“Girl Dinners” vs “Husband Meals” Are What’s Wrong With Society’s Attitudes Towards Food and Gender
<p>“You eat like a boy.”</p>
<p>So went the so-called burn by someone to me once as I stuffed my gob with all the food I could find on the heaving table of delights at a Christmas party.</p>
<p>Chicken wings. Mac and cheese. Jalapeño poppers.</p>
<p>I ate it all.</p>
<p>According to the internet, that’s not very <em>ladylike</em> of me. Because what I ate there sounds a lot like what has been dubbed a <a href="https://www.gq.com/story/husband-meal-girl-dinner" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank"><strong>Husband Meal</strong></a><strong>.</strong></p>
<p>According to GQ, a Husband Meal is <a href="https://www.gq.com/story/husband-meal-girl-dinner" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">normally huge</a> (whole pizzas, three people’s worth of Chinese food) or <a href="https://www.gq.com/story/husband-meal-girl-dinner" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">long and complicated</a> (three-day marinated BBQ steaks) and only eaten by men when their spouses are out of town.</p>
<p>I, as a woman, however, should be more interested in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/08/style/girl-dinner.html" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank"><strong>Girl Dinner</strong></a> — picky bits of stuff from the fridge plated up and consumed with a “naughty” (spare me) glass of wine.</p>
<p>You can package this whole thing up however you like, but all I see is that food is <em>still</em> being used as a gendered weapon. That we are still imposing what it is to be a woman and what it is to be man through what we stuff in our faces.</p>
<p>That we are supposed to like different things from each other.</p>
<p>That we pretend what we choose to eat is our choice, and not influenced by societal norms.</p>
<p><a href="https://medium.com/bitchy/girl-dinners-vs-fc62dc943a17"><strong>Learn More</strong></a></p>