Tropes of 'effeminized' masculinity have long been bound up with a plant-based diet, dating back to the 'effeminate rice eater' stereotype used to justify 19th-century colonialism in Asia to the altright's use of the term 'soy boy' on Twitter and other social media today to call out men they perceive to be weak, effeminate, and politically correct (Gambert and Linné). This article explores tropes of 'plant food masculinity' throughout history, focusing on how while they have embodied different social, cultural, and political identities, they all serve as a tool to construct an archetypal masculine ideal. The analysis draws on a wide range of material from the 19th and 20th centuries, as well as a qualitative media analysis of #SoyBoy tweets posted between October 2010 and August 2018. It argues that, given that we live in a world steeped in 'coloniality' (Grosfoguel), it is no wonder that sexist and racist colonial-era tropes are alive and well today, packaged in a 21st-century digital culture form. In the digital politics of the alt-right, dairy milk has become a symbol for racial purity, connecting pseudo-scientific claims about milk, lactose tolerance, race, and masculinity. The term 'soy boy' provides a discursive counterpoint, relying heavily on colonial-era stereotypes of so-called 'effeminate' plant eating, often linked to Asian and other non-white cultures. The article concludes by arguing that for those working to reframe centuries-old norms and tropes related to race, sex, and humankind's relationship to other animals, part of that work may take place online using the tools of social media and reappropriation of derogatory language. However, ultimately the power of social media to change norms and minds depends on the power of the social movements driving those changes; success is likely to only come through a robust anti-racist, colorconscious, and gender-conscious vegan movement (Harper)
Iselin Gambert is a professor of legal writing at The George Washington University Law School, where she teaches courses in legal communication and rhetoric. Iselin's current research is in the field of critical animal studies at the intersection of law, rhetoric, culture, and politics. She was part of the US Feminist Judgments Project, for which she wrote a commentary in Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Opinions of the United States Supreme Court (Cambridge University Press, 2016). Her article Got Mylk? The Disruptive Possibilities of Plant Milk (coauthored with Tobias Linné) will be published in 2019 by the Brooklyn Law Review.Quote: "The separation of mother and child that is built into the very fabric of the dairy industry is disturbingly absent in virtually all representations of milk as a product fit for human consumption." ***The weeks I spent reading Making Milk: The Past, Present and Future of Our Primary Food were surreal to say the least; many of the themes of this academic text were brought to life in popular culture and on the global political stage in a decidedly dystopian way.
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