Food and Gender

This volume examines, among other things, the significance of food-centered activities to gender relations and the construction of gendered identities across cultures.Itconsidershow each gender's relationship to food may facilitate mutual respect or produce gender hierarchy. This relationship is considered through two central questions: How does control of food production, distribution, and consumption contribute to men's and women's power and social position? and How does food symbolically connote maleness and femaleness and establish the social value of men and women? Other issues discussed includemen's and women'sattitudes towards their bodies and the legitimacy of their appetites.