Slaughterhouses 187 ecofeminist scholarship (for example, Griffin 1978; Ruether 1975) that demonstrates the intersections between the oppression of women and of nature; intersections that challenge binary and dualistic thought that ‘allows for the continued conceptualization of hierarchies in which a theoretically privileged group or way of thinking is superior’ (Gruen in Gaard 1993, p 80) Slaughterhouse Violence as Gendered Drawing attention to the epistemologies that underpin current knowledge systems, ecofeminists have pointed out the co-occurrence of the subjection of women and animals Cudworth (2011, pp 163–169) underlines the fact that it is female animals who are mostly used in the AIC (although this should not be read as meaning male animals are not harmed by the AIC; bobby calves and male chicks are routinely slaughtered shortly after birth as they are an unwanted ‘by-product’ in an industry that relies on female reproductive capacity): agricultural animals are gendered in two ways First, farmed animals tend to be female—being the most useful profit maximizers as they produce feminized protein (eggs and dairy products) and reproduce young, as well as becoming meat themselves Second, farmed animals are constructed in ways resembling human gender dichotomies Breed journals, for instance, indicate that genetics are manipulated to produce attractive, docile ‘good mothers’, and ‘virile’, strong, ‘promiscuous’ males Cudworth notes the circularity that pervades the AIC, pointing out that factory farming and slaughter are ‘patriarchally closed’ systems complete with gender segregated work and the masculinisation of work cultures (p 166) Focusing on the British meat industry, Cudworth explains that the AIC sits at ‘the intersection of capitalist and patriarchal relations [where] the object of domination in the manufacture of meat is patriarchally constituted’ (p 170; see further Cudworth’s chapter in this volume) It is worth reflecting on the notion that patriarchy not only underlies ongoing gender relations but it sits behind the manufacture of meat Many will balk at these ideas, either because they refuse to consider the slaughter of animals as violence, and/or they refute the relevance of patriarchy as an analysis of contemporary gender relations Well educated, progressive intellectuals might even mock protest messages such as ‘meat is murder’ or otherwise poke fun at people concerned about the widespread, socially