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 →