Underneath an image of women in bandanas, victory curls, and immaculate floral aprons who are cradling white hens, the copy reads, “ Once a year, friends and family of Marion Acres gather up all the girls to do what we like to call our ‘Ladies’ Chicken Harvest.” It’s strikingly unclear if they’re referring to the chickens or the women.
What jumps out immediately is the strange entanglement between the chickens and the women who slaughter them. But it’s not only the fashion that evokes an antiquated style-the text of the article itself is rife with phrases that seem fitting for a “good time was had by all” ‘50s gossip rag, with its belittling quips like, “all the women go home appreciating where our food comes from.” Despite being thinly-veiled promotional material, there’s still a lot to unpack in the article’s enunciations, whether they were intended or not. For the event, women are invited to the farm to dress up in vintage “pin-up” style attire and make-up and then butcher chickens for a day. The photo spread, which by all appearances is little more than a native advertising spot, depicts an annual event at Marion Acres, an “artisan poultry” farm outside of Portland, Oregon. Turns out, I have a feminist analysis after all. I just think this is profoundly dumb.”ĭespite my initial reaction, the complex implications of that story (if you can call it that) have stuck with me and left me wondering what the piece might say about the societal fetishization of women and meat, agrarian labor, and rural culture. When my friend Lora asked me for my feminist analysis, I balked, “I have no real feminist analysis.
Then it started popping up all over my Facebook feed, and the images of twenty– and thirty-something women in bandanas and red lipstick leering at chickens stuffed into slaughtering cones was too difficult to ignore, so I clicked. When the Modern Farmer article “Painting the Farm Red: The Chicken-Slaughtering Pinup Girls of Marion Acres” appeared in my inbox, I took once glance, deemed it inconsequential, and deleted it.
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