I was lucky enough to hear Carol J. Adams speak at the University of Rochester on March 16, 2016. Adams, who graduated from UR in 1972, is a feminist vegan author and advocate, and she has written multiple books such as "The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory" (1990), "Help! My Child Stopped Eating Meat" (2004) and "The Pornography of Meat" (2004). She helped establish the Women’s Studies program at UR and stop the practice of women being “bar maids” at an annual roast. (Although now she says she would protest the meat.)

In her presentation, Carol J. Adams, using many meat advertisements, argued that meat is feminized. Many meat ads put female body parts on animals used for meat, creating overly sexualized women/animals; in these images, both women and animals are degraded and objectified.

They are usually constructed to appeal to the male gaze, reinforce men’s masculinity and desensitize consumers until women and animals are nothing more than body parts that lack meaning beyond the physical.

Because we are constantly surrounded by these images, they are normalized. Everyone laughed at many of the ads because they seemed so ridiculous. However, Adams argues that they create and reinforce certain ideas, while hiding behind the mask of irony or humor. Whether it's ridiculously funny or not, it has reached the point where I am not surprised when I see a voluptuous pig with a large bust or chickens with thighs and high heels.

There is a huge problem with the way women are depicted in the media, and men are becoming overly sexualized as well. In ads, women are usually posed and looking away from the camera, lacking agency. Also, their bodies are frequently dismembered, which means their body parts are cut up and separated (sometimes literally), turning women into a collection of body parts that each need to be perfect. Even advertisements not trying to sell beauty products portray unrealistic standards; I should not look at an advertisement for chicken and feel bad about myself.

Meat is manly. I'm not above buying into this constantly reinforced association, but it’s problematic and comes with underlying misogyny. Carol J. Adams showed us a ridiculously humorous ad about the power tofu has to tear apart men’s masculinity (nobody high fives after eating tofu? I encourage everyone to start now) and one not-so-humorous German ad that simply read, “Tofu is gay meat.” In commercials, men need to overcompensate for eating tofu or salads with huge trucks and hamburgers. When masculinity is tied to an increased sex drive, violence and unhealthy Burger King burgers, it's not fair to men either. Not only is everything feminine completely rejected and diminished, but masculinity becomes fragile and unrealistic; it’s so bound to building up your score card of singular masculine actions that people have no idea what it really means to be a man or a woman.

Carol J Adams’ comments about language struck me the most. She explained that when Jennifer Lawrence’s private pictures were leaked, Lawrence said she “felt like a piece of meat.” Her comments are warranted, because the phrase has become a way to describe feeling like an object whose sole purpose and function is to please another; it’s synonymous with objectification and lack of agency.

We've all heard and used the phrase before, and it's frequently used to describe ill treatment of women. But why is it OK for the animal used for meat to feel like “a piece of meat?” After hearing her story about a group of cows yelling and mourning their recently separated babies, it's clear that no animal, human or nonhuman, deserves to be treated like a “piece of meat.”

This creates the “absent referent,” as Adams calls it. This means the thing has lost its meaning. By calling meat "meat" and dismembering the animal into body parts such as ribs and thighs, the consumed food is separated from the animal, and the animal’s death is separated from eater. Distance is created, and many believe in the pictorial “family farm” image of meat. Furthermore, many ads also reinforce that these animals want to be eaten, just like women want to be constantly sexualized. Nevertheless, cage-free chickens are still debeaked and crowded together, cows are forcibly impregnated until they are completely dried up and farm animals are rarely given any antibiotics.

It would be impossible to concisely cover all of her points (she also mentioned issues of race, theology and appropriation), but that's why she's written so many books. She makes you question the unquestioned, and question just how much you've been habituated to these images and ideas.

If Carol J. Adams taught me one thing, it is to be unapologetic and steadfast. She knows how to articulate her argument, and she's not going to compromise her ideas to appeal to ideals that are easier to swallow. Some will agree, some won't. As a feminist vegan majoring in English, I am enthralled by her criticism, and she helped me strengthen my own beliefs. She's very kind, but she knows what she stands for.

It seems like she's advocated for everything: civil rights, women's rights and animal rights. She knows her stuff, and she's very current, always looking for new images from Twitter users.

After watching her speak at the University of Rochester, it makes me want to do something about everything that constantly surrounds us. And we can help through small actions such as writing to these companies, giving up some of these foods and by starting a dialogue to raise questions about accepted ideals.