[Gala-l] Gendered discourse about food and drink

[Michaël Gauthier]

Hi all,

This reminds me of a story which happened to me a few months ago... I was at a conference reception, where there was wine (red and white) and food, and a waiter was there to take care of serving wine and advising people on the food. For some reason, the waiter disappeared for some time, and one of the conference organizers (a woman), who noticed it, started being nervous and agitated. I noticed that, and I asked if everything was OK. She answered that she was nervous because the waiter had gone, and thus that she "needed a man to serve the wine". As someone working on topics involving gendered attitudes and stereotypes, this caught my attention, and I asked her why in her opinion a woman wouldn't be able to serve wine, and she answered: "it is impolite for a woman to serve wine!". But eventually, I think her nervousness took over her """good manners""", as she decided to serve the wine herself, so I came to her with my empty glass, and she grabbed the bottle of red wine and was about to pour me some before I even asked for it, so I stopped her and said I wanted some white wine instead (I really did), and she stopped and paused for a second, looking at me with a smile and lifted eyebrow suggesting this was not normal for me to ask for white wine. Remembering the episode of the "good-mannered ladies not worthy of serving wine", I burst out laughing and said: "what?! Are you also gonna tell me this is not normal for a man to drink white wine?", and she said "well, normally white wine is more of a female thing"... 

Not related to the wine thing, but still to gendered stereotypes (in restaurants), everytime I go to the restaurant with my girlfriend we like to pay attention to those things and what we noticed is that nine out of ten times when we order the bill, even when she does, the waiter/tress brings the bill to me. It is just incredible, and it now became a sort of game, to bet on who is going to get the bill (unfortunately I lose most of the time at this game... ^^). 

This is precisely why research on gendered stereotypes can be both fascinating, and depressing at the same time I guess (not talking about paying the bill anymore of course...)...

Best

Michael GAUTHIER

Sally McConnell-Ginet <smg9 at cornell.edu> wrote:My husband and I ordered white and red wine respectively last night (in a restaurant in London).  The server offered the white to me and the red to him; when we said it was the other way around our server responded: "usually, ladies want white and gentlemen want red."  It often happens that they serve us the wrong wine but only seldom do they articulate their (gendered) reasons for doing so.
From: Gala-l <gala-l-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of Bazil Manietta <Joseph.Manietta at Colorado.EDU>
Reply-To: "Joseph.Manietta at Colorado.EDU" <Joseph.Manietta at Colorado.EDU>
Date: Sunday, September 6, 2015 1:51 PM
To: "Joshua.Raclaw at colorado.edu" <Joshua.Raclaw at Colorado.EDU>
Cc: 'gala-l <gala-l at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Subject: Re: [Gala-l] Gendered discourse about food and drink

Hello,
There is also this article by Nicholas Harkness on soju (a popular alcohol) in South Korea. It talks about gender and the relationship between liquor and gender, but I don't know if you're looking for something outside of a U.S. context.
Harkness, N. (2013). Softer soju in South Korea. Anthropological theory, 13(1-2), 12-30.
Hope this helps!
Bazil Manietta

On Friday, September 4, 2015, Joshua Raclaw <Joshua.Raclaw at colorado.edu> wrote:
Hi all,
A student of mine is interested in looking more closely at the notion of "girl beers", "girly drinks", and other gendered constructions of alcohol (and food) products and consumption. Does anyone have any recommendations about research that has looked at similar topics, either dealing specifically with alcohol or with the broader gendering of food? (Hines' paper on gendered metaphors and food is the only thing that comes to mind.) 
Suggestions for work in the area of language and gender preferred, but I'd also greatly appreciate broader approaches that may be relevant (e.g., Carol J. Adams' work on the gendered politics of meat, Rozin et al. 2012).
Thanks in advance!
Josh

--​Joshua Raclaw, Ph.D.Postdoctoral Research Associate​, ​Center for Women's Health ResearchHonorary Fellow, Department of SociologyUniversity of Wisconsin-Madisonhttp://www.joshuaraclaw.info​

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