Is Steak Control Next?

Forget gun control. The next frontier is likely banning beef. Bear with me here: this requires a few moving parts before the punch line.

First, psychologists will tell you that people who believe everything is connected to everything else suffer from paranoia, though in many cases they are just suffering from liberalism. Second, we know that Donald Trump likes his steaks well done, which is a minor character flaw, to be sure. But maybe it helps explain some of the persistent news stories about him.

All of this comes together in this article just out from the journal Feminism and Psychology:

Linked oppression: Connecting animal and gender attitudes

Ashley Allcorn, Shirley M Ogletree

Abstract

Ecofeminists and animal rights advocates have posited a connection between the oppression of women and the oppression of animals. Although male/female comparisons regarding attitudes toward animals have frequently been considered, only limited research has focused on gender roles and animal attitudes. We therefore examined the relation between gender roles and animal attitudes with undergraduate students (260 males, 484 females) at a public university in Texas. Participants responded to an online Qualtrics survey that assessed their attitudes toward animals, gender norms, and several forms of sexism. The survey also presented participants with questions about their justifications for meat consumption. As hypothesized, pro meat-eating justifications were positively related to sexist attitudes as well as traditional gender roles and negatively related to gender role transcendent attitudes. On the other hand, pro-animal attitudes were positively correlated with gender role transcendent attitudes and negatively correlated with benevolent/hostile sexism and traditional gender attitudes. Our results empirically supported “the linked oppression thesis,” that gender and animal attitudes are connected.

There you have it. Clearly we won’t rid the world of sexism until we ban rib eyes.

Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.

Responses