A Scholar's Point of View

In the article The Toxic Body Politic Cheryl J Fish talks about all of the intersections that occur between gender, gender roles, race, and modern culture. Also, she emphasis the importance that desire has on what individuals are consuming.  Fish suggest that there is a need for environment justice when this hormone, DES, causes illnesses in people. Fish spends a great deal of time talking about the dangerous use of the hormone DES and its affect it had on the characters and other individuals beyond the story My Year of Meats. According to Fish, not only is the harmful affects of DES a motivator for Ozeki’s novel characters, but a few others. Fish explains that My Year of Meats shines light into the gendered ethnic American and how media productions try and promote a transnational identity. ­ Also, the role that Jane playing in the book is discussed. The article addresses her multicultural background and the androgynous identity that she possess.

Fish’s analysis of MY Year of Meats was too one sided on the role DES played in the mix and the idea of this eco-justice or environmental role. Yes, I do think it is terrible to be injecting a toxic hormone into cattle, but I never saw it as the heart of the story. I felt that Akiko and her relationship with her husband was far more important, and far more interesting.  I think Fish too much time analyzing DES and then not enough time talking about the real story that was happening. The main idea of this article was the Fish’s idea of a Feminist Eco-Justice.

I also found the quotation within the article talking about  95% of all feed lot cattle in the U.S. still receive some form of growth hormone, unenlightening. There is nothing more irritating than a statistic placed in skewed place in the paragraph. Although the statistic is probably correct that 95% of the cattle are receiving some type of growth hormone, there technically is no problem, but the article basically implied there was one. I often give the example of the statement that appears on the outside of a hormone free milk jug, “Our Farmer Pledge Not To Use Article Growth Hormones.” The statement is a pledge because there is no way to scientifically tell the difference in milk between cows injected with today’s hormones and a cow that is not. There have been hundreds of test and yet, they cannot see the difference. Do you know what the biggest kicker is? The fact that there is bovine growth hormone in the milk, except it occurs naturally regardless of whether or not the cow is being injected. The reason there is no crazy outbreak of giant children is because human beings don’t respond to bovine growth hormone, because its made for a calf to grow, not a human. Who would of thought?

 Beyond the miss used quote, it seemed as though Fish was more interested in using big words than explaining herself or making what she has stated more clearly. I felt a lot of words were repeated and was struggling to follow long sentences with randomly long words strewed throughout. The article talks about tons of ideas for gender roles, cultural roles, environment activism, feminist eco-justice. All these ideas and concept are tossed around with little background for the average reader or any reader to grasp. The more I read the article the more I wondered if the writer actually knew what they were talking about.