Sociologist: Vegan Diets Promote 'White Masculinity'

Sociology has jumped the shark. Perhaps there’s only so many ways to study how humans interact before we pretty much get the gist. Maybe sociologists are just under lots of pressure to keep coming up with theories, and some of those are bound to be bonkers.

“A sociology instructor at North Carolina State University (NCSU) is warning in a new academic article that vegan men are guilty of perpetuating ‘white masculinity,'” writes Toni Airaksinen at Campus Reform.

She adds: “Though some scholars claim that eating meat causes ‘toxic masculinity,’ [Mari] Mycek came to a different conclusion based on interviews with 20 vegan men, asserting that they actually tend to ‘uphold gendered binaries of emotion/rationality and current ideas of middle-class, white masculinity.'”

Well now.

First, a sample size of 20 vegans with enough time on their hands to participate in a study isn’t enough to tell you a damn thing. That’s not science. I bet you could parse their answers to conclude just about anything you wanted to conclude.

Second, she didn’t interview non-vegan men for a baseline, or any women at all. How can a “scientist” possibly believe this is useful data? This is basic stuff here — why am I telling a supposedly trained sociologist about this? Most people, no matter what they eat, reject the idea that there are more genders than flavors of ice cream at Baskin Robbins.

But let’s say that her observation is valid. Vegans are not exactly known for holding conservative political positions as a general rule. That tends to be a diet more attractive to the Left. So if these vegans are taking positions that signal traditional views of masculinity and gender, then perhaps the more radical components of the Left — like this sociologist — are far more of a minority on sexual characteristics than they realize.

Luckily for them, there’s no point in thinking about this further. This study is too ineptly conducted to have any meaning. Another 20-person study asking the same questions could reach an opposite conclusion. Let’s just hope there were no taxpayer dollars spent on this crap.