Sexist Stereotypes Related to Food Preferences

In the article “I Don’t Want to be Sexist but. . . ” the authors explore sexisim in food. The main goal of the research is figuring out whether specific foods are correlated to a single gender, and figuring out the reason behind this phenomenon.

After reading this article I have to say I disagree with the interpretations of the results and the approach used to answer the main question of the article. Claiming that the food choices of males and females are predetermined because of social inequity; to me, seems like a futile attempt to interpret the trials’ results. Although it is true that there are some cases where a food only appeals to one gender, the choice whether to consume the food will always exist and no gender is socially forced to eat certain foods.

The authors start by thoroughly explaining the details of the experiment; families with different ethnicities and incomes from the province of British Columbia were interviewed and shown pictures of foods that are consumed more by one gender than the other. The interviewees were then asked to place these pictures in piles, each pile corresponding to a gender or an age group. It was quickly noticed by the authors that there was a discrepancy between the subjects’ answers and their personal food choices. “Despite participants’ denials, in the interviews gendered food practices were evident in two major ways: first, participants clearly identified many foods as masculine or feminine; and second, participants did generally report eating in typically gendered ways. ”

In the fourth paragraph, the authors list the reasons that were given by the participants for why they chose specific foods for each gender. The majority of the group sorted out the pictures in the following way: foods that were meaty and had high calorie content was for men, meanwhile, foods that had prettier appearance and was on the healthier side belonged to women. When individuals were asked for the justification for their choices they had two main arguments. First, females care about their weight and appearance much more than males do. The second point being that males consume simpler foods while females eat more delicate and complicated meals. For example, to quote one of the female participants about the first argument, “It’s related to weight big time with women. They care. Men don’t care if they get a big potbelly. ” Although almost all of the participants ate in a pattern related to their gender, most individuals claimed that the only reason for their eating habits is personal choice.

The authors claimed that participants though by denying the concept of gendered foodways. Although this study demonstrated that to a certain extent foods are consumed more by one gender, it did not; in my opinion, prove that these eating patterns are a social issue that is problematic and needs to be fixed.