Amaya Lewis-Patel writes on how plant-based eating reflects broader anxieties about gender roles and the right-wing resistance to social progress.

The first TikTok I see today is a female college student’s hot take: ‘men’s views on tofu directly reflect their views on women.’ The male interviewer scoffs, confirming her point. 

In the seven years that I’ve been pescetarian, the vast majority of the negative comments I have received about my decision are from straight men. Oat milk lattes seem to occupy the same realm as astrology, balayage and Taylor Swift: vapid girly interests. I hear groups of rugby boys on a night out talking about the bodies of girls they know, slicing into their breasts and thighs and bellies in the same breath as they order a mixed meat kebab. Consumption is the prerogative of men, whether it’s an animal or a woman.

You don’t have to read Freud to recognise the meat-as-phallus connection. To dig into a rare steak is to have your masculine (read: heteronormative, white supremacist) authority confirmed. Castration anxiety is momentarily relieved, even if the steak was bred in a barn and purchased in M&S.

But let us return to tofu, that locus of masculine fear and loathing. The term ‘soyboy’ emerged in incel communities circa 2017, to describe a man as effeminate or weak. It stems from the belief that eating soy products makes you less manly due to their estrogen content. If you eat tofu, you might become gay – or worse, a woman! These are the same communities that scorn ‘wokeness’, call women ‘females’ and have pseudo-eugenicist advice on ‘looksmaxxing’. The humble soy bean is attacked by an alt-right hydra of misogyny, transphobia, toxic masculinity and homophobia.

And the fun doesn’t stop there. In their essay on fascism and the ‘soyboy’, Ruth Clemens and Becket Flannery note that ‘stereotypes of perceived Asian weakness and effeminacy’ are also at play. Ironically, a soy-heavy diet has placed Japan 4^th in the world for life expectancy. The UK and US are a measly 46^th and 62^nd – though they have the 35^th and 4^th highest meat consumption per capita, compared to Japan’s 83^rd. Heart disease, diabetes and gout are the price that must be paid to affirm Western man’s virility and cultural hegemony. Oh, and the destruction of the planet. It would be a poignant irony if it weren’t so terrifying.

This is nothing new to you dear reader, I am sure. Following a 2008 study into soy consumption and male infertility, the Guardian published a brilliant article about the taboo around male vegetarians. It could have been written yesterday, describing how vegetarianism is ‘lumped in with other baffling lady pursuits such as feminism, menstruation and ‘getting’ Sarah Jessica Parker’ (this is even more apt given the recent resurgence of SATC).

Yet it was only in 2018 that Greta Thunberg led Fridays For Future and we were soon ordering avocado toast and acai bowls for the table, drinking almond milk and buying Deliciously Ella cookbooks. Republican politician Ronny Jackson tweeted, “I will NEVER eat one of those FAKE plant-based vegan burgers made in a LAB. Eat too many and you’ll turn into a SOCIALIST DEMOCRAT. Real BEEF for me!” 

Halfway through a Democrat term, these seemed like the mad ravings of a Trump administration that we were all too ready to forget.

It’s not so funny anymore. In 2024, plant-based food sales fell by 4.5%. Restaurant chains like Wagamama began significantly reducing their plant-based offerings. The ‘anti animal testing’ movement in skincare was replaced by people smearing beef fat onto their faces. Legal battles over the names of plant-based meat alternatives tried to protect society from the terrible danger of not buying meat. 

Why have we regressed to the cultural climate of twenty years ago, despite the rising temperature of the actual climate?

The ‘Guardian reading tofu-eating wokerati’ seem to be taking most of the shots on the battlefield of race, gender, sexuality, climate change and capitalism. And I don’t think it’s a stretch to connect this to the rise in right-wing traditionalism and nationalism. Along with their commitment to ‘uphold British traditions, ban DEI quotas, and reject the politics of guilt’, Reform UK vow to renege the UK’s Net Zero Strategy to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050. This is echoed in the US, with President Trump’s promise to ‘bring back American values’. He will ‘establish male and female as biological reality’ and ‘end the onslaught of useless and overpaid DEI activists’, while ‘ending Biden’s policies of climate extremism’. 

There isn’t room at the Great White Dinner Table for women, immigrants, ethnic minorities or the LGBTQ+ community, and there certainly isn’t any room for crispy tofu and bean burgers. Making America Great Again and Reform-ing the nation means turning a blind eye to minorities and the climate alike. 

It might be easier said than done, but freeing ourselves means freeing the planet. As the ecofeminist Karen Warren writes, intersectional feminism must oppose the logic of domination in all forms: whether sexism, racism, heterosexism, gender essentialism, or naturism.

No wonder the patriarchy constructs veganism as an effeminate and useless lifestyle choice that ‘real men’ should reject. In reiterating this perspective, oppression of various kinds is reinforced. Who knew that tofu could be so political? We will know that our work is done when the rugby team order falafel wraps at the kebab shop without batting an eyelid.

So, as we unite against increasing incursions on human rights, we must also unite to defend the ground which supports us. When we branch together we are stronger.

Vive la revo-tofu-lution.