Are You Attractive Like a Caprese Salad or Manly Like a Hamburger?
Gender stereotypes affect our food choices
Let’s try to imagine a woman. An attractive, calm, sensitive, kind woman. It is a bit creepy, to be honest: it sounds like all these qualities are both interdependent and part of an indivisible package. Like you cannot pick one of them without having to deal with this whole spectrum of coherent feminine features.
Let’s try to imagine a man. An attractive, calm, sensitive, kind man. It sounds a bit weird, does it not? It requires a much bigger effort, feels contradictory, generates the necessity to fix something. Having to think of a male human being embodying the characteristics we usually assign to women is a conflict that gives birth to an uncomfortable internal clash.
Let’s try to imagine an attractive, calm, sensitive, kind woman having a business lunch. What might she be eating? A rare steak? A hamburger? Or maybe a fish fillet, a tartàre, a mixed salad? Is her serving overflowing or just consists of a gourmet tasting? At the end of the meal, will she supposedly be full or, rather, probably keen to declare to be still hungry? Reflecting on that, the answers to all these questions would certainly be coherent with the appearance, the look and the personality of our attractive, calm, sensitive, kind woman. Maybe too much.
Food consumption is not an end in itself act, neither is it aimed to solely provide our body the energy we need to survive. Starting from our weaning, food is invested in symbolic value, representing the first medium babies use to negotiate their independence with the caregivers: hence, its intaking becomes a way to gain power and control over the world and themselves.
The social value of the food consolidates as years go by: most of our social interactions have something to deal with food, starting from happy-hours with friends, up to family dinners; thus, meals get fulfilled of all the social dynamics that usually characterize any other context of life.
By virtue of its social essence, food is affected by the powerful influence of gender stereotypes. Hence, people tend to award it a symbolic value that is not only completely artificial, but also proper of a cliched, banal worldview, consistent with a society founded on an equally cliched patriarchal structure.
The attribution of human traits to food can also be conceived in the opposite direction, since in defining these dynamics humans play both an active and a passive role. In this regard, standing to the “you are what you eat” theory, we ascribe people traits that are assumed to own to the food consumed. Although this tendency was more prominent among the primitive cultures, a study published in the late 1980s demonstrated that similar (unconscious) beliefs are also apparent in Western society. The authors found a marked predisposition in attributing turtle-like qualities, such as “good swimmers”, to the members of an imaginary population whose dieting habits included turtle consumption. By contrast, the members of an equally imaginary indigenous tribe, whose diet was based on elephant meat, were rated as more elephant-like than the turtle-eaters (e.g. “big built”).
The “you are what you eat” belief is not limited to primitive cultures.
Given that we distinguish “feminine” and “masculine” meals according to the type of food consumed, red meat dominates the ranking of the food associated with the concept of masculinity. This may be due to its symbolic relation with the aggressiveness usually employed during its processing, but also to its traditional association with qualities such as strength and virility, ever-present traits of “real men” in Western culture. Broadly speaking, “bad foods” (in terms of caloric content and health value) and, generally, food that may barely be associated with weight loss, are rated as masculine dishes; by contrast, “good foods” such as vegetables, fish, dairies and fruit stand out among the feminine ones.
Besides the type of food, an additional dimension we employ to categorize what we eat is the portion size. Specifically, eating little elicits a feminine impression, regardless of the eater gender. Vice-versa, the eater is judged as more masculine if his or her meal consists of a considerable serving.
Interestingly, the stereotypes related to type and amount of food emerge even when the eaters belong to the same gender: regardless of whether they are male or female, people who choose to eat “good foods” are automatically classified as more feminine and less masculine than the ones who consume “bad food”.
Contributory factors such as the cleanliness of the plate or the meal presentation contribute in making the meal as respectively masculine or feminine, based on whether the eater is having a mishmash of food on a dirty plate or, rather, an elegant serving on a clean plate. In a study recently conducted in Italy, the most feminine evaluation was observed when participants were exposed to the image of a small and elegant Caprese salad, while the most masculine evaluation was found when they watched the image of a big and rough hamburger.
Gender stereotypes are not just about the physical essence of the dish; particularly, they are not just about the food, but they also affect the eater. People who consume feminine food are implicitly considered more physically attractive, smart and responsible, but also more anxious and less sociable; on the other side, having masculine food implicates being unintelligent, less moral and less serious, but also more happy and keen to spend time with other people, having fun and drink alcohol.
We all are, at some level, aware of the qualities associated with the food we eat; however, stereotypes seem to affect women much more than men, and their influence increases when being “feminine” may be socially advantageous. Women eat far less when involved in situations such as business lunches or first dates, all circumstances in which appearing socially appealing may bring to pleasant outcomes. Of course, this also outweighs the opportunity to communicate overall good qualities that go beyond the standard concept of femininity.
The male gaze is (of course) the foundation of food stereotypes; from this perspective, women who eat less are seen as more attractive, charming and concerned with their appearance than the “masculine” ones. It is also desirable for them to be kind and polite, eat slowly, demonstrate ability in leading the conversation and laugh at men’s jokes.
Food stereotypes affect people at a double level. On one side, the eater (usually, the woman) may somehow manipulate the cliché she is targeted by, acting coherently with the way she wants to appear; on the other side, these implicit beliefs might be internalized and unconsciously employed in the global evaluation of the self. Hence, their daily food intake is influenced on a chronic basis.
Internalizing food stereotypes makes women unable to feel their actual sense of hunger. What matters to them is choosing healthy foods, paying attention to the meal presentation and, above all, eating little. Because women have to do so. It is an illusion of freedom, everything’s fine until the meal respects the previously established criteria concerning the type, the appearance and the amount of the food consumed; however, a subtle sense of guilt occurs when these limits are exceeded. Hence, the necessity to provide explanations regarding the exaggeration in question leads them to immediately make statements such as “I had nothing to eat the whole day!”. That anxiety.
The more the social pressure concerning the necessity to satisfy all the criteria women have to meet be considered “feminine”, the more the stereotype will be internalized. The more their food choices will be unconsciously influenced, the more harshly they will evaluate themselves.
References
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Cavazza, N., Guidetti, M., & Butera, F. (2015). Ingredients of gender-based stereotypes about food. Indirect influence of food type, portion size and presentation on gendered intentions to eat. Appetite, 91, 266–272. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2015.04.068
Nemeroff, C., & Rozin, P. (1989). “You are What You Eat”: Applying the Demand-Free “Impressions” Technique to an Unacknowledged Belief. Ethos, 17(1), 50–69. https://doi.org/10.1525/eth.1989.17.1.02a00030
Oakes, M. E., & Slotterback, C. S. (2005, December). Prejudgments of those who eat a “healthy” versus an “unhealthy” food for breakfast. Current Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-004-1001-6
Vartanian, L. R., Herman, C. P., & Polivy, J. (2007, May). Consumption stereotypes and impression management: How you are what you eat. Appetite. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2006.10.008
Yantcheva, B., & Brindal, E. (2013). How much does what you eat matter? The potential role of meal size, fat content, and gender on ratings of desirability. Eating Behaviors, 14(3), 285–290. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eatbeh.2013.05.001
