Feminism Sheds Light On Food Studies

Katelyn Stoler

10/5/2006

Dr. Counihan: HNRS. FOOD & CULTURE

MIDTERM ESSAY

Feminism Sheds Light on Food Studies

Much can be learned from using the feminist perspective in anthropological and sociological research. At a first glance, the concept of a feminist study or outlook tends to come off as involving pro-female, anti-male sentiment. However, there is much more to feminism than male-bashing; along with post-modernism, feminist theoretical, philosophical and political movements have drastically changed the nature of sociological inquiry. Both schools of thought bring awareness to issues of positionality, particularly the self-reflexivity of the researcher. Feminism isn't just a focus on females and women's issues: it incorporates modernity in a comprehensive search for the causes of inequality. Feminist thinkers take a holistic viewpoint, and carefully consider all factors involved in any given social situation. In this essay, I will attempt to explain the significance of taking a feminist approach to cultural studies, and to provide examples of applied feminist theory and its specific insights in food studies.

Feminists see gender as socially constructed; through looking at the universal social roles played by men and women, feminists seek out the sources of inequality. Feminism also brings attention to the societal expectations of women as domestic providers, feeders and caregivers. In Around the Tuscan Table, author Carole Counihan writes that, "Production was associated with men and socially valued, while reproduction was viewed as women's natural duty, isolated in the home and taken for granted... Food is a useful lens because it is a central part of reproductive labor" (Counihan, 79). In this case, the author founded traditional Florentine cultural practice and belief (engrained in the structures and beliefs of Sicilian people) as the cause of inequalities between men and women in Florence.

Counihan also discusses how women's (and men's) social roles are reproduced and institutionalized over the years, through tradition, familial upbringing and cultural expectations (Counihan, 97). Food preparation and cooking practices are seen as essential to Italian family life, and can mean both oppression and power for the women who participate in these conventions. Counihan (taking a feminist perspective) believes that the "production-reproduction dichotomy means women's sexuality is more closely regulated than men's because women stand for family, hearth and home" (Counihan, 97).

Feminist perspectives also incorporate themes of modernity in their views and research. Modernity involves capitalism and the globalization of the world. Feminist theory acknowledges that every culture will have different norms and values that appeal in different ways to the various people they affect. In her essay "I Guarantee: Betty Crocker and the Woman in the Kitchen," Laura Shapiro looks at marketing and food products in the early 1950s, when consumerism and mass production were beginning to blossom in the United States. Shapiro discusses how the General Mills Company created the fictional character of Betty Crocker in an effort to appeal to modern-day homemakers (women) at that point in time.

In her description of Betty, Shapiro states that, "during the immediate postwar era she was a sure, steady voice guiding homemakers through a time of tension and change in the kitchen. Millions of Americans listened to her on the radio, read her column in the newspaper, and watched her on TV" (Shapiro, 31). To this day, Betty Crocker is mainly associated with her economical, easy to make cake; she appealed to the masses (of women) mainly because of her status as a food icon. Communicating through cookbooks, media/technology (television, newspapers and radios) and through numerous advice columns, she encouraged, appreciated and identified with the average "woman in the kitchen" (Shapiro, 32-33). Through a feminist lens, Shapiro notes that 50s advertisers used emerging concepts of busy women (then entering the workplace), who wanted to create tasty and economical (cheap, quick and easy to make) meals for their families. Although times were changing, females were still striving to fulfill their stereotypical prescribed societal roles as domestics/providers within the home.

Another example of the application of a feminist framework to modernity can be found in Amy Bently's article, "Feeding Baby, Teaching mother: Gerber and the Evolution of Infant Food and Feeding Practices in the United States." In the article, Bently looked at women's roles and the naturalization of commercially canned baby food, through advertising, mass production and changing views. The author talks about how medical and technological claims and findings of that time coincided with psychological and marketing schemes, in order to force changes in infant feeding practices. Bently infers that doctors and big business "played on parents, especially mothers' anxieties about the well-being of their infants." The did this by "presenting medical doctors as the ultimate experts and positing the uncontested assumption that commercially prepared foods are superior to those cooked at home, Gerber advertising in the late 1930s successfully imbued its products with qualities of exceptional purity and wholesomeness, convenience and modernity, and scientific efficiency" (Bently, 77).

Feminist perspectives are holistic: they look at problems critically, from all angles and viewpoints. I believe this tactic makes feminist arguments stronger, in that no angle is left unexamined and no voice is unheard. Holistic research