girlcatx

tell me about food,power and gender roles. I'm an anthro major. That is my kind of thing.

i did some anthro in college, and sepcifically studied food and gender roles in the us ( ie. the sexual politics of meat, the heirarchy of foods and who is priveledged enough to eat them, etc etc... another whole discussion.

but here things are a bit different. first you have to understand the set-up of traditional korean food... there is usually no "main dish" as in western food. a meal is made up of many many, sometimes a dozen or more, side dishes, often pickled, or candied in someway. there is also a soup, and some sort of rice. plus a meat, fish, chicken sort of thing... a real meal is a major undertaking. each indivdual side dish is made of entirely different things, and each has it's on prep time, and usually must be prepared a long time in advance. women usually, say, make an enormous amount of kimchi and store it, then use it meal by meal.

ok, the gender thing comes in like this- duh, yeah the cooking is all done by women. men do not cook, nor do they learn to cook. the closest they come to is learning how to heat water and make some ramen while in college. i've even heard that mothers used to tell their boy children their testicles would fall if if they entered the kitchen! the kitchen is the woman's domain.and basically her seat of power. women also usually control the money in the household ( well, they have to do all that shopping!)

the amount of time it takes for a single human being to keep her family fed in the typical cultural fashion is mind-boggling, balancing that with children makes it even more ridiculous. this sort of food culture, bascially ensures that women will never leave the home. of course women have jobs, and things are changing, but the mother and fathers and in-laws frown and ride their kin for purchasing store bought kimchi, etc. ( the husband, wife and family often live with the husbands families.) so at this point a woman actually has to choose to turn her back culturally, not upholding the traditional food and the values sytem it upholds. and going against the flock is pretty damn unusual here.

that's the long and short of it. the short of it really. not well explained... but here, food upholds the dominant paradigm in a way that is pretty insidious. it plays a really central role in the family, and in social culture. it's a powerful tool to keep gender roles in a holding pattern.