Wednesday, September 16, 2015

Gender Roles and Food

In reading the Bellows article, I was unsurprised to see a difference in how the different genders viewed food. In my Psychology of Prejudice class, we often talk about how people try to conform to the positive stereotypes of their group while trying to subvert the negatives. In this scenario, some positive stereotypes for a women would be "domestic" and "nurturing"; in order to fit the role of a "real" women, many women would feel the need to be a good cook. Interestingly enough, the amount of women who considered themselves to be good cooks was higher than the amount of women who said they enjoyed cooking.

Conversely, there were more men who said they liked cooking compared to the amount of men who considered themselves a good cook. In my opinion, gender roles have a big part of this difference; women may feel obligated to be a good chef in order to fill the role of the "ideal" women, but that obligation may detract from their enjoyment of cooking. Men, who are generally more accepted when they cannot cook, may feel less pressure to cook for the sake of being perfect, and are able to enjoy it as an activity more.

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