Picture this: it’s been a long day; all the hours spent facing the harshness of life have left you worn out and hungry. You could use a good meal. With a rumbling stomach, you sit down with tonight’s dinner. All is well until you feel a creeping insecurity swirling around your food. You start to feel the eyes of everyone around you scrutinizing what you’re eating. Suddenly self-conscious, you ask yourself: am I eating a “girly” meal?
Sure, that example may be slightly extreme, but it presents a legitimate issue. Boys and girls are raised to eat differently, and gender stereotypes and stigmas surrounding food put unnecessary pressure on people to “eat like their gender.”
As a result, meals such as steak and potatoes or burgers and fries are classified as masculine, while salads, yogurt and many desserts are seen as feminine. Current stereotypes surrounding food come from a long history of archaic gender roles and unhealthy beauty standards steadily reinforced by the media.
Stereotypically masculine meals are often larger and characterized by protein-rich, heaping portions of meat, spice and fat. Stereotypically feminine meals are often smaller and lighter, subtle and sweet, and more often vegetarian than “masculine” foods
In the mid-20th century, the typical American family was depicted to consist of a breadwinner husband complemented by his wife who took care of the house, children and, of course, cooking. As cooking was perceived as a wife’s responsibility, women were expected to cook to keep their husbands satisfied, being pressured by the idea that if their husbands were not kept plump and happy, they would leave.
Twentieth-century advertising leaned into this fear, with cookbooks published under titles such as “The Way to a Man’s Heart” or “A Thousand Ways to Please a Husband.” Cooking instructions of the time directed women to spring for meaty, hearty meals that would leave their husbands content and full of energy for work.
While they were instructed to keep their husbands full with hearty, often fatty foods, women were led down a different dietary path by harsh beauty standards. Through the varying standards of the 20th century, women were always expected to be small and relatively dainty, pressuring them into light and delicate foods that would keep them thin. As PBS has reported, magazines and newspaper columns in the 20th century identified lean proteins such as fish or white meats with little sauce, along with new foods like cottage cheese, as “female foods.” While men were encouraged to devour massive, fatty cuts of red meat, women would be seen as out of place for doing the same.
Decades of pressure to adhere to gender roles and beauty standards contributed to gender stereotypes of food being deeply ingrained in society, something that still impacts consumers today. While efforts are being made to tear down the societal restrictions put in place by misogynistic stereotypes, the pressure to behave in a way conducive to your gender is still prevalent – especially in men.
According to a study published in 2020 in the research journal “Sex Roles,” young men behaving in a way that could be perceived as “feminine” run the risk of lowering their social status and receiving greater social blame than young women who might behave in a stereotypically masculine way.
Although gender stereotypes surrounding food are increasingly being regarded as outdated, they still have a strong effect on everyday behavior. According to the 2020 study, customers tend to order meals that match their gender stereotypes to convey a positive impression to their fellow restaurant-goers. The irrational fear that ordering a certain meal will cause them to appear feminine grips men across the world. Not wanting to be emasculated by their meal, men are too often held back from eating what they really want.
Recently out to eat with a friend, I felt this dilemma firsthand. Instead of stressing about what on the menu would satisfy the gender stereotype pertaining to my identity as a man, I chose to order exactly what I wanted to eat. When food was brought to the table minutes later, my dainty crab cakes were dwarfed by the massive slab of salmon belonging to the petite woman sitting across from me. Playfully joking that my smaller and lighter meal emasculated me compared to my friend’s heftier and meatier meal, we agreed on the silliness of these archaic stereotypes.
Pointless gender stereotypes and stigmas also exist within the world of drinks. Drinks are designated as either masculine or feminine, creating an expectation for bar-goers to order a drink that fits their gender. “Masculine” drinks are often more sour, bitter or spicy while “feminine” drinks are more often fruity and sweet. If they want something other than the typical manly beer, men often feel restricted to drinks like an old-fashioned or a whiskey sour. Many men would feel self-conscious ordering a “feminine” drink like a frozen daiquiri or a cosmopolitan.
Although society might be slowly progressing on issues regarding gender stereotypes, their impacts still affect us daily. Gendered divisions surrounding food create boxes that many struggle to step outside of in fear of social backlash. Food-related or otherwise, stereotypes and stigmas that shame men for taking an interest in things historically perceived as feminine reinforce the archaic idea that femininity itself is inherently shameful.
As we progress into a new year, I encourage my fellow men to leave the fear of girly foods in 2023. Order what you want. Who cares what other people think? The only way to progress as a society is if we as men move past the stigmas that plague our dinner tables, and unapologetically embrace our love for dainty crab cakes.
