El. knyga: Food and Gender: Identity and Power

Examines the significance of food-centered activities to gender relations and the construction of gendered identities across cultures, looking at how men's and women's relationships to food may influence or determine both gender complementarity and hierarchy. Topics include food and sexual identity among the Kulina, recipe knowledge among Thai Buddhist women, and hospitality, women, and beer. Some chapters were first published in vols. 1 and 3 of the journal Food and Foodways. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

This volume examines, among other things, the significance of food-centered activities to gender relations and the construction of gendered identities across cultures. It considers how 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 include men's and women's attitudes towards their bodies and the legitimacy of their appetites.