LabRat at Atomic Nerds, in a side point in a post about Michelle Obama’s new vegetables-in-the-military policy, says:
As a side comment from the “vegetable guy yet” remark, there is also a very weird sort of gender war going on in a lot of the comments I’ve read on other articles/posts talking about this story. Apparently this is somehow emasculating, and or we have to have fruit and green leafy things because we have female soldiers now and they require salad to survive.
OK, look. Men need meat and fat and protein to build and maintain their physical base, including bone and muscle mass. Women need meat and fat and protein to build and maintain their physical base because they also possess muscles and bones, and additionally to maintain the ability to become pregnant and sustain it. Children of both genders need meat and fat and protein because they are growing. Men and women and children need fruit and vegetables because they need the vitamins and possess lower digestive tracts. There is absolutely nothing biological about food types as gender signaling, it’s a very bizarre kabuki dance that sometimes involves people getting way more or way less of what they need and occasionally produces the specter of diminished masculinity via imposed cruciate vegetables. Real hunter-gatherers (usually) have division of labor, not division of food.
I think the whole “real men don’t eat vegetables” thing is, very possibly, my favorite crappy gender-enforcement technique, simply because it is so pointless. Who hates vegetables? I eat tons of vegetables: since getting to college I’ve eaten enough frozen mixed vegetables that I’ve started to have strong brand preferences. Vegetables are yummy! Admittedly, I’ve been vegetarian since I was five, so for a lot of my life the vegetables were the yummy bit I ate before I had to force my way through the crappy Boca Burger. (Never eat Boca Burgers. They are terrible.) Still I have a hard time imagining WHY someone would go about not eating vegetables.
But nevertheless the meme exists and you end up getting all this weird gendered shit around it. Like the ha-ha-only-serious meme of bacon as the best, manliest food, and the really weird femmephobic pressure on women to eat tons of it and profess their deep love of bacon because they are cool chicks who would eat bacon for every meal if they could (while, of course, still being skinny because ew fat people). And the odd fact that in Dirty Hippie School every third girl is vegan and I’ve never actually met a vegan dude.
I believe this “real men don’t eat healthy” meme probably has two roots. First, women are supposed to be unrealistically thin, which for the majority of women means they are constantly dieting, planning to diet, or binging because no one can fucking live on shitty-ass American pseudosalads with two tomatoes and a carrot for the rest of their life. So because men can’t do things that women do because… because that’s bad for some reason, men have to eat all the unhealthy food. Second, men are supposed to tough things out and not worry about their health (unless they’re jocks or bodybuilders), and eating vegetables is worrying about your health.
This meme also manages to survive, somehow, in utter defiance of the evidence. I mean, most gender memes exist in utter defiance of the evidence (see also: sexuality, the transactional model of). But very clearly eating vegetables does not emasculate people. First, most people live in households that have multiple genders in them, in which all of the people in that household eat the same damn food. Second, humans of all genders have pretty much the same nutritional requirements, and the differences between people are much greater than the differences among people. Third, athletes are generally agreed upon to be pretty damn manly and I am pretty sure they eat their veggies on account of you need vitamins and minerals to play well.
I mean, of course there are dudes who like vegetables. One of them is yelling at my partner about Left 4 Dead 2 RIGHT NOW. I CAN HEAR HIM. (Apparently there is a “tank”?) This gendered stereotype can be disproven with an ancient and powerful mystical technique I call “looking”!
While we’re at it, can I just point out the bullshit that is “healthy food tastes bad”? It’s the secular version of the weirdass Puritan/Calvinist notion that suffering is goodness and the more pain you feel the better a person you are. Seriously. Fresh blueberries in season. Strawberries with the slightest dust of powdered sugar on them. Vine-ripened tomatoes sold by a guy off the side of the road, with sea salt or basil, depending on preference. Giant salads piled high with olives and avocado and peppers and mushrooms and sunflower seeds. Stone crab caught this morning and tasting of the sea. Smoked fucking salmon. If you are not getting hungry now, I give up on you.
“You should read “Sexual Politics of Meat” by Carol J. Adams. It actually points out an incredible history related to this, proving that this isn’t something that came about during 20th century female body image issues. Meat has always been considered a food for those with greater power, and men have always been in positions of power.” Dumb me who thought that proteins were strongly tied to muscle mass gains, and that, as such, people who ate a lot of meat and did physical stuff, would gain muscle and thus look physically powerful. Note that estrogen has a detrimental relation… Read more »
You should read “Sexual Politics of Meat” by Carol J. Adams. It actually points out an incredible history related to this, proving that this isn’t something that came about during 20th century female body image issues. Meat has always been considered a food for those with greater power, and men have always been in positions of power.
UGH YES THIS. Fuck what people are doing to bacon. I was always able to discretely dislike it but now it is being shoved at my eyeballs from every angle from my overcompensating male friend (I do believe he’s the only one I know) who must have bacon in EVERYTHING to my female friend who, yes, literally has said she could eat bacon for every meal, and while I know my male friend has issues, I’m not certain about my female friend, but because of what current pop culture(??) has done to bacon’s image, I can’t help but become annoyed… Read more »
I read Illuminati conspiracy theories as a hobby/entertainment. One of my favorites was that Vegetarianism and Veganism is a plot by the Illuminati to weaken the human race. Not 24 hour fast food drive through’s (sorry, drive THRU) but vegetarianism will be the end of the human race.
Research on longevity shows that people who eat plant based diets (not necessarily vegetarian, but plant based) live longer. So go ahead, mock my kale, it’s your funeral.
“However, I must add that political vegans on the internet can be rather insulting. “OMG if you drink milk you are a horrible person”, that kind of thing.” Self-righteous people with no sense of boundaries are always a bore no matter what particular utopia they are peddling. Good god, yes. Although, to be fair, I think we can all be a bit self-righteous at times. Or, at least, I can. Guess I can’t speak for anyone else. 😉 But yeah, there is a lot to be said for having a healthy dose of humility. I remember once when my radfem… Read more »
“Self-righteous people with no sense of boundaries are always a bore no matter what particular utopia they are peddling.”
QFT!
“I find the pacific varieties barely palatable and when I was there most of the commercially available fish was farmed. I guess we could chalk it up to regional preferences.” It can be more than that. Maybe the flavor was just off-putting. i love mackerel; my partner cannot stad it. I know someone whose Chinese-American father could not stand the smell of it cooking when her Japanese-American mother would cook it (Cantonese have very soft palaltes – housec at is fine but apparently mackerel is not.) Either way, respect your dislike of it. I have never lekied the taste of… Read more »
@mpcl – “Atlantic salmon tastier than Pacific? What? Atlantic is so bland. Furthermore, commercially available Atlantic salmon is farmed; Do Not Want farmed salmon. (Sorry, raised in Alaska; kind of a salmon snob.)”
Hmm… East coaster here born and raised. I lived in Vancouver for a while and had the opportunity to have both fresh off the line. I find the pacific varieties barely palatable and when I was there most of the commercially available fish was farmed. I guess we could chalk it up to regional preferences.
@Rhukatah: Really? Because I tend to eat more vegetables on Atkins than off! (I blame pasta for being delicious.) Seriously, when I go low-carb from time to time, the one thing I’m pretty much guaranteed to scarf down like there’s no tomorrow is green stuff.
@RocketFrog: Yeah, it pisses me off when people equate not eating red meat with being a vegetarian. It’s why I avoid using the V-word.
Gotta say though, I always loved fruit and vegetables. They do often taste nice, or so I think anyway.
However, I must add that political vegans on the internet can be rather insulting. “OMG if you drink milk you are a horrible person”, that kind of thing. It makes me just want to go eat some beef and cheese. If I deserve to burn in hell, I might as well enjoy my time on earth.
Xakudo, RocketFrog and Ozy, re. the “what’s vegetarian food?” question:
A friend of mine, at a restaurant in Greece, once asked for something vegetarian, and was suggested “Well, we have lamb…”
@RocketFrog: Being a pedantic asshole, I tend to correct pescetarians (and, uh, avitarians?) when they call themselves vegetarian. I do not “preach” at people to stop eating meat (including pescetarians), but at least they should use the word correctly. I’m a pescetarian, and I am guilty of sometimes simply calling myself vegetarian, just because I’ve run so many people who have no idea what a pescetarian is and sometimes I don’t feel like having to explain it. And honestly when for practical purposes it’s often not that relevant; “vegetarian” encompasses all the things I won’t eat, so it’s a good… Read more »
I like jalapenoes and red peppers….
I like grains and hops that make good dark beer….
I like chocolate, now is that a nut, vegetable or fruit….
Yeah, Inmalafide paleo guys-I eat steaks too and I don’t have too big a gut…
I like Jamaba Juice….
I don’t like spinnach or broccolli…
One of my favorite vegetarian moments was actually in a conversation with a friend about abortion. He is (or at least was at the time, haven’t checked recently) against abortion. He brought up my vegetarianism, something along the lines of, “But you’re against even killing fish! Stupid little fish! How can you not be against killing a fetus?” I responded, “I’m not trying to make it illegal for you to go fishing, now am I?” If I recall, that was actually kind of an eye-opening moment for him. But, again, I don’t know if he actually changed his mind. In… Read more »
@RocketFrog:
Agreed. Although I am also keen on acknowledging that language changes as people use it. So if the term “vegetarian” eventually shifts to include anyone who doesn’t eat beef, so be it. But I don’t think we’re there yet. 😉
I recall a scene from a British movie or TV show. A working-class male character is recovering from an illness or injury, and his female partner gives him a salad. His response: “What is this ~!@#$?? I’m an Englishman! I have meat for my dinner! ROASTED! MEAT!” at which point he flings the salad across the room.
Anyone else recognize what that’s from? That’s the only scene I remember.
I think PetroniusArbiter has a good point about culture. While it’s pretty common here that salads are mainly for women, and my father did report a lot of overweight, middle-aged men complaining at the hospital (where they were treated for heart problems) about the vegetables in the diet, I think the obsession with not eating ‘chick-food’ is greater in the US. In my experience, men’s reluctance to eat vegetables are more a source of jokes here than one of pride. But then again, I think a lot of things about stereotypical manhood are taken less seriously here. It’s kind of… Read more »
Dr. Anonymous:Men can’t cook? So that’s why most cooking shows on tv are led by men?
At best that only explains a small portion of the male population.
Still doesn’t explain why when it comes to cooking a man is either Alton Brown or a dangerous hazard that should be kept away from cooking for the safety of those around him.
I am SO with you on this entire post! The Southern U.S. redneck proposition that a real guy is a “meat and potatoes” guy is SOOOO ludicrous. Your final paragraph with all those yummy healthy foods has my stomache growling, BIG TIME!
@ RF,
Eggs are one of my staple foods. Any day I spend at home, I usually fry an egg for morning tea. If I’ve been drinking, I’ll usually scramble some for breakfast.
@ HR,
I had a similar thought but I had no idea how to phrase it, re: boys having more latitude to rebel, eating vegetables as compliance, etc. I reckon that’d be a factor, at the very least.
Ed: *nod* Me too. I do not like the taste of eggs myself, but I do eat things that have been made using eggs.
Actually laying unfertilized eggs is quite common (but not universal) in egg-laying animals. Many female lizards also do so.
@ RF,
I can live with that. Eggs are awesome.
Well, chickens are not mammals, so it’s not blood and insides, but yes. There’s a reason people keep cis-roosters (yes, there are cases of hens turning into roosters) away from hens whose eggs are meant for eating.
Sirgabe:
….which means that we are essentially eating chicken menstruations.
Eating eggs, in and of itself, poor farming conditions aside, does not kill anything. We get the unfertilized ones, not poor little chicken foetuses. 😛 So there, people trying to make chickens Catholic!