The Anthropology of Food and Body: Gender, Meaning and Power

Exploring the way that making, eating, and thinking about food reveal culturally determined gender-power relations in diverse societies, this text takes a cross-cultural approach to ask questions about eating disorders, body dissatisfaction, bodily changes in reproduction, and gender differences around food. Using ethnographic data from her fieldwork in Europe and the USA, the author addresses issues around food, culture and gender such as: What powers do women gain and lose through their control of food preparation and distribution? What do food images in children's fantasy stories tell us about their sense of self? How do beliefs about eating and intercourse in different cultures reflect and affect gender ideology? How does the objectification of the female body subordinate women, and how can women challenge it? And how do pregnancy and birth affect women's body image and empowerment? This text brings feminist and anthropological theories to bear on these provocative issues and should interest anyone investigating the relationship between food, the body, and cultural notions of gender.