Reflections on the politics of gendered food chains

Abstract

abstract Throughout history, social relationships surrounding food have traditionally been divided along gender lines. That the food chain is gendered from kernel to platter is therefore probably to repeat a truism. Afterall, the most fundamental form of care, providing food, is still mostly carried out by women in the majority of societies today. In addition, despite having a duty to feed others, women may in many geo-political locations frequently fail to do so providing for their own needs. In this perspective, I consider gender and food related-relationships by exploring gender dynamics in the modern agrifood system. Firstly, I investigate the relationship between food and women’s subjugation and the sublimation of feminist consciousness. Secondly, I ask, how gender relations related to food are configured in the context of three categories of food − material, socio-cultural, and corporeal − that characterise women’s interactions with food (Allen & Sachs 2007). In each of these areas, gender is expressed in ways that I argue reflect women’s social disadvantage. Linkages between women’s work with food in the fields and labour market, their responsibilities for food provision in the care economy, and relationship with eating are explored. It is argued that these are integral to the field of food studies and research which has tended to ignore the normalisation of ‘women’s work’, undervalued domestic reproductive and productive labour. Integrating feminist studies with political economy can provide food studies with a theoretical framework that is able to throw light on some of the critical elements that shape gender relations in the agrifood system. Critical food studies, it is asserted, need to focus on steps women are taking to unsettle the existing oppressive power relations in the agrifood system.