They Will Worship You and Call You the Man: Constructions of Masculinity in Men’s Cookbooks

• In Event: 035 - Section on Sex and Gender Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 09. Masculinizing the Feminine

Abstract

This paper analyzes the discursive construction of culinary masculinity in 21st century U.S. cookbooks targeted to men. I identify two prevalent constructions of men’s domestic cooking practices in the texts: (1) cooking in exchange for sexual or romantic rewards and (2) cooking in exchange for social esteem. These constructions symbolically tie men’s cooking to systems of economic exchange and distinguish it from the routine, obligatory, and care-oriented aspects of food preparation that are conventionally associated with women. This article adds to our understanding of the ways in which hegemonic masculinity is reconfigured in response to changing economic and political pressures. Building on Demetriou’s notion of a hybrid masculine bloc, I argue that elements of home cooking are absorbed into dominant ideologies of masculinity in order to neutralize the threat posed to patriarchal dominance by women’s increased movement into the paid labor force and the feminist critique of the gender division of household labor.

Author

• Jason Andrew Nolen, University of Wisconsin-Madison