My Year of Meats by Ruth Ozeki Literary Analysis Essay Example

📌Category: Books
📌Words: 1484
📌Pages: 6
📌Published: 08 June 2022

In Ruth L. Ozeki’s My Year of Meats, we are given the opportunity to examine the cross-section of both speciesism and sexism. This ecofeminist intersection reflects the forceful and self-serving nature of a capitalist and patriarchal society. In this novel, both animals and women are exploited to be consumed through a variety of ways. They are given purposes based on how their oppressors wish to use them: women provide children and food and animals provide food and profit. To enforce these purposes, violence, the administration of hormones, and the commodification through television are used against them. The violence forces control, hormones enhance women and animals for their usage, and their presence on My American Wife! reduces them both to products. These methods show how the culture in the novel prioritizes profit and the patriarchy over the well-being of women and animals. The close parallels between women and animals show that Ozeki purposefully wrote an ecofeminist novel to show the ways in which capitalism and the patriarchy work in similar ways to consume women and animals.

In this novel, women and animals share the purpose of providing personal gain to their oppressors. The livestock animals are murdered and sold to provide food for people and profit for the meat industry. Although food is a necessity for life, humans can live without meat. The animals’ deaths do not serve a noble purpose, but a greedy manufactured need of a capitalist society. Animals are farmed to be killed and sold rather than hunted, making them a business rather than a resource. Their purpose is to be commodified and consumed.

Women also serve the purpose of providing food. Akiko cooks for herself and Joichi, who controls what she cooks by telling her to use recipes featured on My American Wife! (Ozeki 20-21). Akiko’s interests are disregarded by her patriarchal husband to serve his needs. Akiko gave up a job she enjoyed to cook for her husband and “otherwise prepare for motherhood” (37). Like animals, women provide something to be consumed under the pressure of an oppressor. Akiko may rather produce writings on manga, but she is forced by a patriarchal society to forgo personal desires to produce for her husband. Through this situation, we can see that in addition to providing food, the patriarchy expects women to provide children.

 Through interactions between Akiko and Joichi, her purpose of bearing children is emphasized. Sex in their marriage only exists to produce a child. This is evidenced on multiple occasions, one being when Akiko is out shopping, notices condoms, and reflects on how she has not bought them since “[Joichi] decided it was time for them to have a baby” (185). When Akiko suggests adoption, Joichi insists: “I want my genes in my child. That’s the point! Mine!” (100). This indicates that Joichi sees children as things that can belong to him and Akiko as a vehicle to produce them, without regard for other options that may better suit Akiko. Worst of all, Joichi rapes Akiko to impregnate her and sexually assaults Jane when fantasizing about her giving him a child that Akiko cannot, again reaffirming how Joichi violently imposes the purpose of baby-maker on women (238-239, 110). Both women are consumed physically as objects to impose sex and pregnancy on. This reflects a patriarchal society that expects women to produce children to fulfill the needs of men regardless of their own needs. Neither the animals nor Akiko are asked for consent to fulfill their designated purposes. They both are means to an end and are only worth what they can give their oppressors.

Women and animals are both victims of violence in this novel as a way for their oppressors to maintain control over them and force them to serve their purposes. When Jane visits the Dunn farm, she describes a cow being electrically prodded, hung upside down, and having its throat slit while being only partially stunned (283-284). The cows are also subject to regular abortions and are fed plastic and manure so the farm runs more efficiently (259, 263). This violence prepares the cow to fulfill its ultimate purpose in society: to become meat. The cows are raised, fed, and kept to be murdered. They are no longer cows in this process, just food to be processed, sold, and consumed. Comparatively, we see Akiko being physically abused multiple times by her husband Joichi. She is raped and beaten over disagreements on food, children, and her letters with Jane (142-143, 100, 196, 234, 238-239). In the same way violence forces cows to become meat, Joichi’s violence against Akiko turns her into a dehumanized body. The depersonalized meat, previously both Akiko and the cows, is then able to be consumed by its oppressor. Cows are eaten, and Akiko remains a producer for Joichi.

In both cases of violence against Akiko and the cows, there is a shared theme of the oppressors keeping the violence discrete. Joichi prohibits Akiko from leaving the house before her injuries heal (100). Similarly, the violence against animals is not advertised on My American Wife!. These acts of hidden violence further contribute to and enable the oppression animals and women receive. Without the public knowing of the violence, there can be no backlash, and the violence can persist. Through physical beatings and violent murders, the cows and Akiko become victims of their oppressors forcefully and quietly. 

Another way women and animals are forced to serve their oppressors is through the administration of hormones, which is a form of discrete violence. An important step in Jane’s journey in filmmaking is discovering the harmful effects of DES. Animals are given DES, along with other drugs, to be bigger so they will provide more meat. However, DES castrates and feminizes male chickens and leads to earlier slaughters for cows (124). Sexual and life-ending violence against these animals is justified by the meat industry since it makes producing meat more efficient. Women, notably Jane’s mother, were administered DES for fertility problems. DES was supposed to give them “bigger and stronger babies” and prevent early deaths of fetuses. This was done despite there being many possible health problems and warnings associated with this drug. Jane fought cancer and continues to struggle with fertility problems because of her mother taking DES (125, 311-313). Giving women drugs so they can be better baby-makers without concern for their health is a form of hidden violence used by the patriarchy to control women and force them to be more consumable or usable, like with cows and chickens. 

The negative effects of DES are not felt only by animals and women who were given the drug. Those who regularly consume meat treated with DES or are exposed to DES experience mutations that feminize their bodies. Rosie prematurely menstruates, develops breasts and pubic hair, and is at a higher risk of cancer. Gale and Mr. Purcell develop breasts and higher voices (117, 278). The disregard of health for profit leads to indirectly harming consumers and farmers. DES is a vehicle for violence against women and animals to make them better for male and human consumption respectively.

Another comparison of the exploitation of women and animals in this novel is the way they are advertised as products on television. On My American Wife!, the women are supposed to be “never tough or hard to digest, … attractive, wholesome,” and have a “warm personality,” which are all qualities of the patriarchy’s ideal woman (8, 11). The show also wants to focus on housewives who are good cooks (10). There is little interest in single women. BEEF_EX does not see the value in women by themselves. The focus of the show supports the idea that the patriarchy wants women to serve the sole purpose of providing children and food. Consuming women and the food they make serves the patriarchy, and selling them serves capitalism. 

The meticulously crafted image of the perfect American wife is how the show wants to influence Japanese women. Not only do the producers want the housewives to appeal to men by being ideal women, but the show is also selling this aesthetic to other women. Following this, Japanese women should want to cook and eat like American women (8,10). This leads to the sale of meat through the show. The chief producer wants to emphasize “old-fashioned consumerism” through “good, nourishing [meat]” (13). The capitalist drive of the show is recognized by its producers, and meat is a designated product. Men view the show and consume the image of a perfect wife. Women consume the image of how to be best consumed, which is how to better serve their husbands and families. All viewers consume the idea that meat should be consumed more often than not. The show overall creates a desire to consume. While the show is wholesome and digestible, the way women and meat are eventually consumed by their oppressors is violent. The show aids the violence against animals and women by reducing them to products. Their commodification makes them consumable.

Under a capitalist and patriarchal society, animals and women are reduced to items to be consumed. Their purpose is determined by their oppressors, denying them autonomy in deciding what fate their bodies have. Animals are only worth the food they give when they are dead, and women are only worth the children and food they provide. To force animals and women to serve their designated purposes, violence, hormones, and careful marketing are utilized. These methods cause harm to animals and women, denying them safety. The parallels Ozeki draws between animals and women in this novel highlight the actions that capitalism and the patriarchy take to ensure control is maintained and profit is made.

+
x
Remember! This is just a sample.

You can order a custom paper by our expert writers

Order now
By clicking “Receive Essay”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement. We will occasionally send you account related emails.