-
Essay / The gender of food, a feminist approach to food
Food. It is one of the most controversial and discussed topics of our generation, whether it is access to food, food security or food prices, the subject of diet is a subject that is widely highlighted. Recently, a new trend has emerged in society around food which, in most cases, has gone unnoticed; food type. In our current society, an increase in gender stereotypes has appeared in magazines, cookbooks, and other forms of active media that promote and indicate that there is a difference between male and female appetites. This difference indicates the extent to which an individual can fully exercise their gender based on their consumption of foods that have been labeled and reported as primarily consumed by men or women. Today, many of the foods we see in supermarkets or in advertisements are commercialized. towards a particular gender which, depending on the sex of the individual, has the capacity to diminish or strengthen the masculinity or femininity associated with it. It is more common in today's society for the gender of foods to consist of beef, hot dogs, and potatoes as masculine foods, while feminine foods tend to include salads, yogurt, fruits, and pasta. The content of this article will examine three areas: food gender and consumption patterns towards men, food gender and consumption patterns towards women, and an analysis of why we associate with these gendered eating patterns and what that happens when we rebel against food. Food has become an integral part of our identity and is one of the main ways in which men and women display their gender, what types of foods are eaten and under what circumstances they do so. What produces this outcome are the institutions and social structures that project meaning and power onto an individual's identity as it is negotiated or constructed (Nash & Phillipove, 2014, p. 205). Calvert describes a concept that eating meat necessitates the notion of power and domination, as over the centuries the notion of "man the hunter" began to develop through the correlation between men and meat ( Calvert, 2014, p. As a result, meat consumption contributes to the development of a “patriarchal structure of male-male supremacy, celebrating primitive masculinity and the normalization of meat consumption as a masculine activity (Calvert, 2014, p. 19). As a result, when men consume less meat products, they often face the misconception from their male counterparts that they hold a form of masculinity that is far from one that exhibits “appropriate” hegemonic characteristics. This kind of food serves an important process in depicting the presence of hegemonic masculinity, as food consumption practices allow men to confirm and adhere to the