{"id":13251,"date":"2019-06-19T11:17:17","date_gmt":"2019-06-19T10:17:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ounews.co\/?p=13251"},"modified":"2019-06-19T11:17:17","modified_gmt":"2019-06-19T10:17:17","slug":"meat-is-masculine-how-food-advertising-perpetuates-harmful-gender-stereotypes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/arts-social-sciences\/meat-is-masculine-how-food-advertising-perpetuates-harmful-gender-stereotypes\/","title":{"rendered":"Meat is masculine: how food advertising perpetuates harmful gender stereotypes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/profiles\/kate-stewart-267718\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kate Stewart<\/a>, <em><a href=\"http:\/\/theconversation.com\/institutions\/nottingham-trent-university-1338\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Nottingham Trent University<\/a><\/em> and <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/profiles\/matthew-cole-357630\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Matthew Cole<\/a>, <em><a href=\"http:\/\/theconversation.com\/institutions\/the-open-university-748\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Open University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p>The UK Advertising Standards Authority has introduced a new rule in its advertising code which <a href=\"https:\/\/www.asa.org.uk\/news\/ban-on-harmful-gender-stereotypes-in-ads-comes-into-force.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">bans adverts which feature gender stereotypes<\/a> \u201cthat are likely to cause harm, or serious or widespread offence\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>This is a welcome step towards challenging the everyday normality of patriarchy in popular culture. But gender stereotypes in advertising cannot be untangled from human oppression of other animals. Consuming other animals is normalised in our culture, so those sorts of \u201cstereotypes that are likely to cause harm\u201d go unnoticed, and aren\u2019t usually judged to have caused \u201cserious or widespread offence\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>In recent years there has been an increase in the popularity and visibility of veganism \u2013 and there are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mintel.com\/press-centre\/food-and-drink\/veganuary-uk-overtakes-germany-as-worlds-leader-for-vegan-food-launches\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">more new vegan products being launched in the UK<\/a> than anywhere else in the world. While animal ethics remains a core reason for adopting vegan practices, <a href=\"https:\/\/veganuary.com\/blog\/veganuary-2019-the-results-are-in\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">increasingly health concerns and the climate crisis<\/a> are prompting people to switch to veganism.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/rowman.com\/ISBN\/9781786606471\/Critical-Animal-Studies-Towards-Trans-species-Social-Justice\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">We have previously written<\/a> about adverts that reproduce harmful gender stereotypes while normalising human oppression of other animals. For example, in a <a href=\"https:\/\/vimeo.com\/166342843\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">2015 Father\u2019s Day TV<\/a> advert for Aldi supermarket, a girl\u2019s voiceover says her favourite thing is cooking her father a roast dinner.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/166342843\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The accompanying visual shows a woman\u2019s hand serving a roasted chicken\u2019s carcass. This is followed by a voiceover from a boy explaining his favourite thing is watching his father eat a \u201cjuicy steak\u201d. This communicates a subtle message \u2013 girls aspire to prepare and serve cooked animals and sons aspire to share the adult male pleasure of consuming those animals.<\/p>\n<p>Is that \u201clikely to cause harm\u201d? Obviously consuming animal products is harmful to the animals \u2013 but it harms humans too, especially women. This isn\u2019t just about reinforcing gender stereotypes, like in the Aldi advert. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/j.ctt14bt0z5\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Research has shown<\/a> that some married women are deterred from vegetarianism because of the disapproval, rejection and even violence from their husbands. But are boys also being harmed by these stereotypes? Certainly insofar as they are encouraged to identify with a version of masculinity that depends on power over women and over other animals.<\/p>\n<p>We have argued <a href=\"https:\/\/academic.oup.com\/isle\/article-abstract\/24\/4\/767\/4795356?redirectedFrom=fulltext\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">elsewhere<\/a> and here that \u201chumour\u201d is a defensive response that attempts to insulate oppressive power relations from critique. But we should remain alert to the potency and power dynamics of jokes in advertising.<\/p>\n<h2><\/h2>\n<h2>Just a bit of fun?<\/h2>\n<p>Like many adverts, Cravendale\u2019s \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/t4Xt_XS9BJA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Milk Me Brian<\/a>\u201d uses comedic armour to deflect criticism of its gender stereotypes. It features a spoof origin myth of the human consumption of cows\u2019 milk. The advert begins with a modern man gazing through a kitchen window at a field of contented-looking cows, while a woman is busy with housework in the background. \u201cBrian\u201d daydreams a bygone version of himself \u2013 lying beside a sleeping woman and being visited by a spectral cow inviting him to \u201cmilk me Brian\u201d. The voiceover then heralds Brian as a \u201clion among men\u201d, for having solved the \u201cproblem\u201d of expropriating cows\u2019 milk for human consumption.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/t4Xt_XS9BJA?wmode=transparent&amp;start=0\" width=\"440\" height=\"260\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\u201cMilk me Brian\u201d naturalises male dominance as resulting from controlling female reproductive processes. That is, Brian is lionised for successfully milking a cow. <a href=\"https:\/\/freefromharm.org\/animal-products-and-culture\/how-we-teach-children-a-separate-morality-for-food-animals\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Comparing men to lions<\/a> in particular, is a common tactic for normalising rigid and immutable hierarchical social relations. This is because patriarchal cultural meanings tend to associate masculinity with charismatic carnivorous animals, who are used to symbolise masculine power and authority.<\/p>\n<p>Cultural Studies researcher <a href=\"https:\/\/brill.com\/view\/book\/edcoll\/9789004325852\/B9789004325852_006.xml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Vasile Stanescu<\/a> wrote in 2016 about the highly successful 2008 Burger King campaign \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/xWDkC3HXG64\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Whopper Virgins<\/a>\u201d. It featured \u201cblind\u201d taste testing by people in countries who had been \u201cdeprived\u201d of American fast food. The campaign used the tag line: \u201cReal locations. Real burgers. Real virgins.\u201d These adverts play into shared understandings of links between meat eating, gender and western superiority. Here, lack of familiarity with Western fast food is equated with sexual immaturity (\u201cvirgins\u201d) and inferior masculinity.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/QP5pWBz8zyo?wmode=transparent&amp;start=0\" width=\"440\" height=\"260\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h2><\/h2>\n<h2>The male appetite<\/h2>\n<p>Feminist scholar <a href=\"https:\/\/caroljadams.com\/spom-the-book\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Carol J Adams<\/a> has written about connections between gender and animal products for 30 years. Her work illustrates the symbolic links between the consumption of meat and the oppression of of meat and the oppression of women \u2013 and the way that adverts are never only promoting products, but also promoting dominant cultural meanings.<\/p>\n<p>Foremost among these are gender stereotypes that harm women and harm non-human animals. The packaging of dead flesh and female flesh have long been connected in advertising. Adams has collected a <a href=\"https:\/\/caroljadams.com\/examples-of-spom\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">massive archive<\/a> of advertising imagery in which both meat and women are presented as wanting to be ravished\/consumed.<\/p>\n<p>In advertising images such as \u201cChick It Out\u201d, which advertised a new menu at a self-styled \u201ceatery and funhouse\u201d in Nottingham in the Midlands, anthropomorphic images of animals as human women are presented in sexually provocative ways. They position both women and animals as purposed for the enjoyment of appropriate male appetites for food, sex and power. Eating and fun, therefore, at this venue (and many others using similar imagery) is aimed at the straight male meat eater and, by association, communicates this space as a place for men.<\/p>\n<p>If the advertising watchdog really wants to remove harmful gender stereotypes, it needs to recognise and address how the invitation to consume any bodies as objects for enjoyment reinforces these destructive power relations and objectifies both animals and women.<!-- Below is The Conversation's page counter tag. Please DO NOT REMOVE. --><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important; text-shadow: none !important;\" src=\"https:\/\/counter.theconversation.com\/content\/119004\/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic\" alt=\"The Conversation\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" \/><!-- End of code. If you don't see any code above, please get new code from the Advanced tab after you click the republish button. The page counter does not collect any personal data. More info: http:\/\/theconversation.com\/republishing-guidelines --><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/profiles\/kate-stewart-267718\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kate Stewart<\/a>, Principal Lecturer in Sociology, <em><a href=\"http:\/\/theconversation.com\/institutions\/nottingham-trent-university-1338\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Nottingham Trent University<\/a><\/em> and <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/profiles\/matthew-cole-357630\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Matthew Cole<\/a>, Lecturer in Sociology, <em><a href=\"http:\/\/theconversation.com\/institutions\/the-open-university-748\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Open University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p>This article is republished from <a href=\"http:\/\/theconversation.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/meat-is-masculine-how-food-advertising-perpetuates-harmful-gender-stereotypes-119004\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><em>Main image:\u00a0<span class=\"attribution\"><span class=\"source\">Odua Images via Shutterstock<\/span><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kate Stewart, Nottingham Trent University and Matthew Cole, The Open University The UK Advertising Standards Authority has introduced a new rule in its advertising code which bans adverts which feature gender stereotypes \u201cthat are likely to cause harm, or serious or widespread offence\u201d. This is a welcome step towards challenging the everyday normality of patriarchy [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":13255,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[869,1525,2066,2200,2346],"class_list":["post-13251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-social-sciences","tag-fass","tag-news-home","tag-sociology","tag-the-conversation","tag-vegan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13251\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}