NEWSLETTER

‘Food is good … I’m bound to eat & eat.’ ~ Sylvia Plath 

When I was younger, my voracious appetite and love for food led to me being branded as someone who ‘eats like a boy.’ I was supposed to eat in a manner that made me look more ‘light’ and ‘dainty’. As I grew older, I began to compare my eating habits to those of other young girls, which caused me to feel ashamed and guilty. This resulted in a complex relationship with food which inevitably contributed to how I perceived myself. 

Patriarchy and sexism taint everything- from your gender at birth to your attire, profession, friendships, and romantic relationships. They leave no opportunity unexplored to turn your identity into a pawn on the chessboard of society. Is there sexism in a woman’s appetite for food, though? Unsurprisingly sexism and patriarchy also permeate your food platters and dining tables. 

As a 90s kid, I have watched or seen my family members watching a lot of serials. All these serials reproduced a standard trope where the woman always served the rest of the family, and hardly ever left enough food for herself. Be it the best piece of the fish or the leg piece from the chicken curry, it was never the women of the house who got the best share of the very dishes they prepared.

A subtle yet very profound example of this is a scene in the recently released Bollywood movie, “Laapata Ladies” (loosely translated as Lost Ladies), where a woman is seen describing her favourite dish as a lotus stem preparation which she had learned from her mother. As she fries dried grains sitting over a hot stove, she resignedly announces, “Deepak and his father never touch it. So I stopped making it.”. With a sad gleam in her eyes, she laughs and describes how a woman never cooks for herself but for her family’s happiness. This isn’t just limited to the kitchens in the movies or serials. It is very much a real-life representation of how patriarchy starves women and kills their hunger for food, freedom, and rights. 

But let’s backtrack a little in the food ecosystem to understand that contrary to popular belief, patriarchal dominance in food doesn’t start in the kitchen but rather much before that. Food production and farming are the first steps in the food chain, and women are crucial in the development of agricultural practices and the knowledge they impart. Nevertheless, to give men the upper hand in the culinary world, women’s pivotal contributions have been ignored. Despite their agricultural contributions, women encounter obstacles when it comes to land ownership, energy and water access, and food production. Women make up only 10% to 20% of landholders in many developing nations. Even though they might be better at managing farms or making decisions, farming is still seen as a man’s domain. For instance, in India, only 12.9% of Indian women hold agricultural land. This again brings me to another aspect of the movie where “Jaya,” a young girl who has an immense love for farming and a hunger for knowledge about it, is forced into marriage by her parents. The heartbreaking irony of this forced marriage lies in how Jaya’s parents sell their farmlands to gather money for her dowry. Even in mainstream marketing, gender prejudices exist. While mothers are stereotypically represented as feminine figures whose primary love language is feeding their children, the mothers themselves as women almost always sacrifice their desires to eat something they like for others in the family. For instance, in the movie, “The Great Indian Kitchen,” it is shown that the mother-in-law spends endless hours in the kitchen cooking extravagant meals for the family. She works so hard to prepare the food, yet she hardly gets to eat it herself. Rather, she is preoccupied with her husband’s and her family’s wants and needs all the time. There is a recurring scene in the movie where the women in the family, including the mother-in-law, have a habit of waiting to eat until the men have completed their dinner. 

When meals are promoted to consumers, they are categorized as either masculine or feminine. Gender stereotypes are exacerbated by the way food companies market food to men and women While yogurt, cupcakes, and other light, less messy foods are “feminine”, beef, burgers, and other hefty foods are “masculine”. These stereotypes stem from the notion that women are not attractive when they consume messy food, eat with their hands, eat large portions, crunch loudly, etc., or when they follow strict diet regimens. Because food conglomerates frequently designate their products as gender-specific, sexism in food choices has evolved into marketing methods. 

Nestlé used slogans like “not for girls” and “King size, not queen size” to market Yorkie bars. It even turned into the world’s first sexist chocolate bar. Pepsico came under fire for producing “feminine” potato chips, which eliminated the need for loud crunching noises or licking of the wrappers—habits considered “unladylike”. 

Advertisers continue to portray gender in old ways, despite advances in gender equality and changing social norms. Gender-based ads in the food business reinforce stereotypes in how we perceive our appetite for food. Exposing women to “diet” commercials can increase their desire for a similar role in their own lives. Gender stereotypes can strongly influence people’s thinking. While women are told to present themselves a certain way in advertisements or while eating, society forgets to recognise women’s body image issues arising from their complex relationships with food. It’s important to recognise the impact of food marketing on customer behaviour and avoid being misled by gendered commercials. 

The intertwining of sexism and patriarchy within the realm of food culture and consumption is a complex yet pervasive issue that demands attention and action. Women confront various obstacles that impact their relationship with food, their autonomy, and their rights, from subtly portrayed characters in films and television shows to systemic disparities in the manufacturing and marketing of food. The narrative that undermines women’s agency and upholds detrimental standards is influenced by the portrayal of women as selfless carers who deny them the opportunity to express their culinary tastes, the unequal distribution of food resources, and the persistence of gender stereotypes in food advertising. 

There is a vital need for inclusive policies, diverse representations, and meaningful discussions that challenge and remove patriarchal norms and biases to truly address these issues and achieve gender equality in the food ecosystem. Only then will we be able to work towards a more equal, welcoming, and powerful food culture that honours and embraces every person’s varied tastes and preferences, regardless of gender. 

References 

Johnson, Lynn, and Maryellen Kennedy Duckett. “The barriers women face in agriculture.” National Geographic,

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/partner-content-empowering-female-far mers. Accessed 14 April 2024. 

Ling, Sophia. “Dismantle the food patriarchy and bring back food as a feminist revolution | Sophia’s Smorgasbord.” The Emory Wheel, 30 March 2022, 

https://emorywheel.com/dismantle-the-food-patriarchy-and-bring-back-food-as-a-feminist-rev olution-sophias-smorgasbord/. Accessed 12 April 2024. 

Rolfsson, Jeanette. “Breaking the Bell Jar.” Lund University Publications, 

https://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9074238/file/9074252.pdf. Accessed 14 April 2024. 

Sohrabi, Ariane. “People are rewatching the Yorkie ‘not for girls’ advert in complete dismay.” The Mirror, 5 September 2023, 

https://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/people-re-watching-yorkie-2002-30864574. Accessed 14 April 2024. 

“Women and hunger: How gender inequality is fueling the food crisis.” Concern Worldwide, 4 November 2022, https://concernusa.org/news/women-and-hunger/. Accessed 14 April 2024.