ABSTRACT
The aristocracy of Europe consumed large courses filled with every kind of meat while the laborer consumed the complex carbohydrates. The sexism in meat eating recapitulates the class distinctions with an added twist: a mythology permeates all classes that meat is a masculine food and meat eating a male activity. Meat-eating societies gain male identification by their choice of food, and meat textbooks heartily endorse this association. In technological societies, cookbooks reflect the presumption that men eat meat. The hearty meat eating that characterizes the diet of Americans and of the Western world is not only a symbol of male power, it is an index of racism. In many ways, gender inequality is built into the species inequality that meat eating proclaims, because for most cultures obtaining meat was performed by men. Women, second-class citizens, are more likely to eat what are considered to be second-class foods in a patriarchal culture: vegetables, fruits, and grains rather than meat.
