Carol J. Adams

Carol J. Adams
Carol Adams with Snowball
Born	1951
Residence	Dallas, Texas
Nationality	American
Alma mater	University of Rochester (BA); Yale Divinity School (MDiv)
Notable work(s)	The Sexual Politics of Meat (1990), The Pornography of Meat (2004)
Religion	Presbyterianism
Spouse(s)	Rev. Dr. Bruce Buchanan
Website
www.caroljadams.com

Carol J. Adams (born 1951) is an American writer, feminist, and animal rights advocate. She is the author of several books, including The Sexual Politics of Meat (1990) and The Pornography of Meat (2004), focusing in particular on what she argues are the links between the oppression of women and that of non-human animals.

Adams has published around 100 articles or entries in journals, books, magazines, and encyclopedias on vegetarianism, animal rights, domestic violence, and sexual abuse.

Biography

Adams was born in Texas. As an undergraduate at the University of Rochester, she was involved in bringing women's studies courses to the University's course catalog. She graduated from there with a BA in 1972, and obtained her MDiv from Yale Divinity School in 1976. She was executive director of the Chautauqua County Rural Ministry, Inc., Dunkirk, New York from the late 1970s to 1987. Adams lives in Texas with her husband, the Reverend Dr. Bruce Buchanan, and is a member of the First Presbyterian Church of Dallas, where her husband is an associate pastor.

Adams recalls hearing of the death of her family pony in a hunting accident while at Yale, then eating a hamburger that night. She concluded that it was hypocritical for her to mourn the death of her pony, yet have no problem eating a slaughtered cow. She became a vegetarian that night. She is also a pioneer of feminist care theory in animal ethics.

Career

The Sexual Politics of Meat

The Sexual Politics of Meat discusses how, especially in times of shortage, women often give men the meat they perceive to be the "best" food. She also discusses the connections between feminism and vegetarianism, and patriarchy and meat eating, historically and through the reading of literary texts. This describes what she calls the structure of the "absent referent", which in this context is that, "which separates the meat eater from the animal and the animal from the end product."

Other works

She is the author of several other books, including Living Among Meat Eaters: The Vegetarian's Survival Handbook. This book advises vegetarians to ask if they are at peace with their own vegetarianism and provides communication skills for avoiding abuse while dining with meat-eating friends, family, and coworkers who may be hostile. Her book The Pornography of Meat explores her thesis that United States culture conflates women and meat by analyzing its verbal and visual imagery.

Adams was one of several people who provided information used in the writing of the book Striking at the Roots: A Practical Guide to Animal Activism (2008) by Mark Hawthorne.

Publications

• The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory. Continuum, 1990. ISBN 0-8264-0455-3
• Ecofeminism and the Sacred. Continuum, 1993. ISBN 0-8264-0586-X
• Neither Man nor Beast: Feminism and the Defense of Animals. Continuum, 1994. ISBN 0-8264-0670-X
• Woman-battering: Creative pastoral care and counseling series. Fortress Press, 1994. ISBN 0-8006-2785-7
• with Marie M. Fortune. Violence against Women and Children: A Christian Theological Sourcebook. Continuum, 1995.
• with Josephine Donovan. Animals and women: Feminist theoretical explorations. Duke University Press, 1995. ISBN 0-8223-1667-6
• The inner art of vegetarianism: Spiritual practices for body and soul. Lantern Books, 2000. ISBN 1-930051-13-1
• Journey to gameland: How to make a board game from your favorite children's book. Lantern Books, 2001. ISBN 1-930051-51-4
• with Howard Williams. The ethics of diet: A catena of authorities deprecatory of the practice of flesh-eating. University of Illinois Press, 2003. ISBN 0-252-07130-1
• Help! My child stopped eating meat!: An A-Z guide to surviving a conflict in diets. Continuum 2004. ISBN 0-8264-1583-0
• The Pornography of Meat. Continuum, 2004. ISBN 0-8264-1646-2
• Prayers for Animals. Continuum, 2004. ISBN 0-8264-1651-9
• God listens when you're sad: Prayers when your animal friend is sick or dies. Pilgrim Press, 2005. ISBN 0-8298-1667-4
• God listens to your love : prayers for living with animal friends. Pilgrim Press, 2005. ISBN 0-8298-1665-8
• God listens to your care : prayers for all the animals of the world. Pilgrim Press, 2006. ISBN 0-8298-1666-6
• with Douglas Buchanan and Kelly Gesch. Bedside, bathtub and armchair companion to Frankenstein. Continuum, 2007. ISBN 0-8264-1824-4
• The Feminist Care Tradition in Animal Ethics: A Reader. Columbia University Press, 2007. ISBN 978-0-231-14038-6
• How to eat like a vegetarian even if you never want to be one: More than 250 shortcuts, strategies, and simple solutions. Lantern Books, 2008. ISBN 978-1-59056-137-9
• Living among meat eaters: The vegetarians' survival handbook. Lantern Books, 2008. ISBN 978-1-59056-116-4
• The Foreword to Lisa Kemmerer's anthology Sister Species: Women, Animals, and Social Justice. University of Illinois Press, 2011. ISBN 978-0-252-07811-8

See also

• Brown Dog affair
• List of animal rights advocates
• Lizzy Lind af Hageby
• Women and animal advocacy

Further reading

• Carol J. Adams' homepage
• Carol Adams The Pornography of Meat
• Adams, Carol J. (2008). "Terrorizing the loved pets of women". On The Issues magazine. Retrieved 2009-02-16. 
• "Ecofeminism and the Eating of Animals" Hypatia, No. 6, spring 1991, pp. 134–137.
• Barker, Leslie (1990-01-26). "The sexual politics of meat: Writer finds a link between vegetarianism and feminism". Dallas Morning News. Retrieved 2009-02-16. "So were her experiences in Dunkirk, N.Y., where she and her husband developed a hot line for battered women. Many callers spoke of feeling "like a piece of meat.' Other women said their husbands had beaten them because they didn't serve meat with dinner. And some said their husbands had killed the family pet. The implicit warning: "You could be next.""  (Restricted access.) Abstract.
• Vlitos, Paul (2003-09-12). "The Pornography of Meat". Times online (London). Retrieved 2009-02-16. "Adams's new book, The Pornography of Meat, collects some of the material in support of her ideas that she has been sent by admirers of her work. [...] When it was picked up by right-wing media pundits in the United States as the epitome of political correctness gone mad, Adams was mocked as the woman who believes that cows have the same rights as women. In the United Kingdom, Auberon Waugh suggested in the Sunday Telegraph that "Carol J. Adams" did not exist, and that The Sexual Politics of Meat was a deliberately provocative piece of satirical sophism written by a male academic." 
• McCarthy, Colman (1990-07-24). "Of Meat and Machismo". The Washington Post. p. E3. Retrieved 2009-02-16.  (Restricted access.)
• Jesella, Kara (2008-03-27). "The Carrot Some Vegans Deplore". New York Times. Retrieved 2009-02-16.  (Restricted access.)
• Song on Consolidated's album Friendly Fa$cism (MP3)
• Menaker, Daniel (2005-01-02) An Alt-Cabaret Diva, The New York Times. (Restricted access.) "Paralleling the elided relationship between metaphor and referent is the unacknowledged role of fragmentation in eating flesh", from The Sexual Politics of Meat p. 60 [1] [2]
• George, Lianne (2008-03-06) 'Go Veg! Get girls!' [3] [4]
• The war on compassion