Thinking ecology and feminism together: The ecofeminism of Carol J. Adams

In this study, we tried to present that the oppression of nature and the oppression of women are connected with each other on the basis of patriarchy and how the oppression of women and animals and the foundations of this oppression are shaped by the culture built by gender politics. Our study, which examines the patriarchal structure with a critical view, reveals how the dietary habits of women and men have been differentiated by culture from past to present, the relations between eating corpses and patriarchal worldview, also the intersection points between feminism and vegetarianism. It explains how these intersections are shaped around new Adamsian conceptualizations such as the 'absent referent', 'the sexual politics of meat', 'meat is king', and 'feminized protein'. In this context, the central issue of our study; questioning the cultural structure in which men/masculinity are identified with eating meat, they need meat and the power that meat brings, and women are identified with plants because they do not need power. At the same time, attention is drawn to how female animals and women are transformed into an absent referent in patriarchal culture and thus included in sexual policies. It is claimed that women's liberation cannot be possible without solving animal problems. It revealed that the questioning of the place and necessity of the animal body in the diets is the basis for reaching some important results in gender inequality and how the absent referents emerge in linguistic practices. According to Adams, patriarchal ideology is responsible for not only the objectification and exploitation of women but also female animals. It is clear that sexism is precisely one of the consequences of the speciesist perspective. Therefore, in order to achieve gender equality, there is a need for new methods that take into account all living things, including animals, that is, nature. The modern ecofeminist discourse has the potential to respond to these methods, but it is insufficient to deal with the domination over animals, which is a serious dimension of the domination over nature, in a holistic framework. The feminist-vegetarian critical theory of Carol J. Adams presents the intersectionality of domination over women and animals, the effects of sexist social culture politics and reflects its critics.