeling queasy about anyway. An example is slavery–even the handful of people mining the Bible for quotes in justification of slavery knew damn well that without Human Sin, slavery was not supposed to occur.
The further way you are from what is considered standard morals, the more of a jump you have to cross. Imagine a People For The Ethical Treatment of Vegetables organization and see if you can think of them as existing anywhere outside an article in The Onion.
Going around trying to shame people about activities they don’t feel ashamed about isn’t going to work–it’s just going to piss them off. I never feel as determined to chow down on a juicy hamburger as right after being the (unwilling) recipient of a Holy Vegan rant.
(Oh, and about the fur coat thing–don’t even try to be anti-fur here in Chicago, especially when it’s 0 degrees Fahrenheit outside with a wind-chill factor of -40. You’ll have better luck trying to convince Eskimos.)
Oh, they also tell you to stop taking medication for everything, and I do mean everything, else.
Oh, sweet chocolate Jesus. I loved the diatribe about how you have to stop taking all medication because:
Gee, thanks. I guess next time I get strep throat, I shouldn’t take my antibiotics, because they’re going to do more harm than good. Gotcha.
I love how it’s quickly followed by the please-don’t-sue,
Here’s an idea — how about not making sweeping statements about what strangers “should” do with their health to make you happy?
Sorry, mythago, but I stand by my statement comparing people like this to “pro-life” whiners. It’s the same assumption that because they believe it’s better to be a vegan and live life without aspirin, that automatically means that it’s bad for anyone else to not do it and they only deserve abuse and ridicule for not following the sage advice laid out here.
Sally #88, I’m totally in agreement with you on Happy Meat. If meat is murder, you can’t reform it.
Amanda, have you ever heard of Sheese? Its a fake cheese made in Scotland that is flavored to taste like different forms of cheese. I’ve tried it before, and its really good.
http://www.veganstore.com/218——-blue.html
Once you get dairy out of your system, it really does become, for most people, just as unappealing as meat. As Colleen from Compassionate Cooks lays out in her podcasts, people don’t crave meat or dairy; they crave the texture and the flavorings and the fats and the sugars. For maybe one dollar’s worth of ingredients, I can make a bowl of cashew paste that is flavored (using lemon juice, apple cider vinegar, nutritional yeast, and soy sauce) very similar to cheese.
You’ve missed the point. Militant vegans have a right to say what they think just as much as “pro-life” people do. They can do whatever they want to promote it … right up to the point where they start telling people that they’re weak and bad if they don’t do the same. Which, if you look at the excerpts from the book, is what the authors of this book are saying to their readers.
Speed limit is not a good analogy because if you’re speeding and you crash, your inability to follow the law has directly impacted someone else’s life who’s a stranger to you (or, god forbid, a passenger in your car). You can advocate for things all you want up until the point where you start impacting the lives of strangers.
Do we really have to say “it’s not about you” once again? Criticizing a book that uses veganism to fat-shame women is not about you.
For maybe one dollar’s worth of ingredients, I can make a bowl of cashew paste that is flavored (using lemon juice, apple cider vinegar, nutritional yeast, and soy sauce) very similar to cheese.
Dear lord, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Cheese” is not a flavor. Is your cashew paste flavoried like brie, like gorgonzola, mozarella, parmesan, cheddar? “Similar to cheese.” Not even cheese tastes similar to cheese.
Here is the thing. There are foods that are really delicious that it is not ethical to consume. Luckily for me, I think foie gras is disgusting, so it’s not a hardship to refuse it, but even if I loved it, I’d never touch it, because it’s wrong. I understand that vegans feel the same way about all dairy products, and I respect that. And I know it’s hard to talk about ethics without being mocked and derided for having the nerve to feel compassion for tortured animals. But you can’t win converts by pretending that cheese basically tastes no different from fancy nut paste. Come on. Culinary ignorance is not convincing.
Well, no, but it does mean things won’t change much if all vegans feel the same way.
That poor dog! Getting rid of your iPod “the natural way” musta hurt. (hums “Ring of Fire” …)
Does anyone else find it interesting how long this comment thread is in comparison to some of the comment threads to more politically “salient” topics? And I am saying that with all due respect and a sense of bewilderment.
Godmonkey, you’re thinking of Dr. Temple Grandin. She is not a vegan. She’s also not an “Aspie”; she’s autistic, albeit high-functioning.
sophonisba, I neglected to finish that statement. It should have continued:
…very similar to the way cheese is, in that you have a base ingredient (dairy/cashews) that is then flavored to create a taste. It wasn’t culinary ignorance, it was multitasking
The thing about calling meat-eaters murderers is that you’re calling 96% of the humans that ever trod this mudball (this figure comes from my ass) murderers. Let alone calling cheese eaters murderers. Great god, people! Look at what you’ve become! You expect this to appeal to the rest of us?
It’s just not a tenable thing. Unless you were raised vegan your entire life, or at the very least adopted it thoroughgoingly at a very, very young age, you yourself are confessing to murder. Which is a permanent stain on the soul, not something that’s absolved once you quit doing it.
So drop the melodrama. Move a few more blocks from the Student Union. Whatever it takes.
Brag of your glowing complexion, your boundless energy and your refreshing bowel movements if you must — these things do have a certain appeal. Bearing the sanctimony of a schoolmarm while enacting the dramatic, self-aggrandizing rhetorical flourishes of teenager? Not so appealing.
mythago, my mistake. She’s vegetarian, though. Not vegan. Right you are.
I heard her on my local NPR affiliate. Smart lady.
Sorry, mythago, but I stand by my statement comparing people like this to “pro-life” whiners.
Uh…I actually agreed with you on that one.
And the excerpt sophonisba posted is pretty much case-closed on proving that these authors are not only misogynists, they’re buttbag stupid. Cramps “prepare” you for the pain of childbirth? A runny nose expels bad humors? WTF?
I’m gonna plug Veganomicon again. Not only does that book make veganism appealing, it’s written by people who clearly enjoy food and cooking, and want everyone to be able to have yummy, affordable vegan food that isn’t painfully proper. But you know, women who like to eat just aren’t as marketable as skinny bitches who put other women down.
You know, people have said this sort of thing to me about all sorts of vegan products, and all I think after tasting them is, “obviously this person has forgotten what real cheese/bacon/ice cream/what