The most insidious of this propaganda is that meat is essential to a healthy diet. Ms. Bindel does women and girls no justice by insinuating a causal relationship between giving up meat and developing eating disorders like anorexia. From her other writings, I know she is capable of a deeper analysis of the cultural foundations of eating disorders; trotting out this old canard is irresponsible and lazy.
She also assumes that, since a few vegans have abused their children through improper diet, there must be something fundamentally wrong with veganism. This argument is similar to the one used to justify racial profiling and detaining thousands of law-abiding muslim U.S. citizens after 9/11 (not to mention the WWII internment camps and the senseless death of Jean Charles de Menezes in London).
Another common stereotype Ms. Bindel buys into is the violent, misanthropic vegetarian. While not starving our children, we are bombing cancer research facilities and taking money away from battered women shelters to build facilities for stray kittens. Perhaps Ms. Bindel could cook the cats and sell them at local fast food establishments to raise money for her rape crisis center.
If that image is appalling, it's because it highlights the visceral reality of the practice of slaughtering animals. Ms. Bindel would have us believe that exposing this truth is actually just a way to indoctrinate children into the "cult" of vegetarianism:
In the US recently, children in a secondary school were taken by their teachers to a slaughterhouse to show them how animals are killed for food. This tactic is a form of mind control, as unethical as discouraging young girls from having sex by making them watch a difficult childbirth.
Ms. Bindel again attempts to draw from her own expertise to make some kind of point, but her analogy falls flat. Despite the odd juxtaposition of childbirth and wholesale slaughter of billions of living creatures, girls eventually figure out that birth control methods prevent pregnancy, and so the scare tactics might not be the best approach. But you cannot put a condom on a cow and get a free hamburger. The unadulterated truth is that you still have to brutally murder an animal for your pleasure.
According to Ms. Bindel's experience, most vegetarians are pompous and aloof. As she observed of the patrons and wait staff during a trip to a vegetarian restaurant:
They all looked smug and self-satisfied. It brought it home to me that most vegetarians - and I am largely excluding those who eschew meat for religious and cultural reasons - give themselves a bad name. They are better than you, don't you know?
She makes an exception for religious and "cultural" vegetarians (I'm still trying to figure out what a cultural vegetarian is), but even these people cannot escape her glaring eye:
Those who think we should not eat meat because all life is sacred are naive. Would they be happy allowing mosquitoes to spread malaria, or having rats run loose in their home? Not all creatures are equal. There are natural hierarchies in the food chain.
So as a vegetarian, you are either stuck up, or naive. Take your pick.
Her commentary reaches the comical during her exasperation over some undercooked baked potatoes. Instead of admitting that her friends can't cook, she sees the invisible hand of vegetarian political correctness at work.
While reading through her article, I kept getting a sense that Ms. Bindel is feeling a bit guilty about her choice to support the killing of animals, and is attempting to rationalize this guilt by criticizing those she sees as her adjudicators. I was surprised to see such naked honesty in her closing remarks:
I may hate vegetarians because they make me feel guilty, or because, meat being so delicious, they must have lots of willpower. But as an animal lover who agrees in principle with most reasons for giving up meat, I would rather not join that band of humourless, judgmental souls.
She hates herself for not being able to give up meat, and so instead turns that hate and criticism toward those who live the truth that she knows she cannot.
Judgemental indeed.
