Thursday, March 12, 2009

Eating While Female.

First, go check out this post at Bitch PhD. And read the comments. It is a fabulous discussion of an issue that any woman and many men, I'm sure, can relate to. Go 'head. I'll wait.

Done? Good.

I think that Eating While Female can definitely be hazardous to anyone's sanity- especially in an office like mine where no matter what your body size or what is on your plate, people feel free to offer any and all kinds of commentary on whether you are "good" or "bad" or "thin" or "losing weight" or "being healthy"...It's completely ridiculous.

If people see me eating veggies or fruit, the comments are usually along the lines of "oh, you're so good! I wish I could be that good! I just ate PIZZA!!" Oh the horror.

If I'm eating, say a cookie, the comments are usually "oh I wish I could have a cookie! That looks so yummy! But I have to be good, you know chuckle chuckle...my ASS is so HUGE (insert pause where they wait for you to vehemently deny this)"

Completely fracking ridiculous. What gives us the impression that it is completely ok and acceptable to pseudo-competitively comment on what other women choose to put in their bodies?

Thoughts?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have so many thoughts on this. The principal evil, it seems to me, is the gendered nature of these comments. I seldom get any comments, even though, as you know, I can eat a significant proportion of my body weight in one sitting. Also, there's a certain intrusion into personal space there.

But I'm also concerned about eating (and farming, etc.) habits of the general public. I think we should move away from an industrialized system fueled by oil, and work on going back to effective natural practices.

Bottom line: commenting on individuals' food choices gets you nowhere in the big picture, and ends up being annoying, and sometimes sexist. Better to save one's energy to try to affect agricultural policy.

But most people won't because it's easier to make off-the-cuff criticisms and walk away than it is to try for real change.

Birdie said...

Mackenzie, I think you make some good points. I think that what men choose to eat and what women choose to eat are viewed very differently, especially by women. The men I work with (granted, there aren't very many of them) never comment on what I am eating- only women. Or the women comment on what ever they, themselves are eating (OH! I'm being so BAD, etc...) Its silly and I really don't understand the motivation behind it.

I also think the comments on the post I linked to are interesting, especially the discussion on what food is "feminine" (i.e., salad, chicken, fish) and what food is "masculine" (steak, burgers, etc.)