What’s behind two steaks on a grill?

Out of the borders - Food cultures

How culture and gendered marketing influence our relationship with food

by Maxime Ricaud

A few months ago, the feminist ecologist MP Sandrine Rousseau challenged the entire French media and political sphere with a single sentence. “We must change our mentality so that eating a steak cooked on a barbecue is no longer a symbol of virility”. The phrase may amuse some. Still, others have perceived it as a diatribe symbol of this “political righteousness” that would go too far. As MP Eric Ciotti criticized on twitter, “When the grotesque reaches its climax... Stop these delusions!”

Later Rousseau will return to her words denouncing “a system that sends us into the wall” and a sense of identity concerning meat consumption (a feeling more than proven because of the many photos of men doing their barbecue that she would have received following her criticism). But most of his detractors missed the opportunity of a debate and a subject too little documented but nevertheless obvious— the relationship between food and gender.

Because, yes, it’s real. At least, that’s what some people want to demonstrate. For the most part, this topic is documented by feminist academics whose works are best known. One of Sandrine Rousseau’s defenders was French journalist Nora Bouazzouni, who, in 2021, wrote Steaksisme (Steaksism). Her script states the link between genders and various modes of eating. Based on the government report INCA3 there is a disparity between masculine and feminine diets.

Women generally prefer yogurts and cottage cheeses, compotes, poultry and soups. As for men, they are rather fond of cheeses, meats, cold cuts, potatoes and dessert creams (INCA3 ANSES)

Usually women and men do not have the same diet in general. In our shared culture, meat, specifically red meat, is associated with the masculine image. It is no longer a question of barbecues but of the level of consumption more or less induced by a sense of identity. But what is the reason for this? To our individual nutritional and caloric needs? The popular belief that red meat is the cement of male morphology? Or instrumentalization of preferences through advertising? Although men’s daily ratio is more significant than women’s, 3177g against 2720g (INCA 3), contrary to what some say, meat does not necessarily have to be part of the male menu.

During a debate on French news channel BFMTV following the controversy around Sandrine Rousseau, Nora Bouazzouni defended this fact by speaking of the “myth of protein”, this myth that would indicate that only meat consumption provides enough protein for the proper functioning of the body. At the same time, vegetables such as lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower and spinach contain between 34 to 49% protein. Popeye could have been one of the first analogies between virility and veganism.

What the journalist defended during this debate is that taste is not innate. It is a social construct whose origin dates back to ancient Greece or even to the beginnings of the sedentarization of humans. For example, Hippocrates’ theory of humour establishes a binary differentiation between men and women according to a dichotomy of qualities: women with cold and wet temperaments and hot and dry for men. This will subsequently influence the culture of female and male diets. Even if we can still imagine that a relationship of domination is noting many changes in the female diet related to beauty criteria of their time. Especially in the mid-19th century when women meeting the requirements of “La petite bourgeoise” had a diet that would be described today as masculine. It glorifies firmed forms, the milky body, and plump skin reinforced with false asses and corsets carrying the chest forward, like the Castiglione.

But the dominant has shown its influence differently because, since the end of WW1, we have been confronted massively with advertisements for food, drinks, alcohol, cigarettes, diets, and medicines. They are one of the first influences on our consumption, and since 2000, advertisements targeting the genre have increased with explicit slogans about the target audience. Based on the analysis of university professor and writer Emily Contois, I have encountered this type of advertising, although we are overwhelmed by them daily.

Abs molded into the back of the “powerful yoghurt” yoghurt pot.

It takes little to understand that male hegemony is in every nook and cranny of meat or fast food advertising. Where masculinity is the protagonist and will be the hook of the ad, we can remember KFC ads which, in a loud voice, present their products, or Charal chants their slogan products with the same manly voice.

This gendered marketing works and adapts by modifying the costs, packaging, advertising message and functionalities of the product or service sold. We saw this during a campaign by Weight Watchers trying to defeminize diets. Proposing a menu in its advertising campaign keeping the elements of Dude Food and supporting its words with an attractive slogan, “Lose like a man”. Pizza, pepperoni pizza, burgers, cheeseburgers, wings, bbq wings, meatballs [...] Men don’t wanna live without it, and with weight watchers, we don’t have to [...] lose like a man.

A final factor in promoting the sense of identity surrounding certain foods is Dude Food. Already cited in Emily Contois’ analysis and one of these books, this phenomenon develops even more with social networks. It stars a sympathetic male character with a monopoly on meat and all kinds of fatty, cheesy, comforting dishes but whose elaboration is meticulous and passionate. But the motivations and ways to cook and promote the product are the same as a Burger King ad with hard rock in the background, flames and a close-up of blood-dripping red meat.

Apart from this sense of identity around meat consumption that can be denounced or mocked, what the detractors of this culture want to demonstrate are the damage caused by this excessive meat consumption. It is a social fact and not a specific need for the proper development of men. Through this sentence, Sandrine Rousseau wants to denounce a health problem, especially an ecological crisis. Let us remember that meat consumption represents 14.5% of greenhouse gas emissions and 8.8% of bovine production alone. And beef is the leading food on a barbecue or Dude food, perhaps, although changing mentalities would reduce gender stereotypes above all, save the planet.