Salad or meat, woman or man?Gender standards determine our tastes

Nora Bouazzouni is a journalist, a specialist in gastronomy and the genre, and the author of steaksism.Following the myth of vegetables and viandard (ed.Nurriturfu, 2021).

Nora Bouazzouni © Chloé Vollmer-Lo

Reporterre — Les femmes mangent-elles vraiment plus de yaourts et les hommes plus de viande rouge ?

Nora Bouazzouni - This is the question I asked myself to write this book.The cliché is that men more like red meat, potatoes and tacos, and women more like the yogurt at the guava, quinoa salads and zero coca.So I went to see the Inca 3 study, on consumption in eating habits in France, and I was surprised to note that these shots are proven in terms of consumption [1].

Doctors of Greek antiquity Hippocrates then Galien - who I recall have had a great influence on Western medicine - and philosophers like Aristotle, theorized the inferiority of women by the theory of moods.In this theory, four moods regulate the body: hot, cold, dry, humid.Men are associated with warm and dry, synonymous with courage, bravery and intelligence.Women are associated with cold and humid, which is less dreaming.We find these characteristics of moods in foods associated with genres: red meat and spicy dishes for men, yogurts and soup for women.Besides, researchers have found that the skeletons of women who lived in antiquity in Rome bear traces of anemia that male skeletons have not.They had iron deficiencies.

However, it is scientifically proven, there is no innate taste for certain foods depending on whether you are a man or a woman.On the other hand, from birth, begins food education, where gender standards are involved a lot.

Un vrai plat de vrai mec, selon la culture dominante. Unsplash / Christian Wiediger

Les femmes se voient-elles imposer plus de contraintes sur leur façon de manger ?

Women are subject to slimming injunctions.We teach them very early that they have to monitor what they swallow.Food is associated with health and nutritional imperatives.They know the calorie tables, the intakes of such meat or such a vegetable.While men, they value the hedonistic aspect, abundance and will turn to foods that stall.

This is reproduced in families: in adolescents, we monitor the plate of girls than that of boys.We value a big appetite in boys, we find that normal, but not in girls.

Women also carry the mental load of feeding the family. Dans les ménages hétérosexuels, les femmes font encore à 80 % la cuisine au quotidien.For the supermarket races, it's almost 50-50, but it is the woman who makes the list.Women must deal with the desires, the tastes of each and everyone and preserve the health of all. Dans les enquêtes sociologiques, dans leurs témoignages, les hommes se plaignent de manger toujours la même chose, des plats « de bonnes femmes », même quand ce ne sont pas eux qui font la cuisine.However, we see that even if women make cooking more, they end up bending to the husband's diet.

Do you find me intimidating or have at some point before?

— riti ⚖️🍀🌴 | ssd 📌 Thu Jul 22 12:06:28 +0000 2021

En quoi la viande rouge est-elle un aliment masculin typique ?

Alcohol and red meat are the two foods that are much consumed by men than by women: twice as much for red meat and three and a half times more for alcohol.

Red meat is the most symbolically loaded food for virilist status.If you eat an animal, you absorb its vitality.Meat is associated with strength, muscle.It allows us to reaffirm a domination of man over everything else.In an advertisement for a large brand of meat, a man manages to steal the antelope in front of a cheetah: he thus asserts himself as at the top of the food chain. Et c’est d’ailleurs le slogan de Charal : « C’est qui, le plus grand des prédateurs ? »

Quel rôle jouent les marques de l’agroalimentaire et la publicité dans cette vision genrée de l’alimentation ?

I realized that the muses of brands have strong differences depending on whether they are feminine or male.For example, Captain Igloo has a professional title, it is a fisherman.Jacques Vabre is explorer and will look for coffee. Ducros est un chef qui « se décarcasse ».They have a job, a technique, an expertise.But female muses are essentialized and reduced to their reproductive function: Nova Mamie Yogurts, Grandmother Coffee, Bonne Maman Jams, etc..We play on the maternal side of women to sell comforting and family foods.

Le repas des dames, à en croire notre socialisation (avec modération, attention). Unsplash / Dan Gold

Slogans, they play on magic thought.They translate the idea that when you incorporate a food, we do not swallow nutrients, but also its magical virtues. C’est pour cela que par exemple, pour les céréales pour enfants, l’égérie sera Tony le tigre et le slogan « Le tigre est en toi », afin de faire penser que ces céréales donnent de l’énergie. Le jus d’orange porte également une énorme charge magique, le slogan de Joker est ainsi : « Joker réveille vos matins ».Brands play on this, and differently that they are aimed at men or women.For example, milk pearl yogurt will sell the sweetness, purity, beauty to women. Ou alors des yaourts qui, prétendument, « font du bien à l’intérieur et ça se voit à l’extérieur », comme le veut le slogan du bifidus actif.To men we sell things that give energy, strength.

Privation that leads to shortcomings and anemia in women

Quelles sont les conséquences de notre façon genrée de nous nourrir sur notre santé ?

These gender regimes have harmful and quantifiable effects on health. Quand on survalorise chez les hommes l’autonomie, l’individualité, l’hédonisme à l’extrême, ou une désinvolture par rapport aux recommandations nutritionnelles, ils finissent par être beaucoup moins perméables aux messages de santé et vont au contraire se méfier : « Puisqu’on m’a dit de manger moins de viande, je vais en manger encore plus. » Quand depuis que vous êtes petits, on ne contrôle pas ce qu’il y a dans votre assiette, qu’on ne vous parle pas de santé et qu’on valorise les comportements à risque, cela a des conséquences sur votre consommation d’aliments et de boissons. Les hommes ont un apport énergétique de 38 % supérieur à celui des femmes.They eat more fatty, more sweet, more salty, more red meat and transformed.This has consequences such as type 2 diabetes, colorectal cancer, cardiovascular diseases, which affect men than women.

In women, as we promote food surveillance, there are more eating disorders - anorexia, bulimia, hyperphagia.They can also find themselves deficient or anemic.We must not forget that even in France women deprive themselves to give more to their husbands and their boys.They will eat less meat because there is the idea that the man works harder, reports the biggest beefsteak at home and has more needs.

Cette vision genrée de l’alimentation empêche-t-elle le développement de régimes plus écologiques, et notamment moins carnés ?

Vegetarianism is a regime that remains in the mainly female world, and France is no exception.In our beliefs vegetable proteins are less valid than animal proteins.Vegetables are associated with weakness and passivity.We will therefore say vegetarians that they are deficient, weak and pale, and that a man who would become vegetarian or vegan would suffer as a feminization, a devirilization.

Men are less permeable to health recommendations, but also to environmental messages.Ecolo behavior is perceived as feminine.However, female characteristics are devalued ... gendered socialization, representations, beliefs, have a real effect.

Steaksism.Following the myth of the vegetable and the Viandard of Nora Bouazzouni, at Nouriturfu editions, April 2021, 144p., 15 €.

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