Besides settler colonialism, there is something else going on with “meat and masculinity”: Hunting for meat was the favorite sport of the (male) aristocracy in most of Europe for centuries. The aristocratic desire to be seen as capable hunters had a unique influence on the development of masculinity, particularly in the 19th century when European aristocrats began to lose power to the rising bourgeois who - in turn - emulated the aristocratic lifestyle and adopted many of its habits.