Tag Archives: free association

Can Food Be Male or Female?

food gender associations

Is your lunch male or female? Odd question to ask isn’t it? But odd as it might seem, western culture does show strong associations between gender and food. We live in a world where ladies are expected to eat either fruit or vegetable salads while manly men consume red meat. And it is not difficult to see why we have these perceptions: meat, as a product of the hunt, has been associated with strength and power for ages — two features usually linked with masculinity. In fact, so prominent is the meat-male linkage that researchers Paul Rozin, Julia M. Hormes, Myles S. Faith and Brian Wansink carried out a series of experiments to investigate it. Continue reading

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