Ever thought about how women are objectified in food-writing metaphors?

Monday, August 12, 2013

L.V. Anderson says, “Hey Food Writers, Stop Comparing Food to Women!”
“Comparing food and drink to women is so de rigueur in food writing that it frequently appears in headlines above articles that don’t otherwise make the comparison. . . . These metaphors let writers get creative, inject a little sexiness into their writing, and signal a certain devil-may-care attitude. And they need to stop,” writes L.V. Anderson, who edits the food and drink sections of the daily online magazine Slate. She provides numerous examples of how food is compared to women and why the metaphor is used.  And she points out that such comparisons not only objectify women but also make certain assumptions about the audience.  It’s a short piece, but Anderson has packed a lot into it.  It’s another of those articles that give us something to think about in a new way —something we’ve perhaps never noticed before but that will jump out at us when we read or hear food descriptions from now on.

Letha Dawson Scanzoni is an independent scholar, writer, and editor, and is the author or coauthor of nine books. In 1978, she and Virginia Ramey Mollenkott wrote Is the Homosexual My Neighbor?, one of the earliest books urging evangelical Christians to rethink their views on homosexuality (updated edition, 1994, HarperOne). More recently, Letha coauthored (with social psychologist David G. Myers) What God Has Joined Together: The Christian Case for Gay Marriage (HarperOne, 2005 and 2006). Another of Letha’s most well-known books is All We’re Meant to Be: Biblical Feminism for Today, coauthored with Nancy A. Hardesty (Word Books, 1974; revised edition, Abingdon, 1986; updated and expanded edition, Eerdmans, 1992). Letha served as editor of Christian Feminism Today in both its former print edition (EEWC Update) and its website for 19 years until her retirement in December 2013.

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