Is “I feel like a piece of meat” popular phrase? Isn’t it embarrassing for women to use this phrase?

I found the phrase ‘I felt like a piece of meat’ (at a meeting),’ in the article of Washington Post (September 20) titled ‘In early Obama White House, female staffers felt frozen out.’ The article quotes the following episodes contained in the newly released book written by journalist, Ron Suskin:

"Christina Romer (former chairwoman of the Council of Economic Advisers) is quoted by Suskind saying, after being excluded by Summers at a meeting, “I felt like a piece of meat.”

On Friday, Romer offered a softer denial than Dunn, saying, “I can’t imagine that I ever said this.” “I was told before I went to Washington that there has always been a lot of testosterone in the West Wing,” Romer said Friday

I understand “a piece of meat” implies here “almost nonexistent, like petty object.” But as I searched for the exact definition of “a piece of meat” in Google, I came across the different meaning of usage in AspireNow Blog;

“This is not to be confused with being treated like a piece of property, not to be confused with being treated with ... Consistent committed positive action is a definition of love. ... Again, that makes her feel like a sex object or piece of meat -What do women want?”

I’m curious to know how popular the phrase, “I feel like a piece of meat” is. Isn’t it liable to be misunderstood, particularly when a woman uses, or even politically incorrect to use before a woman?

Oishi-san: This is a fairly standard expression used to indicate that someone feels useful only for physical characteristics: what the body can supply to other people. Hence the "meat".

Women are more likely to use this expression than men, I believe. At least I more often hear it from women, who complain that society leads them to being treated like a piece of meat. Men who say it are usually pulling "the old switcheroo," playing against gender stereotype, and therefore it is often said sarcastically for humorous effect by men.

I would assume that it originates from the 1970s description (which may predate that, of course) of e.g. nightclubs as "cattle markets" where the women danced and the man stood around the perimeter deciding which they would choose.

The phrase also crops up in "The Thoughts of Jefferson Galt" at www.jeffersongalt.com where he says

"I'd rather view a woman as a work of art, Than as a piece of meat"

The expression "felt [or feel or be treated] like a piece of meat" is fairly common today in the approximate sense of "felt dehumanized and objectified, particularly as an object of sexual interest" (my definition).

I was somewhat surprised to discover that the expression is not terribly old. I had expected to find that it had emerged in print from tough-guy noir fiction of the 1930s and 1940s. But the earliest relevant matches for "like a piece of meat" that an Elephind search returns are from the 1970s. From Lynne Margolis, "Dorm Life Evolves into Zoo Story," in the [University Park, Pennsylvania] Daily Collegian (September 16, 1976):

Let's face it, the average dorm resident is not 21, and therefore cannot get into bars to find any action. One has the alternative of walking ll the way to a frat house and hoping to get in (for less than the promise of his first-born son). Then, depending on sex, one is treated like a nobody in a room full of strangers, or like a piece of meat.

From Stacy Smith, "TV Q and A," in the San Bernardino [California] Sun (May 29, 1978):

Q. Anson William once commented on a TV talk show he hates going to Hollywood parties. Why? — F.B., Pensacola, Fla.

A: "It's mostly the parties set up by studios and public relations people that I hate going to," Anson clarifies. "I feel like a piece of meat in those situations. I feel cheapened and I feel mad because I'm thought of as a commodity. Maybe it's the truth, but I don't want to be reminded of it."

And from Kurt Cobb, "Harris Condemns Power Draft Gives Gov't," in the Stanford [California] Daily (March 9, 1979):

He [David Harris] also said that plans which call for the option of service outside of the military cannot be classified as "service" at all. "Service is an act done by willing people of their own free will. ... Coercion has nothing to do with service," he said. "You're going to be a piece of meat to them and they're going to treat you like a piece of meat."

An interesting (but not entirely on-point) example of the simile applied to a person's experience appears in "Eichmann Examination No Over," in the Canberra [Australia] Times (July 21, 1961):

JERUSALEM, Thursday (A.A.P.).—The Israeli Attorney General, Mr. Hausner, ended his cross-examination of Adolf Eichmann after a 10-day battle of question and answer.

The cross-examination lasted 50 hours.

It provoked angry outbursts both from Eichmann, who said at one stage he was being grilled like a piece of meat, and from the prosecutor himself.

Eichmann's assertion. of course, was expressed in German and presumably involves no awareness of the sense of "like a piece of meat"—or of the double meaning of "grilling"—in idiomatic English.

Another widely reported instance of the expression appeared in remarks by Rodney King, in "Rodney King Gets Award of $3.8 Million," in the Los Angeles [California] Times (April 20, 1994):

During the trial, King had graphically described the pain and humiliation he felt on the night he was beaten by Los Angeles police officers in the San Fernando Valley, telling jurors: "I felt like I had been raped. ... I felt like a cow that was waiting to be slaughtered, just like a piece of meat.

Here the first image is of sexual violence and then of an animal being readied for slaughter.

The central emotion expressed in these examples is not shame but anger, repulsion, or revulsion—and recognizing the key elements of the reaction, I think, is crucial to correctly understanding the sense of the expression itself. A person who feels treated like a piece of meat may feel a degree of shame at having been subjected to dehumanizing treatment—paradoxical though that feeling may be—but the person is likely to have an even stronger emotional reaction of anger and disgust at the aggressors' predatory and disrespectful behavior, along with a lucid sense that the treatment to which the person was subjected was unjust. This at any rate is the complex of feelings that I think many people in the United States would associate with the expression "I feel like a piece of meat."