Sexual Politics of Meat Consumption: Reading The Vegetarian Hena Ashraf College

South Korean writer Han Kang’s booker prize-winning book The Vegetarian tells the story of a typical housewife in Korea, Yeong Hye who suddenly decides to go vegan in her diet and the consequences that follow. The story told from three perspectives deals with the issue of sexism in the very act of meat consumption and how it equates to the oppression and subordinate role of women in society. The butchering and dominance of men over animals are paralleled with the ‘rape’ and suppression of a woman. By refusing meat consumption or refusing the dominance of men, Yeong Hye is head-on challenging the patriarchy. Later on, when she chooses her independence while being marked as a mentally unstable person, she is liberating herself from the institution of Marriage which is the fundamental baseline of Patriarchy.

What does meat signify? And how did it come to associate with masculinity? Throughout history, meat was for men while women were to depend on non-meat food, primarily vegetables or they were to starve. The hierarchy in consuming meat protein reinforced the hierarchy of race, class, and sex. The rice-eating easterners and potato-eating Irish peasants were kept in subjection by well-fed English. Carol J Adams in the book sexual...