The relationship between humans and nonhuman animals has changed dramatically over time. As early as the third and fourth centuries, BC leaders taught that “compassion should permeate relations not only between humans but also between all sentient beings” and issued edicts “against the unnecessary killing and mutilation of animals” (Park and Singer n.pag), versus the United States’ now current trend of “sear[ing] off portions of the [chickens’] beaks, often with a hot blade and rarely, if ever, with anesthesia [...] a procedure [labeled] as a ‘stop-gap measure masking basic inadequacies in environment or management’” (n.pag). Such a difference in relations between species on this planet begs many questions, but perhaps the most prevalent being: how? and why? In order for humans to reach the point that we have, regarding our current relationship to our nonhuman counterparts, a myriad small yet significant social, economic, and political occurrences and decisions had to happen in able for humans to achieve the state of general indifference we have towards nonhuman animals now. The greatest, perhaps, is the cultural practice of heavy meat eating, of meat-centric diets, and the sheer amount of animal flesh necessary to sate our desires. Western culture in general revels in the experience of eating the flesh of animals: the taste, the smell, and the sheer enjoyment of consuming it seems to be an almost-spiritual encounter. And the United States is certainly no exception: here, eating meat is somewhat of a spectacle. We have advertisements dedicated to conjuring the magic of meat so that we salivate upon seeing a burger like Pavlov’s dogs. Meat of any kind is seen as the crown jewel of every and any meal, and its absence becomes conspicuous if it is missing. And if it is missing meat eaters become almost comically disappointed in the lack, as if a great disservice has been done to them by disallowing them to consume flesh. This gluttonous, meat-happy phenomenon is something I call meat culture. Meat culture, I argue, is problematic for a few reasons but here I will focus on the speciesist and sexist implications of it, and specifically how we are inculcated into these harmful ideas from the time we are children.

            Since the advent of the television and its introduction into virtually every American household and this type of text, along with film, has become a huge part of our everyday lives. This holds true for children as well who have their own genre (and multiple subgenres thereof) of television and movies all to themselves. This is even true for babies and toddlers, whose first texts aim to teach sounds and simple words and often utilize animals to do so. In so many of these child-oriented texts, the main characters are anthropomorphized animals, or animals with explicitly human characteristics. We develop attachments to these characters, relating to them on an intimate level, and they become highly important in our young lives. Our development occurs around and because of the relationships we have in our lives, and this includes relationships to fictional characters for many children because, to children, they are more than characters, they are their first friends, their most trusted confidants. We use these anthropomorphic animals to teach them social graces, how to relate to others, and how to interact with other humans (Karniol 348). As adults, we supply children with stuffed animals and toys which support and facilitate these relationships so that they can have a real tangible representation of their friends to play with. We nurture their loving relationships with these animals and others, and then call the children to dinner where they will eat chicken, pork, beef, turkey, lamb, fish, or other meats with their veggies and tell them to clean their plates.