Gender and Food Culture in the United States



Gender and Food Culture in the United States

How gender roles are defined and interpreted through food preparation and consumption

Some Gender Assumptions

Stereotype of men being so helpless in kitchen they have to call a woman to help them

Cooking – household task most commonly associated with women, considered to be “feminine” except for grilling

Cooking Roles

Men cook for many reasons: professionalism, social, necessity but women still in charge of majority of food preparation and cooking in the United States

Mothers in families still pass on the culinary traditions especially to female children

Questions

• Why do so many modern Americans still perceive cooking as women’s responsibility?

• Why do numerous men feel uncomfortable and unfamiliar with cooking responsibilities?

• Why is it that men are mentioned so little in cooking literature and cookbooks?

• Various social scientists have tried to analyze why men continue to be distanced from domestic cooking in the media and in real life and what the ramifications are for men and women and how gender is constituted in the United States

Male Cooking Mystique Exists in the United States

Some assumptions about the relationship of men to cooking:

If men cook they must make sure their masculinity is not diminished

Men’s and women’s tastes in food are antithetical – men’s being more meat and potato based and women’s being frippery

Women’s vs. Men’s Tastes

Women aspired to thinness and tried to restrain eating while men were expected to be hearty eaters who liked no-frills preparation

Men ate: “rib-sticking” food, particularly beef, plain in large portions, normally accompanied by potatoes, rarely ate vegetables and were partial to pastries and pies

Women ate: “dainty” foods; especially at women’s luncheons where men were not present; portions were small and food was to appear light, to have lusty tastes in food could betray weakness for other pleasures of the flesh as well, food expected to have “frills”

Women’s Meals vs. Men’s Meals

Women’s Luncheon: sherry and biscuits, dainty hor d’oeuvres, squabs jardinière (with vegetables), surrounded by a garland of vegetables and candied rose leaves and violets, salad mimosa (lettuce hearts with nasturtium flowers), fresh figs, green almonds, orange flower tea

Men’s Luncheon: cold beet soup, beef and kidney pie, Stout, brown bread & fresh butter, new potatoes, peas, tomato salad with cheese dressing, raspberries and cream

In shared family meals, male preferences predominated

Division of Labor

Women still tend to perform most tasks in shops and in domestic kitchens while men hold more prestigious roles in professional kitchens, interestingly in 1931 women cooked American food in successful restaurants, while men cooked unusual food in unsuccessful restaurants

A notion existed in the 1950’s that food preparation was central in women’s role in binding family ties and competent cooking was central to women’s role

In this notion, men were expected to carve large joints at special meals and to dry dishes

Inside and Outside the Home

Inside the home, women were supposed to dominate food preparation

Food writers for women’s magazines assumed female pseudonyms

Outside the home, the finest professional chefs were men as well as food scientists

Women were working, convenience foods were developed for them but working women invisible in food advertising, ignored by recipe writers for media, regarded as negligible market for cookbooks

Gender and the Counterculture

In spite of vaunted cultural changes in the counterculture in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, women were still doing most of the food preparation even in Zen communes and this alienated the emerging women’s movement and marginalized the counterculture

Food and Women in the Workplace

By the 1980’s, the two income family had become common and men were expected to contribute to housework and the old idea that home cooking was an exclusively female job was passé, the gender divide between barbeque and kitchen was disappearing

As cooking in the home became acceptable for males, the role of cook increased in status and was reflected in the media and coincided with the decline in the “male-pleasing” dish, foods became more “uni-sex”

Gender and Dieting

From the 1930’s to the 1960’s, controlling food intake was mostly practiced by women, after this time, men also watched their weight and diets as being prudent

By 1986, many of the Americans using low calorie foods were male

Women still have stricter adherence to diets and food control because of societal pressures to maintain youthful looks

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