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MARGARET RANDALL

ORDERED DEPORTED

LA
Ida Applebroog, Patsy Beckert,
Lyn Blumenthal, Joan Braderman,
Cynthia Carr, Lenora Champagne,
Margaret Randall is a poet who has contributed frequently to
Heresies and to leading literary and political journals. Unaware
of the consequences she would suffer later, she gave up her
American citizenship in the 1960s and applied for Mexican
citizenship so she could live and work in Mexico while raising her
children. She spent fifteen years there and lived in Cuba and

Nicaragua as well before returning to the U.S. Throughout her
writing career she has expressed views on racism, sexism, and
foreign policy that the Reagan administration finds inimical to its
policies. A few years ago she came back to the United States to
be with her family and to teach at the University of New Mexico
in Albuquerque, at which time she tried to reassume her US

citizenship. On August 28, 1986, Immigration Judge Martin
Spiegel ruled that Margaret Randall would not be permitted to
remain in the U.S. because, in his judgment, her writings advocate the economic, international, and government doctrines of
world communism.” This charge is a statutory basis for exclusion
under the McCarran-Walter Act, passed in 1952 at the height of
the McCarthy era. Judge Spiegel gave Randall until December 1,
1986 to leave the country. In February 1987, an appeal of his

decision was made to the Board of Immigration, and her case is
also being brought before a Federal District Court. Joining her as
plaintiffs in the federal case are the PEN American Center and

several prominent writers, including Kurt Vonnegut and Alice
Walker. Margaret Randall is permitted to remain in this country

Mary Beth Edelson, Sandra De Sando,
Su Friedrich, Janet Froelich,
Vanalyne Green, Harmony Hammond,
Sue Heinemann, Lyn Hughes,
Joyce Kozloff, Arlene Ladden,
Ellen Lanyon, Nicky Lindeman,
Melissa Meyer, Marty Pottenger,
Carrie Rickey, Elizabeth Sacre,
Miriam Schapiro, Amy Sillman,
Joan Snyder, Elke Solomon,
Pat Steir, May Stevens,
Michelle Stuart, Susana Torre,
Cecilia Vicuña, Elizabeth Weatherford,
Sally Webster, Nina Yankowitz,
Holly Zox

LANA
Vivian E. Browne
Ada Ciniglio
Elaine Lustig Cohen
Eleanor Munro
Linda Nochlin
Barbara Quinn

pending the appeal decision, expected some time in April. Funds

Jane Rubin

are urgently needed to fight this case. Donations should be made

Ann Sperry
Rose Well

to the Margaret Randall Defense Committee, 123 Yale SE,
Albuquerque, NM 87106, or to the Center for Constitutional
Rights, 666 Broadway, 7th floor, New York, NY 10012:

SPECIAL DONATIONS The Heresies Collective is grateful

We are also very grateful to the excellent organizers and

to all our contributors. We want to especially thank these

producers of our inspiring benefit performance night on

contributors of $25 and more: Catherine Hillenbrand, Joyce

December 12, 1986: Jerri Allyn (who ran the show), Marty

Kozloff, Vivien Leone, Louise McCagg, Norma Munn, Jim
Murray, Anne Pitrone, and May Stevens.

Pottenger (who helped her run the show), and Lori Seid
(who made sure all the machines picked up their cues).

Heresies: A Feminist Publication on Art & Politics is published two times a

This publication is made possible, in part, with public funds from the

year by Heresies Collective, Inc., c/o Foundation for the Community of Art-

New York State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the

ists, 280 Broadway, Suite 412, New York, NY 10007. Subscription rates:

Arts. Additional funds provided by New York Community Trust and Coor-

$15 for four issues, $24 for institutions. Outside the U.S. and Canada

dinating Council of Literary Magazines. Heresies is indexed by the Alter-

add $2 postage. Single copies: $5.50 each. Address all correspondence

native Press Centre, Box 7229, Baltimore, MD 21218. It is a member of

to: Heresies, PO Box 1306, Canal Street Station, New York, NY 10013.
Heresies, ISSN 0146—3411. Vol. 6, No. 1, Issue 21.

COSMEP (Committee of Small Magazine Editors and Publishers), Box
703, San Francisco, CA 94101.

©1987, Heresies Collective, Inc. All rights reserved.

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EDITORIAL COLLECTIVE
Heresies is an idea-oriented journal devoted to the examination of
art and politics from a feminist perspective. We believe that what
is commonly called art can have a political impact and that in the
making of art and all cultural artifacts our identities as women play a

distinct role. We hope that Heresies will stimulate dialogue around
radical political and aesthetic theory, as well as generate new creative
energies among women. It will be a place where diversity can be

Gail Bradney, Kathie Brown, Carrie Cooperider,
C. Palmer Fuller, Pennelope Goodfriend, Kay Kenny,

Ay

Bea Kreloff, Sondra Siegal

Sue Heinemann, Elizabeth Hess, Avis Lang

articulated. We are committed to broadening the definition and
function of art.

Heresies is published by a collective of feminists, some of whom
are also socialists, marxists, lesbian feminists, or anarchists; our fields
include painting, sculpture, writing, anthropology, literature, performance, art history, architecture, filmmaking, photography, and video.
While the themes of the individual issues will be determined by the

collective, each issue will have a different editorial staff, composed of
members of the mother collective and other women interested in
that theme. Heresies provides experience for women who work
editorially, in design, and in production. An open evaluation meeting

Kathie Brown, Carrie Cooperider, Kay Kenny, Bea Kreloff

LA

with a lot of help from Robin Michals

Kathie Brown and Morgan Gwenwald

PRODUCTION
Bendel Hydes, Gail Bradney, C.C. Kinsman, Robin Michals
Thanks to all our proofreading volunteers!

will be held after the appearance of each issue. Heresies will try to be
accountable to and in touch with the international feminist community.

As women, we are aware that historically the connections between
our lives, our arts, and our ideas have been suppressed. Once these
connections are clarified, they can function as a means to dissolve `
the alienation between artist and audience, and to understand the
relationship between art and politics, work and workers. As a step
toward the demystification of art, we reject the standard relationship
of criticism to art within the present system, which has often become
the relationship of advertiser to product. We will not advertise a new

set of genius-products just because they are made by women. We are
not committed to any particular style or aesthetic, nor to the competitive mentality that pervades the art world. Our view of feminism is
one of process and change, and we feel that in the process of this

dialogue we can foster a change in the meaning of art. :

AN3
Margaret Alario, Emma Amos, Gail Bradney, Kathie Brown,
Josely Carvalho, Chris Costan, C. Palmer Fuller, Day Gleeson,
Michele Godwin, Pennelope Goodfriend,:Kathy Grove,
Elizabeth Hess, Kay Kenny, Avis Lang, Ley R. Lißpàrd,
Robin Michals, Sabra Moore, Carrie Moyer, Linda Pger,
Ellen Rumm, Carol Sun, Faith Wilding

Sa
Kay Kenny, Merle Temkin

ISSUE, 21

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The editorial collective for HERESIES 20
would like to note two corrections to that
issue: the photo on page 60 of the article

UPCOMING ISSUES on Greenham Common should have been

credited to Joanne O'Brien; Jenny Dixon is

the current, not the former, director of the

I MESA I Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.
Feminism has redefined traditional notions of community, generated new communities,

and continues to question the limitation of the art community as it stands. We'd like to ANSY SANSI
know about public, collaborative, and performance art that takes place in a geographic
community, such as a neighborhood, as well as work generated by any community of What is feminist art? The 10th Anniversary
alternative voices. We invite work that challenges the art market's categories Of pro- collective is soliciting page art and cartoons
fessional and nonprofessional, consumer and producer, public and private, from a on this subject. Surprise award for the best

women's point Of View. definition of feminist art. Submit to Here-

sies by July 1, 1987 (address below).

H E MYTH-EDUCATED WOMAN
Aging exemplifies change— the deepest form of radical process. We leave behind, but How has school changed your life? Why do
we also arrive. We come of age in unexpected ways, repeatedly, not only individually, but so many women study art (and so many
communally and culturally. Between the generations there are alliances, conflicts, and men end up showing, publishing, performall forms of objectification. As individuals, we come of age physically, psychologically, ing? Do you have to go to school to make
politically, with the birth of a child, the death of a parent, the enlightenment of exper- it? What's it like being the only woman
lence, the shedding of beliefs. What are the joys and anxieties of each phase of our teacher, student, married woman, mother

coming of age? in your class? Did you ever have an influential woman professor? What about educa-

GUIDELINES FOR CONTRIBUTORS

tion in general?

Each issue of HERESIES has a specific theme and all material submitted Ba
to a particular issue must relate to its theme. Manuscripts should be
typed double-spaced and submitted in duplicate. Visual material
should be submitted in the form of a slide, xerox, or photograph with addressed envelope in order for it to be returned. We do not publish
title, medium, and date noted; however, HERESIES must have a black- reviews or monographs on contemporary women. We do not comand-white photograph or equivalent to publish the work. We willnot mission articles and cannot guarantee acceptance of submitted
be responsible for original art. Those submitting either written or visual material. HERESIES pays a small fee for published material. Send
material must accompany their contribution with a two or three line all submissions to: HERESIES, PO Box 1306, Canal Street Station,
biography. All material must be accompanied by a stamped, self- New York, NY 10013.

NEW TRUTHS BEGIN AS SUBSCRIBE! Please enter my subscription for:

HE R ESI ES Four issues D $15
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PoL'7105. SVBSCAIBE AOW AD You'Li GET

FOUR ISSUES FOR THE PRICE OF THREE! H 9-Women Organized/Divided O 14- Women’s Pages

OE O 10-Women and Music D 15-Racism Is the Issue

I 11- Women and Architecture D 16-Film/Video/Media
D 13-Feminism and Ecology O 17-Acting Up (Performance)

1 18/19-DOUBLE ISSUE at $8 each: Mothers, Mags & Movie Stars/Satire
D 20-Women & Activism
Please send me copies of the Great Goddess Reprint at $8 each.
Includedisatax-deductible contribution: [J $10 [1 $50 [$100 L] other
Payment must accompany order. Make checks payable to HERESIES. Outside the U.S. and Canada,
please add $2 per four issues for postage. All foreign checks must be drawn on a New York bank.

CITY/ST/ZIP

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PO Box 1306 • Canal Street Station ° New York; New York 10013

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Food fòr
TP hought

exchange a child discovers.

subject to her husband's.

tions as a woman popping out of a cake

The Adam and Eve story symbolizes

reward within families (eat your spinach

what has happened to women on a`larger

or you won't get dessert), on a larger

at a stag party. Being viewed as succulent,

scale. Meeting women’s needs is now con-

scale, food policies are used as potent

tingent on the will of patriarchal religious

political weapons between and within

juicy and luscious has affected how we see
ourselves. In the last two decades or so,

and economic powers; these powers have

nations. In the third world, women do

our packaging has changed somewhat,
but women are still seen as commodities.

stepped into the role of husband to make

more than consume food; they also pro-

decisions affecting our own, and our chil-

duce the majority of the food in those

Now, especially in affluent cultures, to be

dren's, well-being. The loss of women’s in-

countries. Yet these women have little

thin (read ideal’) is to be desirable.

dependence has had far-reaching effects.

control over its distribution and are thus

Wonen are still expected to provide
and/or prepare the family’s food'even
though we're not given the resources and
power to do so on our own. And industrialists and advertisers prey on women by

body size. Through our refusal or over-

lack of power. Traditionally the last to eat,

consumption of food, women get caught

third world women get the least food, or

in cycles of meeting or defying societal

are prohibited through food taboos from

standards. Anorexia, bulimia, and overeat-

eating some of the most desirable (and

ing are reactions to political situations that

nutritious) foods.

have become trivialized as personal ones.
Our striving to conform to the ideal body

offering us food that is more visually appealing, but less nutritious, giving us a
false sense that we have options. The
many foods available on the market divert
women's attention away from how very
little real, significant choice we have about
our lives, about our world.

Hence, many of us are obsessed with our

impoverished as a direct result of their

size diverts women’s attention, energy,
T with less power come to be

and thinking away from considering social

viewed as somehow less than human.

and political action.

The predominant male attitude toward
women is that we are objects, just like
other products. In the not-too-distant

Cio to each of these issues is how

past, women were seen as something to

food and feeding are manipulated by

be devoured, which is apparent in male

others and how women’s power to nur-

Avworens body and her relationship to

cannibalistic language —the analogous

ture has been taken out.of our hands.

food is a paradigm for the use and con-

use of such words as tomato, peach and

These are personal and political concerns.

trol of food in the. world. Just as food, a

cupcake to describe women and the met-

powerful tool, is used as'punishment or

aphorical meanings behind such tradi-

For women, issues relating to food can
and must fuel feminist sensibilities. ®
— GB for the Heresies 21 collective

3 D

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by Bea Kreloff

Born september 11, 1925 brooklyn new york weight 12 pounds
a gorgeous baby round dimples creases fat adorable cuddly
desirable admired fat
Age 6 they? keep telling momma don t worry celia its only baby fat
she Il grow out of it eleanor my younger sister is little
and skinny a lousy eater i help my mother amuse and coerce her to
eat all the foods i wasn t allowed
potato kugel noodles knishes ice cream malteds cookies candy
when momma isn t looking i sneak the food off her plate
she doesn t snitch as
number one she is afraid of her big fat sister and g
number two it means she doesn t have to eat it
i hate her

god i love to eat
momma puts me on a diet as i enter first grade
Age 10 fat fat the water rat
fifty bullets in your hat
my first girdle with steel bones
i Il show them
i m the best artist i have the best handwriting
i have a fresh mouth and i talk all the time
i m funny and i can dance like a gazelle
fat people are light on their feet
i get C in conduct and have to sit in the boys section
for the rest of the term
i am dark and greasy looking and my hair is oily and hangs
like straight wet noodles no fat juicy curls like shirley temple
my uncle louie says i bring down real estate values when i
go out to play
i am still fat

Age 13 i march on brighton beach avenue the girdle making holes in
my waistline shouting we must not go to war we must not play
into the capitalists hands not even against hitler
my parents are hysterical
the party advocates free love i don t have anyone to try it
with no one wants me even for free because
i am fat

poppa is a coat and suit designer disappointed that i can t wear
a sample size somewhat resigned he makes big clothes to order
for me momma is sure i will never get married
i am too fat
look how lucky you are you have such a god given talent
she says trying to soften the prediction as i spend every
weekend painting because i don t have any dates i take my
friend frances who is seventeen five feet tall and 110 pounds
to the movies for the kids under twelve price she needs an
adult to get into the movies as a minor and i look like i
could be her mother
Age 16 mrs avery my english teacher invites me to tea at her house
on gramercy park says bea you are going to be such a handsome
woman at thirty five
shit what about now i don t care what i Il look like then i Il
be old i want to be a pretty young slim thing it Il never happen
nobody will love me nobody loves
a fat girl

4

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loves him she makes all the fattening foods
she shouldn t eat poppa shouldn t eat geshie my brother shouldn t
eat and i shouldn t eat
we are all fat

except eleanor the fink
i marry bernie the following year because momma is in love
with him and i m in love with momma he loves both of us he s
got two fat mommas
i lost 25 pounds for my wedding my gown didn t fit when i bought
it i barely get into it on my wedding day
i don t want to get married
but i m afraid to disappoint momma momma momma dies
six months after i get married
i eat and eat and i m fatter than i have ever been
i am twenty years old i weigh 235 pounds my life is over

geshie eleanor and berîe playing momma poppa call me
celia most of the time and i learn to cook like momma
real good gefilte fish borscht chicken soup with knadlach
potato kugel blintzes a good jewish housewife
geshie commits himself to creedmoor trying to retreat from
pain and life to withdrawal
he s very fat

i ve got to get out of my mother s house
i eat and stay fat

long island i m pregnant but i m not moving out of
brooklyn i feel great a real woman my
fat acceptable in pregnancy
i m painting again
its a boy

the euphoria dies now i m really locked in in my body
in motherhood between chores i cook great meals feeding
my frustration depression and boredom
i m getting fatter

school politics civil rights stirrings predicting
movement and change
i don t stop eating i don t lose weight
i visit geshie every other week at creedmoor and i think
maybe we should have adjoining rooms

counsellor in obsessive love with the drama counsellor
she has two boys too and is fat we are inseparable
for six years neither one of us leaves home or husbands
or children we diet together at weight watchers
i lose 80 pounds and my lover to another woman
in therapy i find out rita was me and i was momma
being to her what i wanted momma to be for me i start
to paint again no more big important abstract expressionism
instead lots of alienated despairing people we bus in the
kids from bed stuy to p s 119 in flatbush and start block
busting the neighborhood

5)

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AMERI
Age42 alone in europe for two months i leave the boys in camp
leave bernie the first time on a plane the first time really
alone they invented europe just so i could be here now
nobody knew i was bernie s wife elliot and charles mother
poppa s daughter rita s ex lover momma s daughter painter
housewife i could be anybody and
not very fat

i come home reluctantly and start marching without the
steel boned girdle against the vietnam war changed
Age45 bernie overhears me talking to my lover on the phone
tells elliot about me andi tell bernie to leave
free at last momma i did it for you and it s taken twenty
five years and tons of food i live in greenwich village
fat again and happy
Age 49 momma died at Age 50 being with bernice is like being with
bernie still the jewish housewife and mother if i stay i
will die at 50 like momma my friend jimmy says that
bernice and i look like bookends two fat middle aged
ladies feeding our faces bernice tries to teach me not
to care so much about how i look
in love with a stunning feminist doctor i think hey
momma you always wanted your daughter to marry a
jewish doctor feminism is taking hold
my conversion is absolute being fat is no disgrace and
women are changing the world
Age 55 istop painting teaching art in a private high school
the only faculty member with no undergraduate degrees
head of the department lots of instant gratification
poppa is dead eleanor has two daughters geshie commits
suicide the ultimate withdrawal my son charles is loving
and caring my son elliot is lost
i live with a wonderful beautiful woman painter who eats
a lot and stays slim remember slim svelte willowy i have
to be dead six months before i d be slim svelte willowy
six years of fat consciousness and six years of feminist
consciousness shifting off my fat focus center not totally
i don t stop eating
Age 60 im alive ten years longer than momma every day is a gift
the celebration by my two thousand friends and their
friends at the limelight is a benefit for kitchen table women
of color press it s a blast
the fat is so integrated i work around it and look fine
people who get to know`me always think i ve lost weight
they ve gotten past my bulk to me
i can live with who i am the skinny blond blue eyed
long legged elegant wasp no longer lives inside struggling
to get out she s gone rendered down in years of chicken
soup and radical politics
momma i miss you look at me now my fat is you a warm
protective coating keeping you with me always
i m alive happier than i ve ever been
soim fat
Bea Kreloff writes: “I figure painting for
myself for 40 years is enough; now I make
art with whatever happens to me.

6

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e AFVN
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BAWN cick ON hish , ,

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Martha Edelheit, A.B. Cockless Talkbook, ink and watercolor on ricepaper.
Martha Edelheit is a painter, sculptor, and filmmaker. She lives and works in NYC.

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»
1

s

QUESTION THE TYRANNY OF SLENDERNESS ”

SAN

The beauty ideal uses and exploits the female body for
men’s profit and entertainment. Our culture's standard
of beauty is a myth and a lie and encourages weight
slavery. It perpetuates the not-so-pretty side of the ob` session with slenderness: binging, vomiting, starvation;

amphetamine, diuretic, and laxative addiction.

Ann Simonton
ın Bologna Dress

The Myth California Pageant is drawing attention to the unreal and artificial sexist images of women. The
sweet, white all-American tradition,
as represented in the Miss California
Pageant, is not an accurate reflection
of our true diversity. The Miss California contest reinforces the objectification of women, making the rapist
mentality in our culture possible and
permissible. It is our belief that this
beauty pageant blatently perpetuates the myth of women as passive
sexual objects.
The Miss California Pageant family continues to deny that this is
actually a beauty contest. They claim
instead that it is a scholarship foundation. If it is, where are the women
over 25 years old? Where are the
women of color? The physically
disabled women? Women who do
not have ideal measurements, the
Clairol hair, or Maybelline eyes? Are
these women not worthy of a
“scholarship?”

Nikki Craftisa politicalactivistusing nudity, art and
civil disobedience to confront issues of women’s
rights. Currently living in Oshkosh, WI, she travels
the country urging women to break laws that dis-

(ilule SE Ela Nae EA

remains incorrigible and unrehabilitated.

Nikki Craft with Policeman

8

nA

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By MATT SPEISER
As a 300-pound woman dressed in
a shocking pink bikini cheered on
a crowd of protesters outside, a 24-

tion on adjacent Church Street. As
the tuxedoed and gowned participants arrived for the pageant, nearly

year-old blonde from West Los An-

1,000 protesters lined the street,

geles was named Miss California

chanting “No more profits off of wo-

Monday night before a sequined
audience at the Santa Cruz Civic
auditorium.
In addition to the naming of Donna

Grace Cherry as the state’s entrant

men’s bodies.” :
While the festivities inside the au-

ditorium were televised throughout
the state, none of the activities of the

protesters made the airwaves. Even

to the Miss America pageant, Deirdre Hamilton, Miss Tulare, was de-

when three demonstrators jumped

clared the first runner-up. They will

sion of the event, the television cam-

receive $6,000 and $2,500 scholar-

eras turned the other way and the

ships, respectively.
The crowning of Miss California,

on the Civic’s stage near the conclu-

show was quickly concluded.
Three men, dressed in the accept-

however, was partially upstaged

able attire of the evening, jumped on

Monday by the activities of feminist

the stage just as Miss Cherry was

protesters outside, who held their

being crowned and yelled, “Men Re-

annual Myth California demonstra-

sist Sexism.” After participants on
stage realized what was happening, the trio was escorted
off stage. The television producers were quicker on the
draw, immediately pulling their
cameras back when the commotion

PHOTO: DON FUKUDA

said. “We’re saying intelligent and
creative people come in all sizes and
shapes. That’s the point of my bikini
—to show people that I radiate self-

have been referred to the district

assurance and self-respect.”
The demonstration also featured

attorney’s office for possible pro-

the Berkeley group Ladies Against

secution.

Women, a four-member satirical tribe

began. The names of the three men

One arrest came from the evening’s events. A woman who tried
to enter the contest without a tick-

et was arrested for trespassing.

dressed in excessively traditional
garb. They sarcastically call for a return to “American values.”
“If God hadn’t wanted women to

The annual feminist protests have

look like Barbie dolls, he wouldn’t

been growing in size and intensity

have given us padded bras and cos-

since their inception four years ago.

metic surgery,” said one.

woman dressed in 35 pounds of cold

At times the camp dress of the
demonstrators was so close to the

cuts, sashed “Miss Steak,” who

fashions they were mimicking, it was

said, “judge meat, not women.” In

difficult to tell the protesters and

1983, women shackled by bathroom

pageant participants apart.

In 1982, the protest featured a

scales leaped through hula hoops

The participants, however, were

labeled Beauty Obedience School.

the ones with the long faces. Most

This year the centerpiece of a
three-vehicle parade was the striking profile of 32-year-old Susan
Dubin, who sat atop a convertible
wearing a size 54 pink bikini. She
¥ is founder of the Santa Cruz-Mon` _ terey Bay chapter of the National
Association to Aid Fat Americans.
“Americans have this cultural obsession with weight,” Ms. Dubin

of those arriving for the pageant
seemed stunned and disgusted by the
protesters.
One booster of Miss Tulare described the protesters as “slums of
the earth.”

Ervin Schapansky said, “This pageant is 63 years old. If there were
something wrong with it, it wouldn’t
be here.”

PHOTO: KURT ELLISO

Susan Dubin

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The men had succeeded in spearing and killing a kangaroo.

hind with the older children. The women hunted for plants

They were out in a men’s hunting group, a trek they made

and small animals in the scrubby forest and by the stream.

nearly every day. Two of them dug a hole and lit a fire; the

They dug up wild yams, roots, and rhizomes to take back to

kangaroo was singed to remove its fur and gutted, its organ fat

camp but picked ripe figs for themselves when they found a

eaten up on the spot, and the carcass cooked whole in the pit

ready tree. One of the women spotted a bandicoot and pinned

oven for almost an hour. The liver that all relished was eaten

it inside a fallen hollow log. They teased it out with prodding

first. Then the men divided up the kangaroo among them-

sticks. It tried to escape, but W. caught its tail as it went past

selves according to the rules: the hind legs one by one, the

and smashed its head against a tree. They cooked it only after

mammary glands, the tail, the undigested grass in the stom-

they got back to camp. It was a lucky day.

ach, two slabs of ribs with vertabrae, the front legs; the successful hunter Namjikwara was given his prize, the head and

When the men finally arrived home, their wives greeted

neck. The men ate the entire kangaroo and rested until dark,

them with the plant food they'd gathered and cooked that day,

when they began to dance and sing.

but the men were no longer very hungry. The men would have

The women were out together that day as always, at least
those women were whose babies were old enough to leave be-

given the little that was left of the kangaroo to the women and
children—if there'd been any left.

THINKING ABOUT FOOD PROHIBITIONS / by KATHIE BROWN
THOSE ABORIGINAL WOMEN lagged behind the men of

linked to some cosmic punishment), it may still reserve the

their band in weight for height; a 5' woman weighed, on

culture's favorite food for men. Men and women may eat sep-

average, 89 pounds. Once they began to lactate on the birth

arately, which abets an unequal allotment of favored foods.

of their first baby, going from an underfed childhood to moth-

Such taboos, anthropologist Caroline Humphrey writes,

erhood between 15 and 17, the women gave milk almost un-

"...do not mean that women appear socially paralyzed in ev-

ceasingly—either pregnant and nursing or just nursing. So they

eryday life. To the casual observer it would be difficult to tell

were old women by 35 and no longer bore children. Their

that the prohibitions exist, and s/he might simply note that

flesh, the belly and breast, hung in sagging folds with little
subcutaneous fat tissue to bind it to the muscle.

women seem to have their own way of doing things. ..….If one

Yet, in the value of their contribution to the band’s subsis-

act is forbidden, people do something else.”?
Food taboos are allied to fears of pollution, to men’s anxi-

tence, the women were as important as the men. The aborigi-

ety that women’s unclean ritual state will infect the food the

nal Australians divided the world of food into two domains,

women cook for their male relatives. Women are especially

animal food (kuka)—identified with the spiritual—and'’ plant

dangerous during their menstrual periods, which let loose the

food (mirka, which included insects and some small animals)

double contagions of infertility and blood.

—identified with the physical. The classes kuka and mirka were

In small-scale societies, these food taboos often appear in

assigned to men and women, respectively, and both realms

concert with totemic, or clan, systems. The clan's relationship

were judged necessary to life. However, the men benefited

to the totemic plant or animal varies; clan members may have

more from their half of the world; they could claim a share of

a duty to eat it ritually (although never day to day), they may

the women's gathering, which yielded a steady and predictable

be forbidden to eat it, or blood members may eat the totemic

supply, but weren't obligated to give the women an equal

food themselves but forbid it to exogamous husbands or wives.”

share of their more haphazardly won hunting catches.

The whole society often holds the clan responsible for the abun-

This pattern, of women and children being the last fed, of
food prohibitions, of men monopolizing animal protein sources,
is found all over the world. And, if a group has not formulated
outright taboos (which may be loosely defined as prohibitions

4 10

dance of the clan's totemic animal or plant and views food
taboos as vital to insuring a plentiful supply for all.
The question that the commonness of food prohibitions
poses for feminists is why so many societies reserve less food

HERESIES 21

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for women than for men. And, by extension, why wives must

avoidance is pork's prohibition to Jews and Moslems; thinkers

eat after their husbands and male relatives. Why is a woman

since Maimonides have asked, isn't this just a recognition that

deprived, considering that her need for nourishment is so great,

pigs carry disease, are unclean? This hypothesis can be criti-

with a baby to nurse and another in the womb, over and over,

cized in many ways: the Abominations of Leviticus, the key

until her body is literally eaten up? These aspects of women’s

Jewish text, mentions many forbidden foods as various as cam-

half-lives leave us with the same numbing puzzlement that

els, hyrax, rock badgers, eagles, and snakes; trichinosis was

racism leaves in the minds of people of color: why us? What

not really diagnosed as a disease until the nineteenth century

about us matters so much?

because of its variable expression; other domestic animals, in-

These pointedly feminist questions are complicated by the

cluding cattle and sheep, carry dangerous parasites and dis-

mystery of food avoidances in general, by examples of a peo-

eases; and trichinosis parasites are killed by most cooking

ple's preferences leading to starvation—in Bengal, in 1943,

techniques.”

great numbers died because they would not accept imported

Food prohibitions aimed only at women are even harder

wheat as a substitute for the failed rice crop.? Why do appetite

to justify as folk knowledge, because there are no “facts”

and taste exist at all if they can be so life-threatening? There is

that lend a scientific air to such rules in the way that the pig's

an “ideology of food” as there are ideologies of sex, death,
and social status.

frequent infestations seem to support banning that food.

Food preferences and avoidances have a biological background; we know that other animals also prefer some foods
to others, avoid some nutritionally sound foods, and will starve

The most important fact in this case is that poor nutrition
contributes directly to infant and maternal death, and the
loss of wives and babies is not a social good. (But we
must separate the realities of mortality at birth and

rather than violate their taste preferences. Some say that's just

in infancy from female infanticide, which is aimed

“instinct,” despite the fact that animals can learn to love new

at killing a class of infants to “aid” the group.)

foods. Humans built on inherited taste preferences* —probably

A key question whenever an established prac-

for flesh, insects, and sweet fruit, if other primates are a

tice is explained as folk wisdom is whether the peo-

guide—to create social ideologies of taste. The technologies

ple who follow the practice recognize a connection

of gardening, cooking, and fermentation come out of this cul-

between two events—here, between food taboos and

tural process. Human food preferences, however, are not just

their possible outcome: lower birthweights, fragile ba-

matters of biologically inherited tastes. For instance, Nuer

bies, and higher maternal mortality. In Southeast Asia

pastoralists scorn wild animals, preferring to eat their cattle,

women do make a connection; they credit the food

although they live surrounded by easily hunted large game.

avoidances with giving them smaller babies and, thus,

People living in elaborate totemic systems, in which the totem

easier deliveries. But many of the smaller babies die,

animals are forbidden to the totem clans, see near neighbors

and surely the women must also recognize a connec-

in opposite clans relishing the very food they are never to eat.

tion between birthweight and survival. Surely their hus-

Three strands of socially based explanations have been used

bands, who also have a stake in their children’s survival,

to explore such questions. First, the materialist and functional-

would come to see a connection. Yet they take part in

ist thread, which says that food prohibitions represent unsys-

enforcing the taboos.

tematic, commonsense science or serve some overtly practical

Of course, folk science could be made up of what

purpose; second, the sociological or structuralist strand, which

we call "old wives” tales, which would relieve it of the

interprets the prohibitions as actors in a symbolic system or as

burden of being true. But then we're left with arbi-

symbols that demarcate or protect significant social bound-

trary rules and unexplained victims, with nothing to

aries; and, third, the socio-economic explanations, that believe

invoke but “ignorance,” “superstition,” and that whole

taboos are rationalizing or mediating symbols of socio-economic

strain of ethnocentrism. We would gain no insight into

realities.

why the penalties for breaking the rules are so harsh.

I have chosen not to explore psychoanalytic theories in this

Functionalist anthropological theories see all social

article because of the varying and particular content of food

practices as directly performing some action the soci-

prohibitions. To explain the choice of prohibitions in psychoan-

ety needs done. What could discriminatory food ta-

alytic terms would throw me into examining food taboos on a

boos be doing for a society except keeping some people

case-by-case basis; I would then have to explain how the uni-

fed at the expense of others’ hunger? In. light of the

versal” principles of psychic life had made their mark on a

fact that, in most of the world, women spend as many

cultural practice, had intruded into the social and economic

calories working as men do, taboos aren't working to

realms and become institutionalized. Food taboos may indeed

funnel food to those who most need it—although male

have a psychic background but seem to operate in the cultural

anthropologists have often made that case.

foreground to such an extent that I think they should be dealt
with as social products.
To be helpful, an explanation must tell us what functions

If taboos don't serve a simple practical purpose,
what do they do? The sociological explanations, which
look for the sources of culture in social structure, take

food taboos serve and why the prohibitions apply to some

us to a deeper level of existence—the place where

people and not to others. A materialist like myself wants to

subjects, objects, and the symbolic process interact.

find culture's sources in biology, ethnology, psychology, sociol-

From Durkheim to Levi-Strauss and Mary Douglas

ogy, or political economics—no conspiracies, no supernatural

runs a set of themes and variations on how people

agents. But that stipulation does not mean | have to confine

project pictures of their social structure onto reality.

my thinking to the functionalist level. Thoughts and symbols

The whole round of law, myth, ritual, clan, totem,

are, somehow, “real things” and instrumental in human life.

and taboo comes out of a group's picture of the

At the least, they persuade people to go along with situations
that are plainly unfair by embedding reality in ideology.
The medical materialist theory—that of commonsense
science—has been around for centuries. A paradigmatic food

universe; each element is one symbolic set in a
coherent intellectual structure, and each set
works out its meaning in concrete action.
Durkheim, one of the founders of this

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sociological anthropology, set out to understand the source of

of the family or clan; food taboos are produced by a totemic

religious feeling. He said that a social group formed an aware-

system to reinforce the marriage rules by stressing the ‘terms”of

ness of itself and its power, out of which flowed totem and

the system, the clan groups. Levi-Strauss says, “Both the ex-

taboo, explanatory myths and affirming rituals. The dangerous

change of women and the exchange of food are means of

powers of God were those of society itself and its punishments.

securing or of displaying the interlocking of social groups...”

Durkheim draws food taboos into the holy circle, where they

Levi-Strauss postulates that food taboos occur more often

act as acolytes of women’s social obligations, social strengths,

in matrilineal societies, in which the relative power of obliga-

and social weaknesses. The prohibitions mark the boundaries

tions to a husband's and wife's respective kin groups can be

of sacred and profane powers.
Structural anthropologists have likened cultural practices

ambiguous. The mother's kin group needs the reinforcement
that totemic food taboos can give. A patrilineal system usually

to “words” that are connected to one another by a formal

endows the father's kin group with a clearer dominant role

"grammar" of relationships derived from a people's construction of their universe. Certain habits of mind are embedded in

and greater enforcement power.

the structure of the human brain (cf. Chomsky’s idea of a gen-

of roles and rights, back to an origin in radical sociology—the

erative grammar®). Such abstruse theories don't give most of

original forming of human groups. Levi-Strauss, however, ac-

us the kinds of easy-to-master thinking tools that more con-

cepts as a given that men use women as exchange, and women

crete theories give us, but they cannot be dismissed on that

So Levi-Strauss pulls sexism, or at least the sexual division

do not have any control over men; that men’s control of mar-

basis. Perhaps the most influential of these theorists is

riage exchange is universal; and that the underlying opposi-

Claude Levi-Strauss, who thinks humans construct their

tion of women and men is as fundamental, and ancient, as the

pictures of the world out of oppositions, actual or sym-

discrimination of animal and human. He posits man as the

bolic, they find in many areas of life.
Levi-Strauss sees a basic opposition to be
of nature against culture; human cosmological theories are bent on understanding how

consumer, woman as the consumed, and feels that a metaphoric transformation makes societies pattern food exchange
after kinship—that is, female—exchange. (In this argument
he takes note of the widespread connection between sex and

we become people, not animals. From primi-

eating.) His assumption puts the subordination of women prior

tive” peoples’ acute observations of natural di-

to any of its expressions and asserts that the discriminating

versity comes the idea of meaningful differences

actions (food taboos, lack of property rights, etc.) are not implicated in creating the very idea they're said to be supporting

and of classification into groups or species. And
this classification of nature flows into the idea that

(women's inferior status). Levi-Strauss does not explain wom-

people's family groups have analogies to natural

en's peculiar human status as a commodity. One could agree

species—as animals can be given proper (species)

that by enmeshing people in a web of marriage obligations

names, groups of people can be differentiated from
one another by family or clan names.

social groups gain cohesion, but one would not point thereby
to the reasons women are exchanged and not men.

Totemic systems are elaborate mechanisms for

Mary Douglas, of a looser sociological school, agrees that

expressing this perception. “The differences between

social practices are figurative projections of social structure,

animals, which man can extract from nature and trans-

but does not necessarily agree with Levi-Strauss on their ori-

fer to culture ..… [abstractly as myths or more concretely

gins in innate thinking patterns. She feels that "natural sym-

as feathers, beaks, teeth] are adopted as emblems by

bols” represent social discriminations, standing for kin groups,

groups of men in order to do away with their own

women, men, clans, classes, professions, and the like. Every-

resemblances.” The two systems of human and natu-

thing in a particular human universe has a place, and things

ral classes are united by metaphoric connections; often,
the human classes interact with one another in the

out of place are dangerous. The human body is the intrinsic

same way their totemic emblems interact in nature.

food, menstrual fluid, semen, and other materials of life, be-

symbolic field; pollution and taboos are expressed in terms of

For instance, informal, so-called “joking” relationships

cause the life and form of a social group is so like the life and

among the Luapula in Africa cross clan lines according

form of an individual. An association initially metaphoric turns

to “natural” rules: the Leopard and Goat clans because

into something real—a marriage rule, a ritual, a house plan, a
classification of what is edible and what is not.

the leopards eat goats; the Mushroom and Anthill clans
because mushrooms grow on anthills; the Mush and
Goat clans because men like meat in their mush; the

In one of her many books, Douglas makes these interesting observations:

Iron clan jokes with all clans with animal names because
animals are killed by metal spears and bullets; and the

... I suggest that food is not likely to be polluting at all unless

Rain clan is superior to all because without it leopards,

the external boundaries of the social system are under pres-

goats, mushrooms —even mush and clay—would not

sure. ..… The analysis of ritual symbolism cannot begin until

exist. The concrete infrastructure of the group—just how

we recognize ritual as an attempt to create and maintain a

the group is divided into families—generates a concep-

particular culture, a particular set of assumptions by which

tual scheme —a system of named clans—that then takes

experience is controlled. ...

part in ordering the group's social relations.
A part of this conceptual scheme is embodied in the
society's marriage rules, which make sure that people
marry the right people in order to cement social relation-

A double moral standard is often applied to sexual offenses. In a patrilineal system of descent wives are the door
of entry to the group. ... Through the adultery of a wife im-

pure blood is introduced to the lineage. So the symbolism of

ships. Levi-Strauss proposes that women are used as units

the imperfect vessel weighs more heavily on the women than

of exchange between groups of men, most evidently in

on the men. ...

small-scale societies. In such groups food prohibitions

When male dominance is accepted as a central principle

follow family lines rather than being universally enforced.

of social organization and applied without inhibition and with

They are not independent cultural symbols on the order

full rights of physical coercion, beliefs in sex pollution are not

HERESIES 21

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Nancy Halvorsen is a visual artist living in California.

likely to be highly developed. On the other hand, when the
principle of male dominance is applied to the ordering of

the nature vs. culture paradigm of the anthropologists.)
I have been attracted by many of these sociological ideas

social life but is contradicted by other principles such as that

because they say things are not so simple as they appear. But

of female independence, ... then sex pollution is likely to

in researching this article I read this statement by Marvin Harris

flourish.'°

about how to change food preferences: “If foodways are largely
emanations of ignorant, religious, or symbolic thoughts, then

Douglas interprets food prohibitions in light of her formu-

it is what people think that needs to be changed. If, on the

lation of pollution: a symbolic something in the symbolically

other hand, what seem like harmful religious or symbolic

wrong position—matter out of place (in a women's mouth),

thoughts are actually themselves embodied in or constrained

women out of place. If Durkheim and others have put forward
social interpretations of what we know, Douglas works from
a social interpretation of what we perceive.
Other structuralists stress woman's ambiguous position be-

by practical circumstances surrounding the production and allocation of food resources, then it is these practical circumstances that need to be changed.” '' To a materialist, these
ideas are heady. For, although I can understand how ideas can

tween nature and culture; like nature, she is fertile in and of

get trapped in physical bodies, | can see even better how ne-

herself, but she is also the socializer of children and, as such, a

cessity can be rationalized and how social class can determine

cultural agent. She works many of the transformations of na-

ideology, here the ideology of food.
Harris ascribes food taboos to women's lessened economic

ture into culture—cooking, pottery, gardening—all the time
holding the seething pot of procreation and sexual freedom

contribution during pregnancy and says that the third-world

within herself, which must be controlled by marriage rules and

family has few choices in how it can distribute food to its mem-

allied practices like food taboos. As the mediators between
nature and culture, women are subject to more stringent rules
than men, who control but do not sustain culture.
Certain psychoanalysts, among them Jacques Lacan, bring
the identification of women and nature down to a deep psy-

bers. If the woman eats more, as she must during pregnancy,
who will eat less? Harris’ analysis puts economic reality at the
heart of food folkways. But, doing so, Harris flirts with dangers
also present in the theory of folkways as commonsense science. First, his materialist analysis reflects a society's economic

chic level and make language—the symbolic process—the so-

realities without being able to predict other things about the

cializing agent. Men are identified with the social law and its

society. Then, it suggests people are passive in the face of eco-

expression in language. Lacan can then give society its due as
the inventor of cultural content because he doesn’t tie specific

nomic hardship: “If I can't work when I'm pregnant and there's
not enough to go around, I won't eat as much,” rather than,

content to particular psychic events; the symbolic is an open,

“We have to find a way to get more food so | can eat now

creative process. (Lacan, however, still believes in the primacy

when | really need to.” Harris evaluates culture in terms of

of the child's struggle with ‘the Oedipus,” by which he means
the “phallus,” identified by the child with the father, not the

costs and benefits without analyzing the class relations that
create the poverty forcing hard choices on people.

biological phallus. This Oedipus is represented in the symbolic

Harris’ analysis has another weakness; his explanation of

process, the surrendering to language and the proper name

why women in particular are the focus of food prohibitions—

—thus, Lacan puts the father on the side of culture and the

within poor societies where all are hungry—is based on flawed

mother on the side of nature, in a psychoanalytic variation of

perceptions of women's contributions to family income. We

FOOD ISA FEMINIST ISSUE

13 D

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know that food taboos often carry over from pregnanqy to lacta-

being protected by the eating rules is in a society's eyes.

tion. Although some women may be less productive when preg-

The problem of who authorizes these practices and their

nant, they certainly aren't handicapped in the amount of work

‘enforcement has a historical dimension, since cultures are not

they can do by nursing. In fact, women in many areas of the

static. Many small-scale cultures have been profoundly affected

world spend large parts of their life pregnant or nursing —from

by colonialism and the on-going economic and cultural hege-

50%-80% of their time during their fertile decades'#—and

mony of former colonizers. It could be that food taboos against

still manage to raise a large percentage of the world's food.

women are relatively recent practices, not remnants of the past;

More interesting socio-economic analyses are those that

taboos may reflect women's loss of social power brought about

eyes, food prohibitions, although not actors in the economic

by imported’patriarchal attitudes.
The division of effort between male hunters and women

arena per se, are mediating symbols of economic control and

farmers may once have been an adaptive strategy of basically

contradictions. These mediating symbols help people grasp how

egalitarian societies (even if sexually stratified). Today, as envi-

address who controls production, labor, and surpluses. To some

unlike or contradictory things are like or compatible.
Bridget O'Laughlin investigated why the Mbum women of

ronments are attacked and game populations decline, the men’s
contributions to subsistence have become less crucial. This pro-

Tchad don't eat chicken or goat meat. She constructed her

cess coincides with women’s loss of land rights to patriarchal

analysis this way: 1) chickens. and goats are not kept for meat,

ownership systems and with breaks in the web of kinship obli-

but for sacrifices; 2) men control not only the rituals of sacri-

gations, which once gave women sources of support. Kinship

fice, but the chickens, goats, land, surplus:kin group labor (pat-

systems’are being eroded by the pressures of modernization

rilocal kin groups), and agricultural surplus, leaving women with

and by male migration to urban areas.

little power—although their productive contribution is approxi-

The question of whose authority institutes food taboos even-

mately equal to the men’s; 3) men also control the production

tually leads us back—as have most of the theories examined

of offspring through control of marriage and bridewealth; and,

here—to the profound problem of why sexual stratification

so, 4) women are symbolically aligned with the domestic ani-

and sexual inequality are so widespread. Although I have too
little space to explore the-

mals (chicken and goats),

ories of sexual inequality,

the sacrifice of which, like

I do want to raise the im-

women's childbearing,

portant question, “Is sexism real—a distinct kind

increases the group's
wealth and well-being.
Like doesn't eat like. (A

of unjust discrimination
—or an artifact of other

much abbreviated precis.)

social forces, such as the

Women's penalties for
transgressing the food

class struggle endemic in

prohibitions are sterility

third-world societies (or

and painful childbirth.
The Mbum know that

between the regions)?”
I think this question can

men can be sterile as well

be related to my ques-

but don't blame male’ste-

tions on food prohibitions

rility on a comparable

if we refer to it the nutri-

lapse in conduct. Wom-

tional deficits of women,

en, a form of wealth, are

which are aggravated by
food taboos, pollution

thought more prone to

fears, sex-biased discrim-

go astray and more vulnerable because so valuable. Ms. O'Laughlin writes, “The mar-

inations, religious status, and other bars to women's fair share

riage rule metaphorically stated as a food prohibition does not

of calories. Ininterviews with health workers in Africa, India,

describe a pattern of exchange of women but instead defines

North Africa, and elsewhere, it's evident that food taboos are

the underlying subordination of women`inherent in systems

not something from the primitive past but still operate in wom-

where women become relations between groups of men.'?”

en's everyday lives.'?

Arguments allied to O'Laughlin’s have been made`based

When one injustice, women’s peculiar nutritional status, is

on meat's being a unit of extradomestic exchange; meat, thus,

embedded in another injustice, widespread hunger and un-

is unlike what comes from a woman's garden, which is con-

equal access to what food there is, should that change our

sumed by the family itself. The outside exchange is made from

reaction to the discriminatory injustice to women? As femi-

a surplus controlled by men, owners of domesticated animals

nists, how do we sort out causes and allies? How do we feel if

and hunters of game. They use such exchanges to cement

the arguments for women’s liberation: are in; terms of eco-

relationships with other men and to promote marriages. This

nomic development and “augmenting the labor force for so-

theory has the merit of predicting both the currency of most

cial transformation” (i.e., women’s duty to have children) rather

food taboos—animal food—and who must obey them. Alice

than, or at the neglect of, our Western definitions of justice?

Schlegel, who has written of the division of labor as a source

Some women work on the premise that economic restruc-

of sexual stratification, expands on this: ‘Social power, as ex-

turing by itself will erase sexual inequalities—among which

pressed in relations of dominance and submission, is not a

are discriminatory access to food and the tools, education, and

relation of person to goods but rather a relation: of person to

credit to produce it. Others insist on mounting a parallel attack

person, for which goods may provide the material basis."

on sexism as an independent ideology. We all might agree on

All explanations must grapple with other questions, such

a strategy if we could agree on the source of women’s un-

as: “how are food taboos enforced” and “by whose authority

Shoshana Rosenberg studied art at the High School for Music and Art, Queens

are they enforced.” The severity of the punishments levied

College, and the Art Students League in New York. She has been a commer-

against violators points to just how vital the underlying reality

4 14

cial fashion illustrator and a book illustrator.

HERESIES 21

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equal status (and could define inequality more precisely). But
do we need a sure answer to act?
We do need to focus our efforts at the grassroots level,
because we don’t want to duplicate the class divisions in American feminist experience. If we undertake to unite a universalist
struggle for economic justice and a feminist struggle for liberation from the effects of sexism, how can we translate the fight
against sexism into actions that also work for universal benefits? One route is to focus on women as growers, processors,
marketers, and preparers of food and on women’s nutritional
handicaps. Remember, in this last regard, how food prohibitions cluster around pregnancy. Continual pregnancies are a
prime source of women’s health problems where food is poor
and healthcare worse. In poor country after country, health
workers report very high rates of anemia, 80% and over, in
childbearing women. With blood on our fingers every month,
we know that some sex differences can never be “fixed.” When
we reckon that every pregnancy means a woman needs 80,000
added kilocalories and every six months of lactation, 135,000, '¢
we see that one sex pays a heavier price for continuing society
than the other—and must be paid justice in kind.
We should also recognize all that women’s segregation as
chief cooks means in places where preparing food takes a lot
of energy—where harvesting and grinding grain are done by
hand with inefficient technologies, where water must be brought
to the kitchen every day, where fuel must be gathered for
every meal, and where gardens are cultivated with hoes and
digging sticks, not tractors. Making processing and cooking

5 Reported in Yudkin, John, Changing Food Habits, 1964.
6 This is one of the chicken-or-egg questions—whether our psychic
nature dictates the form our social life takes, or the social structure we

live in forms our psychological nature. I'm sidestepping that issue because | think neither dimension necessarily subordinates the other.
Material (below) on the psychoanalytic theories of Jacques Lacan from

chores easier for women raises everyone's nutritional status—as

Lemaire, Anike, Lacan, 1983.

long as we look critically at the assumption that woman as

7 Simoons, Frederick J. Eat Not This Flesh: Food Avoidances in the

cook represents some “natural” division of labor in an sexcomplementary society.
In general, American feminists don't understand how separate can be equal. To most of us, a discriminatory practice like
a food prohibition aimed only at women just has to imply a
sexist ideology. We've cast our understanding of sexual inequality in psychological terms more than economic ones. Our industrial, patriarchal, and fragmented society has little history

Old World, 1961.

8 Structural linguistic theory says that the content of the word—the
object it represents—does not determine the syntactical relations in
an utterance; one term can be substituted for another as long as the
grammatical relationships are not violated (subject nouns cannot be
substituted for verbs, in simplistic terms). Noah Chomsky goes further
and theorizes that grammar is an innate characteristic of humans;
only a proto- or “generative” grammar embedded in the brain can

of the independence women may gain in traditional obligatory

explain how children acquire language so rapidly. Levi-Strauss similarly

societies, where rights and duties are seen as complementary

theorizes that certain logical patterns are innate, e.g., thinking in terms

and flow from group relationships rather than individual sta-

of opposites.

tus. We would judge the Mbum woman's place as unequal

9 Levi-Strauss, Claude. The Savage Mind, 1966 (in English). All follow-

given her lack of control over surplus wealth. But perhaps her

ing quotes by Levi-Strauss are from this same source.

position today is the result of a deterioration under colonial
forces, and her power could be recaptured in a transformed
society. But maybe not. Her sex's disadvantages could be formed

10 Douglas, Mary. Purity and Danger: an Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo, 1966. See also Mary Douglas (ed.), Natural Symbols,
1973, for detailed analyses of how social structure is reflected in the

of ancient material and reflect the reality of sexism. Then only

actual details of life; in particular, see P. Bourdieu, “The Berber House”

an attack on the interpenetration of economic, social, and sym-

in that source.

bolic factors that make sexism a societal theme can put chicken
on her plate.
1 Day by day field reports in Mountford, Charles Percy, Anthropology
and Nutrition, Vol. 2, [1960].
2 Examples have been documented throughout Africa (especially prohibitions on eggs, chicken, and goats), Oceania (fruit and pork), India,
Southeast Asia, North Africa, and in most small-scale cultures. See
Simoons and Harris below in particular.
3 Humphrey, Caroline, “Women, Taboo, and the Suppression of Attention,” in Shirley Ardener, et. a/., Defining Females: The Nature of
Women in Society, 1978.
4 Certain terms are used in this article that refer to relatedness and
inheritance in small-scale societies. ‘“Exogamous” means that people

11 Harris, Marvin. Good to Eat, 1985.
12 Harrington, Judith. “Nutritional Stress and Economic Responsibility: A Study of Nigerian Women,” in Mayra Buviníc, ed., Woman and
Poverty in the Third World, 1983.

13 O'Laughlin, Bridget. “Mediation of Contradiction: Why Mbum
Women Do Not Eat Chicken,” in Michelle Rosaldo and Louise Lamphere,
eds., Woman, Culture, and Society, 1974.
14 Schlegel, Alice. Title essay in Sexual Stratification: A Cross-cultural
View, 1977.

15 Statistics taken from Huston, Perdita, Third World Women Speak
Out: Interviews in Six Countries on Change, Development, and Basic
Needs, 1979.
16 Harrington, op. Cit.

must marry out of their birth clan/totem groups, thus bringing two
clans into easy or uneasy relationship (“endogamous” is the opposite

Kathie Brown is an artist, typographer, and secular humanist living in NYC.

term, true of caste and feudal societies); “matrilineal” and “patrilin-

She takes book learning and street life seriously.

FOOD IS A FEMINIST ISSUE

15 D

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The Comedores Populares—
popular restaurants or common
dining rooms—have been

Sl SS

created by women in Peru in

surrounding Lima eat together.

The women buy the food in bulk
at cheaper prices and take turns
preparing it, thus freeing them
from this daily task. While working together, the women discuss
community solutions to various
ToTg o1 e1 eison aalt hile) a
to wife battery. This process has
eTa o1 ae Aami Iaol hifol a

aTa eTe miaa oaod

of women coming together, and
created more possibilities for
becoming politically active.

MF

l

d

La mujer del pueblo

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Elizabeth
Kulas

I remember standing next to Babci (“Grandmother” in Polish)

in back of the house to pick mushrooms for supper, or we'd

as she cut a chicken's neck before supper. We were talking

work in the garden. In the afternoons we'd play in the frog

about life—Why did John, the second of her twelve children,

pond. About four, we'd go out into the pasture, always bare-

die? Why did she come from Poland? Why did she marry Dzadzi?

foot, to chase the cows on their well-worn paths. It was milk-

Was she in love with him when they married?—as the fresh

ing time.

blood flowed down her dress and onto the large stone steps
that led into her home.

the kids in town, that Babci's and Dzadzi's reality was like a

In the kitchen she plucked the chicken and singed the re-

I remember joking one day with my sisters, influenced by
slice out of another century. You can walk around a bend in

maining hairs with a lighted newspaper, above the old wood

the road and not know if you're in,Poland or America! So why

stove. I was fascinated by this stove, and yet proud—no minis-

didn't they just stay there?” | said angrily. “Their farm exists in

cule temperature controls there, and such a large surface, why

a world that doesn't even touch them. They live like peasants

she could put a hundred pots on it!
Babci showed me how to cut apples, slicing the skins very

have for centuries. Why?”
Yet at the time, at the very same time, | realized | was

thin for pies. We sang Polish songs while preparing the pastry

witnessihg a reality I would never see again. And that made

dough on the large kitchen table. Dzadzi would walk in smell-

me very sad. | saw two people living and working together on

ing from the barn, and we would make fun of that as he

their own land, totally self-sufficient. How much longer will

rested a bit before supper in his favorite chair by the stove. |

that continue, I asked myself.

churned butter. I made butter. Up and down, up and down. |

After that realization I could no longer visit the farm with-

licked it, tasting the freshness as the cream clung to the churn-

out feeling an extraordinary sense of loss. I knew that what |

ing stick and overflowed. Butter, which I pressed lovingly into

was experiencing was on borrowed time.

a dish, butter which Dzadzi would eat for supper. I knew my
children would not make butter. Somehow that frightened me.

I'd be reminded of that at odd moments, like the day when
I was ten and I stumbled over a cow's head in the grass at the

In the fall, I collected apples with my sisters, Barbara and

entrance to one of the pastures, just thrown aside after a slaugh-

Kathy, in the orchard next to the barns. In the winter, we picked

ter. Ah, I'd seen this before, but it didn't cut through my as-

over them in the dark, stone cellar where they were stored.
We would remove the ones that had started to rot so that the

tonishment. It was like being shot into another reality or a

good ones wouldn't be ruined. In the summer, we fought off

page from a history book— there I was, my bare feet planted
in another time. As | looked at the bones in the soft grass |

huge black and yellow spiders to gather the raspberries Mom

knew that I was witnessing the death of a culture, and that |

would make into pies and then jam for winter.

would be forced to step from one into another.

Some mornings we'd go out with Babci into the deep woods

18

As | walked alone that quiet, summer afternoon on the

HERESIES 21

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grass that grew between the tire tracks on the dirt road lead-

wondered how you could help a small farmer by paying him to

ing home, the questions raged back and forth in my head

keep his land fallow. I couldn't get it out of my head as | passed

—You mean we won't have pears in our backyards? We won't

Fred's field, and then there were others.

grow our own food? No. We'll be working in offices or factories, shuffling paper or tending machines.
I was ten and I was depressed. My world had changed that
day. I had faced my two lives and, for the first time in my

The answer wouldn't come to me until many years later,
after I'd stopped reading the books | was given in school and
went into the library myself to seek out my own answers.
AGRIBIZ. I learned that while, on the one hand, small farmers

existence, what was before me had become crystal clear. When

were being paid to keep their land fallow, on the other, huge

I got home, I told no one.
Toward the end of that summer, on one late afternoon in

corporations were being subsidized by our government with

Babci’s raspberry patch, I realized that I wouldn't churn butter;

farmers to keep fallow was lowering production on one end,

instead, I would become an artist in this twentieth century

while the subsidies were raising it on the other. All the while,

—the time in which I lived. I would have to choose between
my budding creativity and a way of life I loved. No, I wouldn't

our tax dollars. The result was that the land they paid small

prices were rising.
As | pored over the books, I wondered, almost out loud,

wait for weeks, excitedly, for the cherries to ripen so I could

Who are the ones benefiting from that? Monopolies, as in-

taste my first pie. I wouldn't bring the hay in. I wouldn't drop

tended, grew, and soon small farmers could not compete.

my baby, as Babci did, and go out into the fields that same

During my teenage years, farms all over New England were

afternoon. I remembered my uncles when they told me these

shutting down as they are now out West. Sons went into fac-

stories. “What a woman!” they would say of her. She wouldn't

tories. Everywhere you went you'd hear people say, “You can't
work 'em. You can't survive.”

have given it a second thought. There was nothing in her mind,
in the realm of her experience, that would ever have given her

You couldn't survive as Babci and Dzadzi had. Each day

the thought that you don't put your dress back on and go out

their own, but not. But yes! Babci could decide when to pick

to work the earth after giving birth.
Sometimes I would think of that as I looked at her, as |

the eggs, and the eggs were hers. If she needed a particular

followed her around the farm. I would never share with her

front of the house: And wild'thyme, well, that grew in a num-

herb, well, chamomile grew out in the chicken yard and in

what I knew. I loved her too much to tell her how much the

ber of pastures in:abundance. And'then there was the garden.

world was changing.

The brown dirt on her hands gave her life.

I. saw it happen. TECHNOLOGY. AGRIBIZ. When | was in

I can remember running the dark, rich earth through my

sixth grade, I asked Mom why our neighbor, Fred, wasn't plant-

fingers again and again, and over my hands till it came up my

ing the field next to our house anymore. It didn't make sense. |

arms. | knew what it was. It gave me life. I, too, understood my

made my statement: “There are no farmers that don't use

part in it, a part I had learned well and of which | was proud.

their land. What's going on?”

The fact that we could'grow food gave us power in relation to

She looked up for a moment as she swept and replied,

our lives—the ability to survive. To kids in town, dirt on you

"Times are tough. The government is paying him to keep his
land fallow.”

was "dirty, but to me it was. brown gold. It was that from
which I took life.

"Why?"
She responded as if it were somehow evident that the exchange of money was enough. “To help him.”

Fren my grandparents’ farm this summer. It's empty.

She continued sweeping, so I didn’t press. Instead, | went

They're dead. The house, once a weathered, turn-of-the-century

off to school. Every day, as I walked down the road to meet

farmhouse, is now a gallant, spanking white. The old glass in

the school bus, I passed that field. Every day I looked at it and

the windows is gone, replaced by storm windows and bars. I'd

FOOD IS A FEMINIST ISSUE

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been inside before for a “tour
of the restoration, a la Good

pened to the swamp?
I sat for a moment and

Housekeeping. The fireplaces

witnessed. It was like I had

have been boarded over, the

died—a piece of me. I didn't
know what to think. I had

old wood painted various pastels. Where there were once

known it would die. I couldn't

wood stoves, there is now a

cry. I was numb. I'd known

central heating system. My

with pain for too many years

grandparents’ bedroom, once

what I was finally to meet

a wonderfully mysterious and

here. I was defeated, wasn't

precious place for my sisters

1? I had allowed myself to
come back to touch these ten-

and me, is now a fake, wood-

der memories.

panelled hunting den— Early
American Dream.”

There was nothing I could
do as | sat where the chicken

As | stared at the house
from the road, | imagined it
for a few moments as it used

yard had been, remembering
the foot-thick oak beams |

to be. The cool, clear, crisp day

swung from in the barn, the

became suddenly sunny and

barn I had promised to let live

warm. | remembered myself

forever. A part of me tried to

ambling up the hill to the front steps. I used to smile as I passed
the lilac tree and the cheese hanging in the sun to dry. That joy
was in my stride as | retraced the steps I'd so often taken.

recover myself. I remembered when my sister and | were jumping from the loft into the hay and the yellow jacket stung
Kathy while she was in mid-air. I remembered that bizarre plum

Sometimes I'd detour to the left, before greeting Babci and

tree with those extraordinary yellow-green plums that we sat

Dzadzi, to see the flower garden that grew to the side of the

and ate for hours one day. I remembered the bunnies. Babci

house. As I turned the corner, I could see that it was no longer

would pull back the hay and there they'd be—freshly born

there, nor was the cherry tree that had given us so much plea-

bunnies I'd tenderly soothe with my human hands.
But then I remembered the bitterness when I was little and

sure, nor the pear trees.
I walked to the back of the house, near the pantry, the

how I repeated over and over again: “I will not be bitter. I will

pantry that once housed a million smells and boxes with lids.

not grow old and bitter.” I was so freshly alive then I couldn't

My sisters and I snuck in there every time Babci was out of the

even imagine what bitterness was. But I saw it happen all around

house, only to rush out if we heard her coming. The pantry is
now a “breezeway.” As I walked over the new flagstone patio
outside the breezeway, I noticed a farm implement my grandfather used to use. It was placed on the corner as if to demarcate something. It was rusty now, “rustic’—a tasteful decoration. I tried figuring out what he had used it for. In plowing,
perhaps. I touched it. I wanted to touch him again. As I saw it

=L À SESZ . That day on my grandparents’ farm,

lying there on the patio they never used, | wondered what

I sat but I couldn't get up. “I can't go home now. Not like

meaning it could have to them. It was my grandfather's. It was

this,” I said aloud. I didn't know what to do next. So | sat,

alive once. It had worked with the energy brought forth by my

moving the dirt around the small plants before me with a piece

grandfather's hands. As I touched it, I tried to touch him. The
iron was cold.

of wood I held in my hand. There's nothing I can do, I thought.

I sat near—l couldn't bring myself to sit next to—another
“rustic farm machine” that used to be pulled by Dzadzi's horses.

l am the little girl watching the big girl experience what she
could not keep herself from. I am the adult, facing the child
that I was—the adult who was not able to prevent what the

It was used to rake the fields after the hay had been cut, bound,

child had known. | was unable to give myself what I had

and carted off to the barns. It picked up hay that had been left

wanted—to save my culture from its death. I was still numb.

in the process. Nothing was ever wasted. It was one of the

There is nothing | can do at this moment, I thought, as there

most beautiful of the earlier pieces of machinery. When trac-

was nothing I could do as a little girl who knew that some day

tors and trucks took the place of the horses, it was parked in

she would be sitting here, a witness. A silent witness.

back of one of the barns, where it stood for years. Today it is a

Then I remembered that I was an artist. My art had always

lawn ornament, tastefully placed upon a cement base. It is on

saved me in moments of despair. Yet I didn’t trust it. It hurt too

display now, a piece of art. Perfect, I thought, in case a Better

much this time to believe it could pull me up and out of this. I

Homes and Gardens photographer happens by, taking “Rustic
New England Scenes.”
As | stood up, I noticed that all of Babci's perennials and

stood up as if to gain strength. l'Il make a film, I thought. In my
mind's eye I could see my camera following my father around,
tending his trees, working his land. Can I get my father, who is

fruit trees were dead. They even cut the lilacs. How could they

just beginning to understand...will these silent, gentle, work-

have cut the lilacs? Who cuts lilacs down? All the apple trees

ing people talk for me?

were gone, too. Why would you kill an orchard? There wasn't
even one raspberry bush hidden in the fenceline that had escaped the carnage. Even the incline on which the berries had
grown was gone. Everything had been “graded.” It was “lawn”

Ah, I can go home now. I picked up my camera and walked
toward the road. As I walked past the house, I thought of the
present owner. She is benevolent. She attends bake sales to

NOW.

I wondered, Where was the character of the earth's placement? And the willows? Where were they? And what hap-

4 20

But I knew he couldn't talk for a camera. It is I who will
have to speak for them, I realized.

raise money for the church and she participates in town functions. But she will never not be different or a little apart. And

HERESIES 21

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she holds herself so.

—we could do anything.

I didn't hate her. I hated

I started to walk again,

what had happened. It is sys-

past the maples my father had

temic, common practice in a

planted when he was a boy.

capitalist marketplace —

How straight and tall they
stood. And full.

the survival of the monied. | ,
thought of how what hap- g

l'll give these pictures to

pened to Babci's and Dzadzi's

Dad, I thought. Dad, who
shares these memories with

farm happened to many small
farms. New England is full of
small farms that are now the

me, secretly, who harbored
them for years without saying

summer homes of the urban g=

anything.
When I was almost home,

plements of people's lives— ys

B | decided to stroll down to

are now quaint, rustic decorations—artifacts.

á. Fred's farm. Fred was one of
the last people in the area

As I walked to the frog

trying to farm. No one was
about so I walked to the back

pond I readied my camera for

of the barn. I'd known Fred

the first time. I was not afraid

to be on her läánd—we are al-

all my life but I felt funny walk-

lowed to walk the land that we once knew as our own. |

ing on his land with no one about. God, I thought, I'm still so

pointed my camera toward the woods, those deep woods

fresh from the city. When you visit people you have to find

where, every summer, | still go to pick the blackberries that
grow there. I take my youngest brother, Kris, with me and
show him where the largest and most succulent can be found
hiding in the shade beneath the largest trees. We pick until

them first, so it's just natural to walk to the barn or up behind
them while they're working. I would have to get used to that
again.

At the back of the barn | found a corral with a herd of

we're exhausted. We often walk the hills and valleys the owner

thirty young heifers, and Fred's two young children running

has not seen. We find the few rare blackcaps, which taste

among them. “Don't scare me to death!” | screamed.

different from blackberries, and the green, translucent berry of

"It's okay,” Fred's daughter said. “We do this all the time.”

the largest wild strawberries that we discovered the first time

I'd forgotten what it was like to run among them. Fred's
children showed me their favorite cows and told me their names.

we went into the woods together, when Kris was only two.

We talked to the cows and petted them. I could see the cows

Then, I'd walk with him and tell him how many cows Dzadzi
used to have and how he farmed. I wanted him to know what

responding and I flushed with a respect I'd known long ago.

the gooseberry bush. Sometimes we search for the patch with

I could not put from my mind.
As I walked back to the road, my feet got wet in the surrounding swamp. The pond had become a swamp because
there was no one to drain it and dig out the rich silt, as they
had when the farm was a farm. Then the pond provided tons
of ice which was used to cool the milk in the summer.
I noticed that my feet were covered with mud. But I didn't
care. | felt good.
Next to the fence were a few dried-up burdock bushes.
We used to run into them now and then. Once we got burdocks in our clothes, they were hard to get out, and forget it if
we got them in our hair! But the nice thing about them is that
we could make rugs, pocketbooks, baskets, and all kinds of

T N When! arrived home, I ran into Dad
in ihe dreva. 1told him about the photographs. He immediately started talking about the trees he'd planted: “Did you
see how big they've grown?”
With my face turned a little to hide the tears, I said, “Yes,
Dad. I touched them today. They've grown into beautiful trees.”
“Ah, you walked up to the farm today.” He smiled.
It was not supposed to be called “the farm” anymore. Mom
told me that one day after it had been sold. It was to be called

things—they stuck together so well.

by the last name of the new owners. But I couldn't stop. And I

It hurt to see Dzadzi's hay-baler out there rusting in the
field. I remembered the sound it made when it was new and

whisper. It would always be the farm for us.

knew it warmed Dad. So we spoke quietly, barely above a

out in one of Dzadzi's huge fields, eveyone working alongside

When I got into the house, I plopped into a chair in the

it. The men wore no shirts and beads of sweat glistened all

living room. I was looking forward to the light, cool evening
one finds in the summer in the mountains.

over their broad, muscular backs. God, they were beautiful.
The wind would blow the chaff up on us where it would stick
to our sweat, itching us to death as we'd heave fifty-pound
bales of newly mown, sweet-smelling hay onto the flatbed
trucks. | loved it.
Then I'd get home and hear Mom say to Dad, “You got
those girls out there hayin’ again? I thought I told you...”
And I'd hear Dad, a little gingerly, yet proud, yell back: “Yup!
Can't stop em!”
Mom would go about muttering how we were girls’ and
were going to have babies some day and this could very well
hurt our private parts—lifting and heaving these bales. We'd
smile and keep out of sight. We were ten, eleven and twelve

FOOD IS A FEMINIST ISSUE

I needed to rest and be alone, but my mother came into
the room.
“There's something I know you'll want to know.” She said
it so quietly | became apprehensive. I could see the barren
fields outside the window outline her body as she leaned toward me to speak. “Fred lost the farm.”
“No.” The same numb feeling I had felt that morning crept
into me. “But,” I began, “I was just down there. They were
milking.”
“The bank and the milk company pulled a fast one on him.
The milk company withheld payment on this last shipment so
the bank foreclosed.”

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"What do you mean? How could they do that?” I responded
with anger, as if somehow my anger could change what | was
being told. “Can't—”

How can they take a man’s life away from him like that?
Is he okay?”
A People are worried. That's why Father came.’

No,” she said. “They were in it together. They set it up.”
I looked at this strong, invincible woman—Mom. I wondered if I would ever be like her. Yet there she stood, helpless
in the middle of her living room. She was looking to me for
strength. But I was angry. “This was legal?” I asked.
“NO.

By staying, Fred is considered a bit
of a fool by the townspeople, some-

“Then how could they...”
“They just did. There was nothing he could do. It's complicated. They've been trying to do it for years. It was just a mat-

one who wili not accept reality. The townspeople don't see
agribiz. It's not reported in the newspapers or, if it is, you have

ter of time," she said.

to read between the lines. They see things more simply— they
I protested. | still did not want to be-

see that a man has failed, rather than a system. This is how
they see all the farmers who lose their farms, except for the
ones who hung themselves in their barns.
It wasn't until the second day of my visit this summer that I
saw my brother, Kris—Kris at sixteen. He came running into
the house, threw off his Friendly Ice Cream Parlor uniform,
and pulled on his jeans and boots. Once again, | saw the broad,
tanned, muscular back that one gets from laboring in the country sun. I grabbed him and kissed him.
“Hi. What a chest! Where are you going in such a hurry?”
| said.

“To help Fred hay.”
“But Fred doesn't own his farm anymore. What’s he doing
haying?”
Kris looked at me with a smooth agitation, like it didn't
matter what I thought, like he had heard this before and would
kindly disregard it.
“He loves it. Look, if he calls, tell him I'm on my way.” And
he was out the door.
I thought about the conversation I'd had with Mom about
Kris when he was fourteen. We had talked many times about
my “littlest brother”— how he was doing in school, the problems he faced, and what course he would take with his life.
We were concerned. What would he do? There are not many
choices that are truly wonderful and exciting for rural youth in
America. And that is what you want for someone you love
—something wonderful.
Mom walked in as the door slammed behind Kris. She said,
spoke. Mom always moved when she talked. This was serious.
I realized we now shared the same love for the land I had
known as a child.

“You know, I was talking with him just the other day. He's
decided what he wants to be.”
“What? What?” I could hardly contain my excitement, remembering the many conversations we'd had with him. And

“Who bought the land?” I asked, pacing in front of her.
“The government.”
“What are they going to do with it?”
“It's going to become a federal preserve. Forever. No one
can touch it.”
“So,” I said, finally, “it's just going to be there doing nothing. Here's a farmer who wants to farm. He gets thrown off
his land. And the government buys it to just let it sit there and
do nothing. Where's he going to go?”

now, finally, he had some idea.
She hesitated. I could see her eyes question how I would
receive this.
“What is it Mom?”
"He wants to be...”
said, “He wants to be..

she stopped. Then very quietly she
.a farmer.”

“A what?”
“A farmer.”
I was beside myself, smiling and laughing. Where and how

“Nowhere. He won't leave. It was so sad," she said, look-

had this started? Had something been rekindled in those walks

ing at me intently. “I went down there the day they took the

we shared when he a little boy? Or had it happened in a field

cOws away. The Father came.”

somewhere, one bright, sunny afternooon as brown arm met

I smiled. I could just see this Roman Catholic priest stand-

summer sun and earth in an ageless ritual? Something had

ing in the middle of the road in his elegant, black tunic as they

been reborn in this third generation, this generation born within

loaded most of Fred's cows onto trucks to be taken away.

the heart of technology. Dzadzi would have been proud of this
child he had not seen.

“Everyone was crying,” she continued. “There was noth-

Kris wants to be a farmer. o

ing we could do.”
"It's good you were there,”

I said, looking into her eyes. |

felt her hurt.

“I wanted him to know | cared,”

4 22

Elizabeth Kulas is a visual artist, writer, and political activist living in NYC.

she said.

She has been active in alternative cultural collectives since 1975.

HERESIES 21

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An Only
Pleasure
by Michael Kendall
I remember my grandmother at 91 remarking that food had become her one
remaining pleasure. And so it was food
that I brought to her. Very special things,
like steamed shrimp, boiled peanuts,
whiting and flounder sandwiches, even
lemon chicken (knowing all too well she
preferred a deadlier, greasier Kentucky
fried), or a yet more unfamiliar dillmarinated salmon.
Of these offerings some she would
joyfully eat, thereby reveling in the now
all-but-forgotten earthly pleasures she so
desired. Others she staunchly blocked
from her frame of reference by chewing
them until she could clearly identify them
for what they were and then spitting
them back at me. This was, after all, the
final review of her life. Hence, each bite,

AANT aAN Emma Amos, acrylic on paper, 1986

as it was allowed to become part of her
corporeality, allowed her, a blind and
otherwise immobilized, bedridden amputee, to make a final and lasting journey back through her world. At 93 she
quite effectively and without ceremony
reached her journey’s end and chose to
eat no more.
... the last offerings? Those pleasures were obviously to be our own. And
so it was, as neighbors and friends pre-

River; as Grandma teaching us that we

held her hand as she lay in the hospital

pared and brought to us her favorite

must greet each new year right, with

too comatose and too weak to respond

foods: fried chicken, okra with hamhocks

hamhocks and black-eye peas; as Grand-

in any other way than by, in turn, tightly

and mean, greasy collard greans; potato

ma asking me to buy her a black lace

squeezing my own hand. I wiped the

salad, sides of pörk loin, an amazing

dress (and myself giving it to her) — “the

array of bigger and sweeter” lemon

only one I've ever received that cost

thick white coating from her tongue,
covered with a two-month-old residue
from food she no longer ate. This was

meringue pies, chiffon cakes, and long

more than fifteen dollars.” And finally,

lean drinks of peach schnapps that were

as Annie Louise Hall Boyd being proudly

"ice cold and sugar sweet.”

buried in that dress. In what way are

and lasting peace. | ended by singing her

these memories still you, since here in

a favorite reel:

By consuming certain of these, I will-

Christmas day. She had made her final

ingly took her into me; others, |, a

the morgue you are a sheeted, ashen

vegetarian, effectively kept out by ulti-

and lifeless form? Is this still your face |

“Good Lord when I got to heaven |

mately throwing them back up. It was

touch as I cast the final death mask? Are

heard the voice of a pork chop sing,

through these rituals—a table of memory-

these shoulders from which I wash the

come on to me and rest. Lie down, ye
weary hoghead cheese, your head upon

laden foods— that I began to mourn. As

plaster of Paris residue the same upon

I did, my mind was flooded with images
of her. How she must have looked in

which I used to rest my head? Is this still

my breast. Talk about your string beans,

my heart, disguised as a winged song

your ham and eggs, your turkey that's

1902, working in a blazing hot cotton

called “forever now,” your beautiful eu-

roasted and dressed; but I think it was

patch in South Carolina, where she, a

logy? Grandma, if these memories are

water girl, earned five cents a day. | saw

no longer any more valid than this body

the voice of a pork chop which said,
come on to me and rest.” o

her yet again, as a teenage girl secretly
learning to buck dance, cakewalk, and
sing “sinful reels” from the circus per-

that lays here before me is now useful,
then to what realm should I abandon the
love I still feel?

foers and minstrels who traveled along

Our final meeting, the 25th of De-

the banks of Cat Fish Creek and P.E.

cember: I, on my way to a family dinner,

FOOD IS A FEMINIST ISSUE

Michael Kendall is a painter and a professor of
Fine Arts at Montclair State College. She also
teaches at Parsons Institute.
Emma Amos ís an artist living in NYC and teaching at Rutgers University.

23

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QUEEN
(Condensed from
Women Warriors, a young
adult book-in-progress)

It is the early 1800s. The sun shines with

crowned King Kamehameha Il.

perfect warmth on a black-sand beach

On the morning of the young man’s

of Hawaii's Big Island. Suddenly, on the

coronation, Kaahumanu prepares. With

crest of the rough ocean waves appear

the aid of attendants, she rolls herself

several handsome, muscular women,

into her traditional Hawaiian wrap-

temples where the major political and
religious decisions are made—a kapu
which inhibits Kaahumanu’s power as
Kuhina Nui.
But even more humiliating for women

their naked bodies glistening in the sun,

around skirt, or p‘au, sewn of royal

their black hair streaming behind them.

yellow satin. In this elegant pau, the

They surf atop their black-stained wiliwili-

Queen now dons Kamehameha’s ahu-

most delicious foods: those plentiful

wood surfboards, bending and stretch-

ula, the red and yellow feathered war-

yellow bananas, the sweet coconuts,

ing like graceful dancers, even though

rior's cloak, which has always been worn

pork, shark, sea turtle, whale, and the

they are very tall and weigh at least two

only by male aflii. Enveloped in this sym-

delicacy of baked dog. One bite of such

hundred pounds each.

bol of authority and grasping her late

foods, say the kahunas, will infuriate the

husband's heavy wooden spear, Kaahu-

gods, causing illness, tidal waves, volcanic eruptions. Moreover, say the priests,
food for women and men must be cooked

By their large size, these women are
at once recognizable as a/li, or chiefesses

manu glides regally to the beach-side

— members of Hawaii's aristocracy.* Re-

coronation platform. She struts to the

lated to each other by generations of

center of the stage, casts a knowing

intermarriage, the a/li have always been

glance in Liholiho's direction, and, in a

are the eating kapus. Women of all
classes are forbidden to eat some of the

by men only, in separate ovens, and
eaten at sex-segregated tables.

very tall—the women close to six feet,

booming voice, proclaims to the stunned

the men often seven feet tall. They are

crowd that she is now Kuhina Nui, or

severe. The priests cruelly enforce the

an athletic and joyous people who love

Co-ruler of the Hawaiian Islands.

laws, especially against lower-class wom-

to swim, surf, fish, ride horses, and en-

From her new position in this lush

The penalty tor breaking any kapu is

en and men, capturing the law breakers,

gage in romantic escapades. But most of

feudal kingdom, the Queen evaluates

burning them, strangling them, plucking

all, the alii love to eat, for the largest

her situation and is not pleased. Al-

out their eyes.

person— the tallest and the widest—is

though at this moment she is perhaps

considered the most beautiful, and the

the strongest woman in the land,

coup, Kaahumanu takes her favorite

closest to the gods.

Kaahumanu still has not gained the equal-

surfboard far out into the ocean, to find

An especially large woman passes the
others with her speed, a huge grin on her

ity with men that she seeks.
Nor is she happy about the position

In the days following the coronation

inspiration for overthrowing the onerous
food tabus. She knows it is not the gods

broad face. Weighing close to three hun-

of Hawaiian women in general. While

dred pounds, this grand figure is Kaahu-

the grand chiefesses appear to be happy

have punished the people by now. For

manu, an afii of high rank, renowned as

and powerful women—with high status

the greatest surfer of her day.

in the class hierarchy, polygamous mar-

forty years, she has watched foreign
women in Hawaii sit with men at the

she must fear, for surely they would

Kaahumanu (1772-1832) is also a

riage rights, and possession of sacred

same dinner table and eat forbidden

Queen, married since the age of thirteen

power called mana—in fact, they suffer
serious discrimination.

foods with no ill effects. She remembers

to the great King and unifier of the
Hawaiian Islands, Kamehameha I (1758—

The major barrier for the Queen, for

the day long ago she secretly ate pork
and even some shark without so much
as a stomach ache.

1818). While Kaahumanu is but one of

the chiefesses, and for women of the

Kamehameha’s twenty-one wives, she is

lower classes as well, is the kapu system

Kaahumanu remembers a sea cap-

known by all as his confidant, his trusted

—the ancient religious tabus that regu-

tain's news that the people of the nearby

adviser, his favorite wife, his heart's passion. That this woman is willful and

late almost every aspect of Hawaiian life,

Society Islands recently overthrew their

from canoeing to fishing, from dancing

own kapu system. Yes, thinks Kaahú- =

independent, that she runs her own life

to eating. The aristocratic a/ii and the

and much of the business of the king-

kahunas, or priests, who exercise domi-

dom, that she is sexually aggressive and

nant power on the islands, base their

delights in taking handsome young lov-

government on the strictures of this

ers, merely increases Kamehameha’s de-

religion.

sire for her.

When her beloved Kamehameha dies

To Kaahumanu, the worst aspect of
the kapu system is its underlying belief

manu, it is not the gods, but thE’ chiefs
kapu system, who mus
Kaahumanu is a wo
food, loves:her people, and loves po
cal power. Determined to gain full eating
rights for women, freedom for all v

in Kailua in 1818, Kaahumanu, believing

that women of all classes are inferior,

are oppressed by the kapu syste | S

she can equal men in any of life's adven-

less pleasing to the gods than men «#

full political power for herself, the Õueen.

tures, determines to keep the throne for

While many activities are kapu, or forbid-

herself. She will do so even though, by

den, for:mên, many more are outlawed

custom, it is Kamehameha’s twenty-

for women. Women arè, for example,

three year old son, Liholiho, who will be

strictly pared eA the lua

catches a large wave. She will organize _
the women of Hawaii'in a revolution _
against the food kapus.
CN

4 24

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by Susan Ribner
Back on land, Kaahumanu rushes off
to enlist the help of Liholiho's mother,

style pipe. She is waiting for the King.
Handsome young Liholiho arrives at

ful revolution in defense of women’s
rights. Even more, she is loved as a

Queen Keopuolani, a powerful high chief-

last, dressed in his bright red, European-

symbol of Hawaii's golden age, when

ess kown for her great mana. Soon the

style military uniform. Slowly and stiffly,
he circles the men’s and the women’s

the land was still run by the Hawaiians,

two are busy recruiting both alii and common women for Kaahumanu’s scheme.

tables. The men fidget in their seats and

and not by a foreign power as it is today.
We in the mainland United States

Before long, word travels across the

eye him anxiously. Then he drops down

would do well to remember Kaahumanu

islands that some enormous women

onto the one empty cushion next to the

as a woman who was monumental in

have begun gathering secretly to taste

women. With his heart pounding in his

matters of love, politics, and physical

the outlawed delicacies. Meeting quietly

chest, Liholiho takes food in his hand,

stature. For this great Queen, a three-

in the dark of night on the beaches, or

slowly raises his hand toward his mouth,

hundred-pound body was a powerful

early in the morning in the mountains,
the women clutch each other's hands

and eats.

asset, both for gaining new lovers and

and try small bites of banana and coco-

Silence descends on the shocked

for acquiring greater political power. To

crowd. Never in their lives have they seen

be large was to be beautiful. Taking up

nut, tiny mouthfuls of smokey pork.

a king eating food while sitting at a table

space, in all respects, was the best policy.

Volcanoes do not erupt, and the ocean is

with women. Most hold their breath, ex-

calm. No one feels sick. The courageous

pecting punishment from the gods.

women have broken the kapus.
Everywhere throughout the Hawai-

Suddenly from the women’s table
come loud screams. “Ai Noa! Free

ian Islands, women of all classes begin to

eating!” they shout. The women jump

eat forbidden foods in public, in front of

up and hug each other, cry, and laugh.

men, laughing raucously. The militant

"The gods are false!” they shout. “The

“ai noa” or "free eating” movement is

kapus are broken!”

born.

It is a great victory for the women,
and for all the men who have suffered

The Queen has one last eating kapu
to break. Liholiho must eat at the same
table with the women. And he must do

We should especially remember this
aspect of Kaahumanu’s history, for we
live at a time when women’s increased

under the kapu system, too. And before
the day is out the women will win much
more than women’s right to eat bananas

so publicly.

"No," says Liholiho, “Never!”
The two women cajole, threaten, eat

and steamed pig.
At feast's end, Kaahumanu and

several bananas in front of him, and

Liholiho, together, issue orders for all the

finally persuade Liholiho that, faced with

heiaus, or temples, and their carved reli-

a united rebellion of half of Hawaii's

gious idols to be destroyed. The implica-

population, he has no choice. During the

tions are enormous. The entire kapu

first week of November, 1819, he will

system, the priesthood, and the reli-

host an enormous royal feast where

gious, political, and social system it sup-

there will be “free eating.”

ported for hundreds of years, is to be
ended. Kaahumanu'’s revolution is not

political, economic, and social power is

the leading chiefs and chiefesses of the

accomplished without opposition, but, al-

accompanied by strong cultural de-

Big Island and their foreign friends arrive
at the grand outdoor feast, and seat

though she herself is forced to take to the
sea in command of war canoes to defend

that they dimininish their body size. As

themselves at the two long, elaborately

her gains, she is eventually successful. An

women gain more and more economi-

set tables, one for women and one for

ancient form of discrimination against
women is overturned forever.

cally and politically, they take up less and

On the third night of the new moon,

men.

mands, too often accepted by women,

(Kaahumanu continued to rule Ha-

less space physically.
We need to know that there was a

on their mats and cushions, glance ner-

waiian politics for many years to come,

time and place in history when women

vously at each other, and then brazenly

serving as Kuhina Nui for Liholiho until

were allowed to be grandly powerful

begin to nibble bananas. Kaahumanu

his death in 1824, and governing as

without paying such a price. We should

and Keopuolani, both dressed in shim-

Regent for the eight-year-old boy,

The festively dressed women lounge

mering yellow satin p'aus, take their
seats at the women’s table, leaving one

breaking our own society's destructive

King Kamehameha IIl.)

eating kapus for women. o

In Hawaii today, this great Queen is
sly empty. Kaahumanu reclines

honor Kaahumanu, and give thought to

Hauikeaouli, who was crowned next as

Susan Ribner is the Director of.the’

remembered fondly for being one of the

young adult book on women .

ter Karate Club in NYC..She is currently writing a :

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They told me as a baby

Sweet sixteen sticks

I started throwing up

my fist down my throat

the formula they gave me

standing alone in the locked bathroom

in the cab home from the hospital

I learn to cover up the sound

Everything that went down

with water running

came up

face in the mirror purple

"Projectile vomiting,” my mother says clinically

tooth marks on my knuckles

like girls with no seat belts

undigested food whirling

get thrown through the windshield

in the porcelain bowl

"Like a geyser,” my father says laughing

like the baby Mommy lost

I think of Yellowstone Park

after my sister before | was born

Yogi Bear and Boo Boo

Augie Doggie Doggie Daddy

delivered in the toilet
the doctor said to save it
but Mom flushed it anyway

Lifting for take off

between my father and my sister
my first plane ride in this life

to the Hudson River
Atlantic Ocean
swathed in toilet paper

propellers cut the air

like a mummy

like my mother’s Waring blender

invisible man in bandages

mean as a lawn mower

if you had been born

on the Comet kitchen counter

I wouldn't have to be here

the stewardess gives my father wings

now

to pin to our velvet chests
“Junior Pilots,” he says

always checking

but I am too green

for vomit in my hair

to know what that all means

on my shoes

flying through my first legitimate cloud

washing up

I throw up in my sister's lap

washing off

black velvet dress in the seat beside me

covering my tracks

3rd grade, 4th grade,

swabbing the inner rim

5th grade, 6th

getitoff getitout

my vomit takes the paint off

I come back to the table

my mother's car door

smiling

Plymouth wagon

ready to continue our talk

PLY MOUTH

like I haven't just napalmed

I say sounding out the word

my own village

running my finger tip

raped my own child

over the hard chrome letters
like bullets

washed my own mouth out

I may not be the oldest

with a fistful of soap

the youngest
or the only boy

but doors fly open
when l say stop

gates the fusion of Asian cultures.

where she continues to work.

HERESIES 21

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Nina Kuo,
untitled photograph

For over five years we have sat at this table

But nothing happens, lying there on a towel in the bathroom
painfully quiet, hoping no one heard
the heaving of a woman leaving

empty bowls and scraped plates.

her body again.

It is very late and nothing brings relief

I read an article yesterday about Bulimia it said

nothing.

we average white woman age 25 puke a few times a week

Sleep is evasive and maybe if I eat one more

or if SEVERE maybe 3 times a day, once a meal, neat.

round, throw up one more time the body

They never met me. Some of us brag about 25 times to the

will collapse

toilet

and give me rest. I've begun prayer to quit

in one glorious day

this pounding, yes given in to the mind, trying

rung dry.

miserable.

desperately to STOP.

FOOD IS A FEMINIST ISSUE

27 D

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Dr. Steinhopf'’s
clinic has changed the
lives of famous comedians
and governors’ wives. Turn on
any talk show. Formerly obese people
dressed in tiny little designer originals are
sitting in those skinny little Marcel Breuer
chairs, and they're telling Johnny or Merv or
Dinah about the joys of weighing less. $ They
make it sound very easy, those governors’
wives and comedians. They gab about all
the funny pranks people played on
each other down here, how they
were all one big fat happy family. They tell how
somebody ordered five

(JR FR a hundred pizzas and had them sent
to Dr. Steinhopf. They tell how someone a
> poured salt in all the urine samples of the people Dy Susan Thom
on salt-free diets. Oh, sure, they all had a jolly old
time. Ý But they don't tell about that deep hole they have down
there and how it feels like it's going to swallow you if you don't eat something. You're falling and it's dark and cold and voices are telling you, Eat something,
eat, for God's sake, or you're gonna die.” On the way down you grab at donuts, brownies,
muffins, anything to slow the fall. But they all disappear in your hand. It's just you and
nothing. They all must have seen that hole, all those famous skinny people, but nobody told
me. We came together, my sister Michelle and I, a year and a half ago, to this town they call the
Fat Capital of the World. You've probably seen us on T.V. You know that Alka-Seltzer commercial,
the one with the red-haired twins who weigh three hundred pounds apiece? And they're lying on a
couch going, “Oy, have I got a stomach ache!”? That's us, me and my sister Michelle. You'd know us
anywhere, right? Only now it's just me, and I'm sitting on my bed in a pile of Hostess Twinkies, and the
` despair l am feeling keeps me stuffing things into my mouth with a vengeance that you'd never understand.
` That's why | am trying to tell you this story. So you won't think I just have no self-control. $1 am falling
through the space of my own body, through the empty space where there ought to be a person. Shrunken
half my former size and half again less without my sister, I can't even find the me that is left. I must be here
someplace on this bed with all these Hostess Twinkies. In the past four days I have devoured eight
` buckets of chicken, four buckets of ribs, a whole brisket from the delicatessen, eight loaves of rye bread,
_ five pounds of no-salt butter, six gallons of milk, six quarts of Carvel, and the contents of three vending
machines. Never mind what was in them, I don’t think I even noticed. $ And where is Michelle, my
other half, my sister? Where is she now, when I need her more than ever? I, who beat up Harriet
Reinstein in the third grade for pulling her beautiful braids? I, who bore the brunt with her of every fat joke
known to man and cruel child? I, who endured with her the dreariness of the Chubby Shop and the Lane
Bryant catalog? S l'Il tell you where Michelle is. She's on her honeymoon, with Tony, our agent, that two-timing
fairweather friend. On her honeymoon in Bermuda, while I, poor doubly-jilted monster, eat myself into oblivion in
Easton, South Carolina. $ Formerly we were go-go dancers, Michelle and I. A profession so grueling we should have
been awarded Olympic medals every time we finished our act. We met Tony the night we were working the Pilgrim
Theatre in Boston, as a warm-up act for Fanne Fox. It was also the night that Wilbur Mills showed up onstage, and the U
photos of us being hugged by him in the papers the next morning would have clinched our career for sure. But that night `
we took up with Tony, and we left burlesque forever. $1 kept noticing Tony in the audience. Night after night he sat in the v
first row and ate Hershey's Kisses. He unwrapped each one and put it in his mouth. Then he rolled the silver into a ball with the `
paper tag on the inside and put it in the pocket of his shirt. What did he do with all those little balls? I also noticed he was
handsome and sexy and, while we were dancing, I'd watch him and taste the chocolate with that pointy little nub poking the
roof of my mouth. I'd smile at him and aim a few bumps in his direction. It seemed to me he smiled back, a special appreciation
of my art. 9 Later, when we left the theatre that last night, he was standing outside on Washington Street. I would have
recognized him anywhere, with that white-toothed smile, those soft brown eyes, that pocket full of little silver balls. $ Hey,”
he said, “How ya doin?” $ Michelle turned her back. I smiled at him. $ “Name's Anthony Positano. I've been catching your
act all week. Fabulous. I think you're terrific.” $ “Ignore him, Barbara,” said Michelle. “Stop smiling.” ‘Hey, gimme a
break, girls. Steve Legari called me last week and told me to come down here and take a...” Oh,” said Michelle.
“That's different. Why didn't you say it was business? You're the agent from Talent Associates?” $ She put her hand into
the one he had stretched out. He put his other one over hers like it was a sandwich. $ It's a pleasure to meet you. Like I| .
said, Steve called T.A. and told me to take a look at your act. I'm trying to branch out on my own, and I guess the word is out
on me.” “Do you think you could get us anything in New York? Boston is getting ridiculous,” said Michelle. $ Sure. |

4 28 HERESIES 21

could book you into a strip joint next week, if you want. But listen. I've got something else in mind. I'm just trying to get my

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contacts together, and then | plan to expand into media
advertising.”
"Media advertising?” said Michelle.
“Yeah. You know, like T.V., radio commercials, magazine
layouts. This buddy of mine just shot that Alpo commercial,
you know, where the dogs are doing the hustle at Studio 54?
And he's looking for some talent for his next job.”

unobtrusive. The nurses and orderlies always caught us and
led us back to bed.
I pictured Michelle in the next room, tied like me into three
regulation nightgowns and hallucinating food. Pizza and chocolate cake danced on my ceiling, and the television seemed to
say, “Chow-time!” every time I pushed the remote control. |
dreamed my bed was a bathtub full of chicken and woke up

“You want us for an Alpo commercial?”

to find my teeth sunk into my arm. I was nauseous, frightened,

“No, no, of course not. This one is Alka-Seltzer. You'd be

hungry, panicked. The only thing that kept me from banging

perfect.”
“Yeah, well, O.K.” said Michelle. It was nice meeting you.
We really have to get home now. Give Steve a call if somethng
comes up.”
She shot out her arm for a taxi, and one screeched to a
stop. Then Tony shook hands again with her and then with
me, still making those nice sandwiches.
When we were sitting in the cab, I looked back at him and
I realized why I liked his smile so much. He didn’t look at us like
we were freaks.

my head on the wall was the thought of Michelle next door,
like a reflection in the mirror that went all the way inside. |
looked at my hand and saw her hand. I looked at my leg and
saw hers. Inside I felt hollow, and I knew that she did too. It
was like the Lincoln Tunnel from my room to hers.
Then they took out the intravenous tubes and told us we
could walk around the corridor. I ran into Michelle's room, but it
was empty. They'd removed her I.V. an hour before. I was worried. Maybe she went crazy and escaped as soon as they unhooked her. Why else would she have stayed away from me?

"Stupid son-of-a-bitch,” said Michelle. “Alpo commercials.

But two minutes later I found her down the hall, playing

What does Legari think he's doing sending this creep down
here?”

cards with another patient. They called him The Howling Wolf

“I thought he was nice,” I said. “What are you going to tell
Steve to say when he calls him?”

on account of the noises he made when he was eating. Michelle told me later that Dr. Steinhopf had put him back in the

“Don't worry, Barbara, he won't call.”

hospital after the Wolf had ordered eight dozen Dunkin Donuts
for a church bazaar and eaten them all himself on the ten-

Michelle is very smart, but she's no fortune teller. We've

minute drive to the church.
“Barbara,” she said to me, “Wasn't that wild? What was

been eating off the royalties on “Oy, have we got a stomach
ache” for two and one half years now.
Two hundred pounds became three hundred in the bright
lights of the studio and the dim ones of Elaine's, where we
went every night for dinner. Without our dancing to keep our
weight down, Michelle and I blew up like balloons. But if we
were popular at two hundred, our accounts loved us at three.
By the time our lavish bodies appeared in a zipper ad in the

in those bottles, anyway? I kept feeling like I was high or something. Man, you should have seen all that stuff I kept dreaming up.

“Yeah,” I said, “Like pizzas and cake and everything, right?
It's the fasting that does it.”
“No, I mean the other stuff. I saw myself melting. Like all
my fat melting off me and making a big puddle of butter on

New York Times Magazine Section (backs of our dresses un-

the floor. And when it was all melted, I was gorgeous. I had

zipped while standing under a marquee in Shubert Alley, cap-

this gold bikini on, and there were all these palm trees around
me. It was terrific. You should have seen it.”

tioned “Last night the La Grande Sisters opened on Broadway
— Next time they'll use Zippy Zippers), we weighed three hundred fifty pounds apiece. And our Zippy account loved every
pound.
But then we went beyond the numbers on the scale, and
Michelle's varicose veins got so bad she could hardly stand on
her feet for ten minutes. Tony got worried and sent us down
here to Dr. Steinhopf.
First they put us in the hospital and stuck our arms with
needles all day long. Liver function tests, kidney function tests,

All of a sudden I wanted to cry. Why was it different for
her? Weren't we twins anymore? Weren't we exactly the same?
Oh yeah, right.” I said, “Those things. Yeah, I remember
that. My bikini was silver. But I'm glad that's over. What do
they give us for dinner?”
The Wolf laughed, I think. But it sounded more like a low
shriek with a wheeze at the end. His mouth was a tiny O in a
mountain of cheeks and chin.
“I hate to be the bearer of bad news,” said Michelle,

fasting blood sugars, pissing blood sugars, x-rays, gamma rays.

“but they don’t feed us anything while we're still in the hos-

You name it, they did it to us. The hospital floor was painted

pital. We don't get anything until we've gone through the

with yellow footprints to show us how to get from one test to
another. At the end of the two days of testing Dr. Steinhopf
told us we would now take the most important test of all, the
Doorway test. If we got through it, we could live at the Holiday
Inn and go about exercising on our own, reporting to Dr.
Steinhopf only in the morning to deliver our urine specimens
and be weighed.

doorway to the Dining Room.” She pulled the johnny tighter
around her.
I didn't believe her. How could she say that so blithely and
mean it?

"Come on, Michelle, I can't take any jokes right now. I've
never felt so weak in my life.”
Michelle looked at me hard.

But if we failed, we would be put into the hospital for

"It's no joke, Barbara. You'd better get used to it now,

twenty-four-hour observation and total fasting until we could

because you're going to be hungry from now on, until we
leave this town.”

pass the test.
We failed. We could only make it through the Dining Room

The tears rolled down my cheeks, and | licked them. My

doorway by turning sideways and holding our breath, and that

first taste of salt since | came to this place. And practically my

was considered cheating.

last. The diet is so salt-poor that even your tears and your
sweat become tasteless.

They put us in hospital johnnies in adjoining rooms and fed
us intravenous fluids for three days. We tried to call to each
other through the wall and to sneak into each other's rooms,
but with the problems of holding the hospital johnnies together and the clanking of the I.V. bottles, we couldn't be

FOOD IS A FEMINIST ISSUE

“Oh, Michelle,” I said, “How can you be so casual about
it? Don't you feel like you're dying?”
“No,” she said, and l'll never forget that look she gave me,
a look that said, 'Every man for himself.’ “No, I feel like I'm

29

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gonna start looking after myself. Like, for once in my life, I'm

tients, the ones who are labelled “cheaters,” but no one had

gonna live for me.”

ever told me where it was. I have a nose for these things. How

Eleven days later we had each lost forty pounds and could
pass frontally through the portals of the Dining Room. There

could I know I'd bump into it on my short cut to the Holiday Inn?
I got back to my motel room an hour later with two half-

we found one hundred and thirty fellow sufferers, each weigh-

bound bags of Indian nuts stuffed in the cups of my bra. Mi-

ing in excess of two hundred pounds. Yes, ladies and gentle-

chelle was already swimming laps in the pool. Surrounding her

men, the Dining Room, as we entered it for the first time,

were twenty or thirty other women of the obese persuasion,

contained upwards of thirty thousand pounds of human flesh.

sunning themselves happily, in size 42⁄2 pastel bikinis. Travel-

They were all eating rice.
We were allowed one cup of rice for lunch and one cup of
rice for supper, accompanied each time by two limp fruits. For

ling salesmen and other motel guests not connected with Dr.
Steinhopf’s program stood around drinking beer and staring
at the landscape. It was hard not to! Even |, in the modesty of

breakfast there was a half grapefruit, but we were encour-

my Bermuda shorts and Indian nuts, couldn't take my eyes off

aged not to eat it.

the group around the pool.

After breakfast everyone put on shorts and walked the

Life went on without food. After a year, Michelle had lost

three-mile wall that encircles the hospital and university cam-

two hundred pounds. I lagged behind at one hundred forty off

pus. The Easton shopkeepers specialize in what they call “half

and one hundred forty still to go. Michelle had bought herself

sizes.” Michele and I, for example, went out and bought ourselves size 46⁄2 Bermuda shorts and walked around the wall

a whole new wardrobe, and I could hear her dressing and un-

three times. Just as I was ready to plunk myself down in the grass,
Michelle grabbed hold of my hand and jerked me to my feet.

dressing late at night while | lay in bed pretending to sleep.
“Mmmm, you're so gorgeous,” she whispered to herself.
She closed her eyes and kissed her reflection in the mirror.

“You're not quitting now, are you?”
"Michelle, have a heart. I'm ready to pass out. Come on,
take a break and sit down with me.”
“Not me, Barbara. I'm not a quitter. l'll pick you up next
time around.”
But by her next time around I was half a mile away at Jerry's Nut House, slobbering over the selection of cashews and
pistachios in the window. I'd heard of this place from other pa-

She demanded more space in the world.

As she walked her thighs touched, creating warm
worn spots in the fabric of her garments.

“Oh, Michelle,” she sighed. “Darling, my darling.”
Later on her bed would rock until her breaths came sharp
and her sighs were high-pitched screeches.
In November they put me back on intravenous fluids. I'd
reached a plateau and stayed there for a month. How could |
Her body expanded, making lavish personal

eat less? How could | exercise more? Already I was walking

statements that intruded upon the intimate.

fourteen miles a day, swimming sixty laps and doing calisthenics.

thoughts of others.

I panicked and ate a two-pound bag of salted peanuts. |
checked into the Dining Room the next morning weighing ten

4 30

HERESIES 21

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pounds more. Dr. Steinhopf had me admitted to the hospital
until I lost fifteen pounds.
'Ziss can be ze only vay,” he said.
It was Thanksgiving, and the aroma of food came wafting
up the air ducts from the hospital kitchen. At one o'clock a.m.
I ripped the I.V. tube out of my hand and ran down the back
stairs to the pantry. There, unguarded, were dozens of steaming turkeys, fresh from the oven. I grabbed one and, shoving it
under my hospital gown, ran back upstairs and into my room,
where I locked the door and sat up eating until dawn. When |
finished picking at the carcass, I flushed it down the toilet.
They never would have found me out if only the plumbing had

Do whales raise the level. of the sea? she chuckled,

meal a day. Lunchtime became a brief interlude of peace in an
ongoing battle to keep myself at the edge of starvation.
For one hundred and fifty-two days, I, Barbara LaGrande
Weinstock, ate one vegetable a day. That's it. And once a week
it was an onion.
The torment was constant. Waves of hunger rushed against
me, swallowed me. I was drowning in hunger. I hallucinated
food everywhere. The clouds looked like loaves of bread or
marshmallows. The sun looked like a pizza. My sexual appetite
became uncontrollable. I lusted after bell-boys and bartenders.
I wanted to kiss them all over, suck all their toes and fingers.
worked. I might even have explained tħe burn on my stomach
from carrying the turkey under my gown.
Michelle was furious.

“Empty, empty, empty, banged in my head all day long.
Tony came to see us several times, and each time he seemed
a little friskier, if you know what I mean. Michelle said flat out

“You're ruining our career,” she said. “Even if you don't

she wasn't interested in him, so that left me where I wanted to

give a shit for yourself, you could at least have the decency to

be: in Tony's arms, at least in my imagination. If romance hadn't

think of me. I'm working my ass off to get us somewhere, and

blossomed in two and a half years, at least it seemed to be

you're shtupping turkeys! Jesus!”

budding with my loss of weight.

“Please, Michelle, please try to understand. It was just a

In April Tony came to see us for the first time since my little
rampage. I went out and bought a new skirt, with buttons up

lapse. Temporary insanity. I'm already back on the straight and
narrow.”

the front that I could discreetly unbutton at will, and a rasp-

“A lapse! I'm sorry. I can't forgive a premeditated lapse

berry cashmere sweater | could slip out of with alarming ease.

that goes on for three hours. That's not a lapse, that's an orgy.”
“Michelle, I can't stand it. Please don't hate me. I can't
stand to have you look at me like that.”
“I'm mad, Barbara, I'm real mad. But not half as mad as
Tony will be. He's depending on us for a June deadline.”
“Oh, no, you won't tell Tony. Please, Michelle. Anything.

Michelle agreed to move out of our room for the weekend
in case anything should develop, but when she showed up at
the airport in a revealing black jumpsuit, I wondered if she'd
changed her mind. Tony looked at me with appreciation, but
his eyes kept returning to Michelle's shocking new curves.
That night I brought Tony to our room to show him a mag-

Ill do anything. Just don’t tell Tony and make him hate me.”

azine article I'd clipped, but once we got there | told him how

And that is how I came to promise I would eat only one

tired he looked. I offered to give him a back rub, which | am

FOOD IS A FEMINIST ISSUE

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He grabbed my long hair so hard some red strands came
out in his fists.

“Tony,” I whined. “I'm sorry. I hardly ever cheat. There's
noth—..."”

“l'Il bet there isn't, you pig. For eight hundred bucks a
week I expect results, not Nestle’s fuckin’ Crunch.”
“Tone, please...I..."”
“Shut up, Barbara. You make me sick. Don't tell me how
hard you're trying. Just show me results.”
He slammed the door, and I didn't see him again until May.

very good at. I also unbuttoned my skirt a little. Soon we were
kissing and hugging and doing all the things I hoped we'd do.
My sweater and skirt came off as easily as I'd planned, but
when | got up to lock the door, Tony's mouth dropped open. I
realized he was staring at my stomach.
Too late! How could I explain a burn the size and shape of
a roasted turkey? I reached for my sweater, but Tony caught
my arm.

A fat woman s more likely to drop a class or twv,
she read with a sinking feeling.

“What is that thing, Barbara?”
“That? A birthmark—you never noticed?"
“No, never. And I've seen you in some pretty skimpy getups. Why are some parts of it redder than others? It looks
more like a burn to me.”

I never tried so hard to do anything in my life, and I did manage to lose twenty pounds, but Tony had lost faith in me. He
hardly even noticed. He came down again in June for some

“No, Tony, a birthmark...”

business meetings with Michelle, and then she flew to New

“Barbara, why does it remind me of a turkey in profile?”

York for a weekend to sign our new contracts. When she came

“A birthmark, Tony. One of life's cruel jokes.”

back, she told me that she and Tony were married.

He was buttoning up his shirt and putting his shoes back

Married?” I said. “How could you be married? We've been

on. | tried to stop him, but he closed the door and walked past

living in the same room all this time, and you never said a word
to me.”

the pool to the public phones.
When he came back, he was calm, his face dead white.
“All right, Barbara, I know what went on in the hospital. I

“We're big girls now, Barbara. I don’t tell you everything.
And to tell you the truth, this happened so suddenjļy, I didn't

just talked to Steinhopf. It happened months ago and it's over.

have time to discuss it with you. We fell in love two weeks ago

What’s happening now? Huh? How are you cheating me now?”

when he was down here, and this weekend we decided to get
married while I was in New York.”

He pulled everything off the shelves and out of the closet.
He dumped the drawers and emptied every suitcase. Then he
unscrewed every unscrewable thing in the room until he found
my Nestle’s Crunch bar in the air-conditioner and my extra
stash of Indian nuts in the used razor bin.
“All right, baby. Now we're talking! What else do you have
stashed away? C'mon, you little sneak, fork it over. Now!”

4 32

“But what about me?” | said. “I'm the one who's loved
Tony all along.”
“That's no kind of love, if you ask me. You better grow up,
Barbara. You can't expect someone to love you when you let
them down all the time. Love is built on trust and respect.”
“Tony doesn't respect me?”

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“Respect you? He can't even look you in the eye.”

woke up they were pushing me into his red convertible and

I didn't know what to say. Michelle's hot pink shirt was

speeding down the road.

burning my eyes.

“Nice night for a drive, isn't it?” I said, “We should do this

“How could you leave me,” I wailed.
"Face it, Barbara. you can't suck up to me all your life.
You're gonna have to start making it on your own.”

more often. Maybe Tony and I could double with you and The
Wolf, or you and Tony and me and The Wolf. Or all of us
together.”

I looked at her, and then I looked in the mirror. Everything
was getting pretty confusing. One of us had just married Tony
and, since I was in love with him and Michelle wasn't, it must
have been me. But I didn't remember any wedding. And Michelle was wearing this platinum band on her left hand with
all these twinkly little diamonds in it.
My head felt like a rubber band getting twisted over and

I suggested we all sing “We all Live In A Yellow Submarine,” but I got so tired after one chorus I fell asleep again.
When I woke up, we were at the entrance to the emergency room of the hospital. They gave me a big weird shot of
something that made me feel like I was falling, falling, very
slowly.

“She'll calm down and sleep through the night,” the doc-

over. Then my hands and feet took off and floated up to the

tor said. “Then she'll be logy for a couple days. If she gets

ceiling. I saw Michelle's head fly off and join them, and then I

depressed, give her these pills, one every four hours.”

started to laugh.
“Are you okay Barbara?” said Michelle.
Her face looked so funny up there on the ceiling, asking
me if I was O.K. that | started laughing even harder. It was
really one of the funniest things I ever saw.

He was right. My hands and feet came wobbling back to
their places, and I was too sleepy to walk to the car. They
wheeled me out in a wheelchair, and, when I woke up, it was
the next afternoon.
There was a party the next week for Michelle and Tony at
the Holiday Inn, and I danced with Tony to show there were
no hard feelings. He squeezed my hand and told me how pretty
I looked. I was down to a hundred and sixty pounds and Michelle by now looked emaciated.
The next day they took off for two weeks of commercials
and then on to Bermuda for their honeymoon.
They left me here by myself in this room, and all I can think
of is eating. It started as soon as they left for the airport. I was
amazed how much stuff I could sneak through the lobby to

A man passing behind her branded her ass with a
klepto-pinch. Such a pretty face, he snickered,
signaling his pity.

“Barbara, stop laughing. Calm down. Do you want some
water?”
By this time I was choking, I was laughing so hard. I could
hardly breathe. And her face up there on the ceiling was doing
a little dance with my hands and feet. It was hilarious how her
face got more and more serious the more her head danced
around. Finally I got so exhausted with all this activity, I went to
sleep right on the floor. It seemed like I dreamed that Michelle
was calling up the Howling Wolf on the telephone, but when I

FOOD IS A FEMINIST ISSUE

Text and art by Kay Kenny

33 )

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my room without anyone suspecting. Why, Ilve brought through
suitcases full of chicken and ribs, a laundry basket of Twinkies,
ice cream and milk in a beach bag, and a whole roast beef
wrapped up as a present.
Michelle will be angry when she gets back. And Tony probably won't even talk to me.
Before they left, Michelle shot some commercials for Dietcola and set up a spread for us to do together. It was a secret,
but she told me just to give me some extra incentive. It's supposed to be the One Big Account that will make us rich. Tony
thought it up two years ago and kept it to himself until it
seemed like a possibility.
Get this. A gigantic spread. Tremendous. The two of us,
before we lost this weight and after, endorsing liquid protein.
Gold bikinis, palm trees. Centerfolds in all the magazines. Dinah
and Merv. Even Johnny.
Too bad, Michelle and Tony. Here's my little secret. You can
kiss Liqui-Pro good-bye and shove it you-know-where. I'm eating my way back to where it doesn't hurt or maybe further.
Maybe l'll get so big l'Il look like twins.
At first it was painful to stuff myself, but the food kept on
going down. My thin cheeks are starting to regain their bounce.
If I look cross-eyed, I can almost see them again.
I look in the mirror. My roundness pleases me.
Empty, it keeps thumping in my head, empty.
Susan Thomas lives in Larchmont, NY
with her family and writes fiction.
She is particularly interested in
Near-Eastern mythology.

Kay Kenny is an artist and photographer living in New Jersey.

D+R+I+N+K
by Ann Chernow
Gloria's father was a beer salesman.
E very month he sent her a case, at
Night we hid them under beds and in closets,
E very Saturday we had a party. One
S unday there was a bad fire in the dorm. In
S lickers we evacuated the building
E xclaiming among ourselves, “what about the beer?” At
E leven o'clock the fire reached Gloria's room.

B oom! The beer exploded. Gloria was
E xpelled.
E ach Sunday for a long time we prayed for her
Redemption.

Ann Chernow is a painter who loves to write. Recently her poems

Olivia Beens lives and works in NYC. Her installation and performance works

were published in the New York Quarterly and Art/Life.

concentrate on using personal experience for social and political change.

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AIRLINE EATING
It was a long day of eating.

I was stuffed.

First there was a birthday party for my five-year old niece

Too full to move.

So I ate birthday cake with her.
Then my mother had made meatloaf especially for me,
because | like it so much.
So I ate meatloaf. A lot of meatloaf.
For my mother.

Lethargic.
I was not alert.
Or sexual.
I was a drag.
I was a slug

Because she worked so hard and I love my mother.
l ate the rest of the meal for my father.
He wanted company so | ate it.
I was stuffed to the gills.
Two hours later I boarded the plane to go home.
I felt like I would never eat again.
I was full.

They served dinner.
I had no confusion about this food
I knew I didn't want it.
Steak.
Airplane steak with black strip
been charcoal grilled, but col
And I don't eat beef.
Frozen beans.
A salad with a chemical dressing.
A cold hard roll.
Chocolate cake with chocolate icing and sprinkles on it.

e the airline stewardess Worked so hard?
Did I eat it for the starving Armenians, the Chinese,
the Biafrans?
Did I eat it because I'm a good girl?
Who did I eat it for?
Did / eat that food?
To show that I have appetites?
That I hunger?
I'm someone who loves to eat, lively, an eater, a doer.
Someone who moves.

I knew it wouldn't taste good.
I knew it wouldn't make me feel good.

Or did I eat it for the effects of the eating?

late it.

So that stuffed to the gills, I would be silent.

I couldn't resist.
I couldn't stop myself.
I felt like I C

Narcotized, I wouldn't notice my desires.
My needs would reshape themselves.
I would need sleep, not sex;

I couldn't stop.

Help, not independent action.

I forcefed myself air]

Why, I'd need derrick service just to get out of my seat!

late it.

I think everyone òn

Did I eat it because I make no connection between what
I put in my mouth and how my body feels?

Why?

Why did I eat this food?

Did I eat it because I am a woman, a woman who has

Did I think it was my last meal?

been alternately starved and stuffed?
Who was it who ate this airline meal?

My last chance?

Who stuffed themselves with this poison?

Was | eating to compensate for not being breastfed?
Because I hated spoon-feeding?

Why?

Because what I ate, when | ate, was determined by others?

Why did I eat it?

Who did it serve, this eating, this force-feeding?
I felt terrible physically.
I felt terrible about myself.

Sometimes I think I almost understand what

I hated my body.

this is all about.

FOOD IS A FEMINIST ISSUE

35 )

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P
THE HUNTER,

But I've been cooking all day.

THE GATHERER,

Slaving over a hot stove.

THE SHOPPER,
THE COOK

Standing over a hot stove.
Cooking.
I've been shopping for groceries.
Putting them away.
Setting the table.
Cooking the food.
Making this dinner.
Wracking my brains.
I've been wracking my brains over this meal.
What to buy.
How much to pay.
I've been budgeting.
Looking for sales.
I've been feeding this family on $6.00.
Making it do.
I've been wracking my brains over this meal.

I have been cooking all day.
Shopping for bargains.

YNI TSA HR PM

Hunting for bargains.

4
' s RES t

SIEUR UARRIEEY

I've been hunting all day.
l

ve been up and down hundreds of aisles.
Hunting.
Hunting and gathering and cooking this food.
Loading my cart.
Carrying carcasses.
I have been hunting all day.
I have gathered this food from across the land.

THE HIERARCHY |
OF THE CHICKEN

I've been everywhere.
I've been everywhere.
I have made this meal.
I have created this food.
This is my time.

The father eats the breast.
He only likes white meat.
_ The kids eat the drumsticks,
the thighs, and

My thought.
What you have on your plate is my blood.
My brains.
I tell you I have been cooking all day.

the wings.
The mother eats the neck
the back
the liver

What do you mean
twantit?
you don
1,

the gizzard
the feet
and the heart.

4 36

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SIZE ONE
What happened to sizes recently? I go

deal size for women? A 10 was

into a department store and the clothes are

models wore—but a 12 was consid-

size 3. Someone's whole body could fit into

ed the real size. I remember reading that

one of my pants legs. I see size 5, size 7 and that's
it. And then a whole rack of something called size

race Kelly wore a 12. And Grace Kelly was not
exactly a fat person. But she was a grown-up, a full-

1. SIZE ONE. Did they just change what they call the

sized woman, an adult. She did not go around wear-

sizes—or have women really gotten to be this lit-

ing a size 3 or a 1—even when she became a princess!

tle? This is way past petite. For an 11 (the size everyone I know used to strive for) you have to go to another

Now, when I was in the 8th grade, I had a 23" waist.

department entirely where the Big Girls go to try on

That was considered petite, a good figure—for an

clothes. Or even worse, they could send you to the cot-

8th grader! I tell you they must have just changed

ton housedresses in the Misses Department located on
the back wards of the 4th floor.

the sizes on us. That's all. Probably some kind of
European sizing thing —like the metric system. That
must be it. Because it is not possible that women

And besides, what happened? Now there are 22" and

have been called upon to diminish their size to that

24" waists. Belts that won't even go around one of my

degree—and to have done it with such a high rate
Of success.

And what do they do with their thighs? That’s my
7" smaller than 31". That is a hell of a lot smaller. Did

biggest question. The waist thing I can live with. After

everyone really lose that much weight? How? Even Scar-

all, I did once actually have a 23” waist myself. And

let O'Hara strung up tightly in her corset only made it

probably even smaller. When | was nine or seven

to a 17" waist—which, by the way, is 14" smaller than
my 31" when I'm thin!
dance on those legs? They do dance. I know that. I
Maybe my 31" isn't really at the waist. It’s below the

mean every size 1 woman dressed in designer jeans

waist. Let's say that makes it 29". So someone who mea-

is dancing her head off at a club all night long. Right?

sures 24" actually at the waist still has a waist that is 5”

God. Two of those women could sit comfortably on

ence between being flat-chested (32") and having big

wears a size 1?
my lap, blissfully unaware of each other's existence.
Can this really be happening?

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most in the world. One hundred
ninety of them answered, “Getting
fat.”

A sexuo-economic relationship: He

Cooking begins to break the food provides food in exchange for sex.
down into its basic elements before She exchanges sex for food. He be-

it is transformed by enzymes and comes sexually compulsive. She begastric secretions. Therefore, the one comes compulsive in relation to food.
who cooks the food is beginning the

FEAST OR FAMINE digestion process for someone else. April 1985— The Boston Globe: Ethiopia is the world’s sixth-largest pro-

NOTES Coffee is the largest exchange item ducer of coffee. The current problem

on the world market except for is transport, getting the coffee out
1789—The French Revolution began petroleum. It is the only one of the of the country for export.
with the market women of Paris riot- top ten that is not a necessity.
ing to show their disapproval of the

inflated price of bread. The first writings were a record of
famine. History is a record of the

The human stomach functions as a food search.
storage organ permitting discon-

4 38

JERRY VEZZUSO

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| BEGAN my career in nutrition looking at issues surrounding food advertising directed at children. 1 was a critic not only of the very sweet products

promoted for babies, but of the food Disneylands
through which their parents—and the rest of us
—had to make our way in order to purchase our
food. As a budding nutrition educator, I worried
that I would probably find it impossible to teach
informed decision-making about the twelve to fifteen thousand items found in the average supermarket, even if they were fully and nutritionally
labeled. Many of these objects are of such complex
and mysterious composition that even the Food and
Drug Administration cannot really evaluate their
safety and nutritiousness—as it has occasionally been
forced to admit.
However; many women—including nutrition
professionals —are unsettled by criticisms of our
abundant food marketplace. While some of us find
microwavable popcorn absurd and overpriced, attacks on the proliferative excesses of the supermarket can come to seem like attacks on women’s
liberation. Much as food professionals deplore some
of the nutritional problems created by our food supply, they, like other women, have bought into the
notion that “convenience foods” have at least freed
women from the drudgery of the kitchen. (The term
"convenience food” is used here to refer to any
food that has some part of its preparation built in.
Anything from a loaf of bakery bread to a frozen
hero sandwich will seem a convenience to someone, depending on whether the alternative is baking it yourself or merely assembling the sandwich

by Joan Dye
GUSSOW

ingredients.)
Whatever the level of built-in services, convenience foods” come with a built-in assumption with
which we have all lived for some time now—namely,
that women have benefitted from the industrialization of food.

different things, or the same things in greater numbers. And

Presumably, we have been enabled to go out, get jobs, and do

most commodities can be acquired well beyond need—you

all the other things we found it desirable ( or financially neces-

can have three houses, five cars, eight navy blue jackets or

sary) to do since our “liberation” because the food marketers
met our needs. We believe we have convenience foods” be-

3000 pairs of shoes. But food is an exception. There is a bio-

cause we (or most women) need them to allow time for ca-

logical limit on food consumption. Even if people are willing to
become overweight so they can continue to eat, there are quite

reers and other pleasures. To object to such foods, therefore,

narrow limits beyond which humans cannot go in consuming

seems equivalent to condemning women to kitchen drudgery.

food.

Is this really the case? I myself have always doubted that

So if population growth levels off, as it pretty much has in

changes in the food supply were designed to liberate women.

this country, the food industry cannot continue to grow by

l am old enough to remember World War Il when many women

selling the same amount of food to more people, because

went out and got jobs—difficult, demanding jobs with long

there aren't that many more people to sell to. They must sell

hours—without the benefit of having convenience foods. And

the same number of people more food, or they must make the

then, after the war, when women were told to go back and

same amount of food cost more. So overconsumption is pro-

put on aprons so the homecoming soldier boys would have

moted (You can't eat only one ...”), as are non-caloric foods

jobs, suddenly we got a great upsurge in foods designed to

that allow us to consume far beyond need and yet avoid being

save time. The chronology simply didn't support the notion

as fat as our overindulgence would normally imply. And, with

that convenience foods helped women get out of the house.

a dazzling display of inventiveness, food marketers have also

My own explanation for produce proliferation—from 800

made use of novelty and overprocessing to induce us to buy

products in 1928 to 15,000 or more today—is that it arises
from a food industry growth problem.
In the sort of economics by which we are used to measur-

less food value for more money.
To return to our main argument then, although the standard assumption is that we have convenience foods because

ing “success,” growth is the name of the game. Industries

women wanted to get out of the kitchen, other evidence sug-

must continue to grow or they die. In a society that values

gests that we have convenience foods as an artifact of the

consumption as an expression of personality and a reflection

food industry's necessity for growth.

of success, people can always be sold on wanting new and

FOOD IS A FEMINIST ISSUE

Several years ago, both of these theories appeared in adja-

39 D

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The author of the second article, Henry Arthur, saw the problem quite differently. He observed that the “industrialized food
system” had impinged upon many traditional home-rendered
services.”
From a nutritional point of view, we can be happy that in
industrialized areas of the world, people are better fed than
ever before in history... At the same time, the industrialization of foods, unintentionally, has produced a lot of underemployed housewives and led them to seek employment
outside the household.
McKenzie, in short, says that women insisted on getting out of
the house, and the food manufacturers responded; Arthur says
that the technological imperative produced “convenience foods”
and drove women out of the house. Clearly someone was
wrong, and since neither author offered any supporting documentation, it was impossible to determine the verity of either
one. Some serious investigation was called for.
Of the many questions that seemed worth asking, one
of my students and I have explored two. First, do women
really hate to cook? And second, is there any evidence that women’s desire to get out of the household actually led to convenience foods?
Research to answer the second, more difficult, question was done by a doctoral student, Mary Anselmino, and it is her work from
which I am largely drawing. What were the factors
that led to the acceptance of ‘food innovations,” as
she called them? Anselmino considered the social and ecoHelen Redman,
Home Ecchh,
plasticized collage cutout.

nomic changes of the twentieth century, including urbanization and women's expanding role in the labor force. She also
examined the technological changes affecting the food industry —the development of certain kinds of processes which enabled certain kinds of products to be manufactured (freezing
and canning are obvious examples). For these she drew on

cent articles in a special issue of Nutrition Reviews devoted to
progress in the food industry. John McKenzie, the author of

histories of the period, including histories of the food industry.
Then, in order to look at direct influences on women’s

the first, reviewing the social changes of the past decade—more

attitudes toward food innovations, she looked at primary data

women working, more female-headed households, fewer chil-

from three periods, 1929 to 1933, 1939 to 1943, and 1949 to

dren per family, inflation, and so on—concluded that conse-

1953, bracketing the great depression, the entry into World

quentially, the food industry has developed products to meet

War Il and the immediate post-war period. For these three

women’s needs—including their psychological ones.” He then

periods, a total of fifteen years but covering a time span of

goes on:

twenty-five years, she looked at every copy of the two major
advertising journals, Printers Ink and Advertising and Selling,

Thus, at a price (which to a two-wage-earner household is

to get information on the aspirations, intentions and techniques

acceptable), the food industry has taken over many functions

of advertisers, focusing especially on all articles about the ad-

previously handled by the housewife, has facilitated her de-

vertising of food. She also looked at every copy of Good

mand to work, and has tried to satisfy some of her latent

Housekeeping, one of the leading women’s magazines from

psychological needs. While in some areas the industry may

this period (since through much of this period, magazines —not

be reasonably criticized, this...is not one of them. If house-

television, which has emerged since—were the major carriers

wives buy tinned custard, and virtually transfer menu plan-

of food advertising). She looked at every food advertisement

ning to the food industry, it is because of their fundamental
desire to transform the nature of their lives. Given that this

that dealt with ready-to-eat breakfast cereals, soup, commercially prepared cakes, cake mixes, canned and frozen vegeta-

transformation was almost compulsively demanded, the fairer

bles, baby foods, orange juice and prepared, canned, and frozen

question is to ask, what would have been the effect upon

entrees and specialties.

family life and eating patterns if the food industry had not
responded so effectively?’

These particular categories were chosen because they included foods that were either first introduced during the time
period covered, or showed a marked increase in popularity
during the period. The ads were systematically examined for

Helen Redman is a figure painter and collage artist living in San Diego. She

what they could reveal about the strategies used in a given

has shown her work in 22 one-person shows.

time period to promote a particular product.

Katheryn Anne Sins is a Brooklyn artist who currently shows at Alan Stone
and Now Galleries. She works as a freelance illustrator and prop fabricator.

4 40

In addition, Mary examined every artic/e about food that
appeared in Good Housekeeing during the fifteen years in ques-

HERESIES 21

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tion. And, finally, she looked at the major home economics
texts of the period to examine the information and attitudes
expressed toward food innovation by the food professionals of
the era.

In an unpublished dissertation, Anselmino wrote:
My conclusions about the factors that have influenced the
emergence and acceptance of food innovations are similar in
some respects to the reasons that industry offers concerning
the introduction of new products or product variations. Industry argues that such items appear on the market in response to consumer demands brought about by rising incomes,
the increasing opportunity cost of one’s time (i.e., the cost of

sacrificing the next best alternative use of one’s time), growing negative attitudes toward food preparation, and changing lifestyles. My investigation has pointed out the role that
industry had in fostering negative attitudes toward food prep-

aration and, to some extent, in emphasizing the opportunity
cost associated with food preparation. Even before women
were entering the labor force, food ads told them of the
enjoyable times that could be theirs if they spent less time
involved in food preparation.”
This is a 1932 ad headlined “Turn Your Back on Dull and
Needless Labor” from Good Housekeeping, as described by
Anselmino:

The ad included two pictures of women at work in the kitchen.

One showed a woman with an expressionless face sitting on
a stool cleaning vegetables. Near the table where she worked
was a large can labeled “waste.” The clock in the picture
read 4:25 p.m. In the other picture it was 5:45 p.m. A smiling woman was opening a can of food. The pictures said so
much that there really wasn't a need for copy in the ad. Nev-

ertheless, the ad asked, “Have you banished into the dim
past the irksome, time-taking problems of meal preparation?”
The ad went on to describe the “modern-minded” housewives who had. “These women are avoiding the tiresome, unpleasant tasks of sorting, cleaning, cutting and paring— timeconsuming labor that robs many a woman of hours she might
use in other ways. Surely, every woman will be happier if she
saves herself an hour or more a day by following the smart,

modern practice of those who have learned that canned food
means freedom from drudgery and a new opportunity for
the delicate personal touch so vital to all good cooking.”
Given the profound disappointment that canned vegetables
must be to anyone who has ever tasted fresh ones, it is interesting to note that the most heavily advertised products during this period were canned vegetables. What was being sold
in ads like this was the notion that cooking was using time
that could better be used for more delightful activities. But
remember, this was 1932, the depression, when jobs and money
were both scarce. For which delightful activites were women
saving time?
Anselmino discovered that the very attitudes among women
that were supposed to have created a demand for convenience
were actively promoted by the media women were exposed
to; the food processors recognized the housewife as their most
powerful rival. Because of women’s positive feelings about their
own work, early ads for processed foods could only hint that
cookery was a form of drudgery.
Yet the evidence shows that, well into the twentieth century, many women failed to view cooking as old-fashioned,
necessary drudgery or hard, dirty, exacting work. There were

FOOD IS A FEMINIST ISSUE

41 D

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indications in women’s magazines and in home econom-

research laboratories in the U.S., the author notes that

ics texts in the ‘20s and ‘30s indicating that women found
food preparation a creative and enjoyable process. And
these same magazines and many of the books worked to
erode such traditional values.
Not only was cooking portrayed as hard work, but

wiser and better man. Generally speaking, mother wasn't much

of a cook. Science, symbolized by the can opener, is taking

food was portrayed as a raw material, valued not for its

her place in that respect. The can opener cook, even though

intrinsic deliciousness, but for its uniformity and its quali-

she gets that way through indolence or ignorance, is advanc-

ties as a scientifically maleable raw material. (The role turn-

ing civilization.

of-the-century home economists played in setting women
up for this transformation has only recently been brilliantly

Manufacturers’ motivations notwithstanding, it could be

laid out in a new book called Perfection Salad by Laura

argued that it is not women’s attitudes toward cooking
that lie behind convenience foods, but the fact that—as

Shapiro.) As Anselmino shows, ads and articles celebrated
the disappearance of seasonal influences on the food supply (so we now have tasteless tomatoes year round and

their name suggests —convenience foods save time. Turning the burden of food preparation over to the food in-

no asparagus season at all). In the 1920s and 30s women

dustry must surely have freed women to do other things

were told that home canning was a waste of time in light

with their waking hours. As it happens, there are data on
women's use of time collected over a number of decades.

of the wonderful canned goods now on the market. They
were told they could save money and time by trusting the

What they show is that despite all the kitchen conveniences

experts in their spotless, sunlit, industrial kitchens (the

we now have, despite supermarkets and convenience foods

commercial kitchens the ads described seemed inevitably

and self-regulating ovens, there was, until very recentiy,

sunny!). There were repeated assurances about the quality

astonishingly little change in the amount of time women
devote to food-related chores.

of commercial foods, commercially prepared foods were
of a uniform quality unmatched (and by inference, un-

Kathryn Walker of Cornell University, who did the most

matchable) at home. Women were told they would be

extensive work on this question, showed that the time

modern and up-to-date if they used these products. And
influential home economists like Christine Fredericks told

devoted to all food-related activites had declined by one

women they had many other interests besides cooking

period, the time per day devoted to marketing and record

half-hour a day between 1927 and 1968. But during this
keeping had gone up by more than half an hour (A// home-

which would utilize surplus brains and time.
In short, while technology made certain food items
possible, the technology to make certain foods—frozen

making actually took about forty-five minutes more each
day in 1967 than it had forty years earlier!) Although em-

vegetables, cake mixes, canned spaghetti, commercial

ployed homemakers spent less time in both periods on

cakes, baby foods—was often available long before in-

food-related activities, their pattern was similar.? By 1977,

dustry was able to create a demand for such foods by

shopping occupied an additional half-hour of family time
and twelve minutes more of the housewife’s time than it

overcoming existing prejudices against them.
Anselmino discovered that women were insistently

had ten years earlier, but there was no significant decline

urged to see cooking as time-consuming and laborious:

in the time spent on food preparation.” Time spent on

but her data allowed her only to infer that women did

dishwashing had declined by twelve minutes during the

not already see things that way. What evidence is there
that women do, or did, hate to cook? My search for an
answer to this question led me from a feminist

decade.” A later report on data gathered in 1978 showed that when employed and unemployed wives are

bookstore in Manhattan to the library system of ,

compared, the unemployed (that is,

the University of California. I found almost noth-

the not gainfully employed) wife

ing in print that even touched on the topic. But
in the few serious studies that had been done

day in meal preparation than does the

spends about twelve mintues more per

looking at women’s attitudes toward

employed wife.° This is an amount of

housework, food preparation turned

time whose practical significance the
researchers (and |) question.

out to be one of the /iked tasks—espe-

Further confirmation of the fact that

cially when women no longer had to
chop the wood to feed the fire in
order to cook. Obviously, there are

food “modernization” did not free
~
r.

women who hate cooking; there
probably always were. But there is no a

women for participation in the work
>. force comes from an entirely different literature. The most detailed
study of the question ever made,

documentation that food preparation is, >

Oppenheimer's The Female Labor

or was, a widley disliked task, just as there
is no proof that a widely articulated hatred

Force in the United States, concluded that

of cooking preceded the introduction of “con^
venience foods.”

data on women's labor force participa-

What there is evidence of, as Anselmino’s
dissertation illustrates over and over, is that A/R
advertisers saw the woman who cou/d not — t#lg

tion would not support the idea that declines in “the burden of housework” —
including cooking—were a “major
factor in the rise in female work
rates.”

cook as advancing civilization. Consider the g9)
following article, entitled “Can Opener Cooking” from the November 24, 1932 issue of |
Printers Ink. After celebrating the growth of 4a

42

Although there was a much greater increase in convenience” in the
household before World War II than

HERESIES 21

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after World War Il, there were
much greater changes in the female work rates after the war than
between 1900 and 1940. All the
changes that occurred before
World War Il—from coal and wood
stoves to gas and electric ones,
from washboards to washing machines, and from home gardens
and summers of canning to canned
goods and supermarkets—should
have released women from much
more work than did the technological refinements in stoves, refrigerators, washing machines and
“convenience foods” that occurred
after 1940. Women, Oppenheimer
concluded, were pulled into the
work-force, not pushed into it by
free time, and they were pulled by
the availability of certain kinds of
jobs, “requiring skill but not longrange commitment, specialized location or high remuneration.” In
short, women’s work.?
And finally, all studies that have
been done comparing employed
and non-employed women’s use of convenience food show

gence and Acceptance of Food Innovations in Twentieth-Century Amer-

essentially no differences. Surprisingly, the latest study suggests

ica,” Diss. Columbia University, 1985.

that women who stay at home may even use more conve-

4 ibid.

nience foods. And Market Research Corporation recently reported that employed mothers feed their children better than

5 Kathryn Walker, “Homemaking Still Takes Time,” Journal of Home

nonemployed mothers— that is, they use fewer sugared (con-

Economics, 1968, Vol. 61, No. 8, p. 621.

venience) cereals, more fresh foods, and so on. This seems a

6 Kathryn Walker and Margaret Sanik, “The Potential for Measure-

fitting tombstone for the idea that the food industry has been

ment of Non-Market Household Production with Time-Use Data,” Paper

striving to free us from the kitchen so we can have it all.

presented to the International Sociological Association's World Con-

What I believe all this indicates is that the food industry has
grown, as it will continue to grow, driven by a technological
impetus which is, in turn, driven by a need for continued growth.
Growth is achieved by creating food innovations that housewives and other working women must be convinced they need.
This means that we as women must decide whether we want
and need these food objects on some basis other than a belief
that they have been made for our benefit and will ultimately
save us time.
The beliefs about women and food that advertisers were

7 Karen Goebel, “Time Use and Family Life,” Family Econmics Review, Summer 1981, pp. 20-25.
8 K.P Goebel and C.B. Hennon, “Time Consumed in Meal Preparation and Its Substitution by Purchased Meals: An Analysis of Dual and
Single Wage Earner Families,” American Council on Consumer Interest,
April 1981, pp. 50-56.
9 Valerie Kincade Oppenheimer, The Female Labor Force in the United
States (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970), pp. n.a.

selling twenty, thirty and forty years ago were not true; yet we
came to believe they were true and, in the process, we helped

Joan Gussow is a professor in the Department of Nutrition Education, Teach-

disempower ourselves. The messages about how we would be

ers College, Columbia University. She is interested in factors that affect the

freed from kitchen slavery succeeded in making us slaves to

sustainability of the food supply.

the manufacturers on whom we are now entirely dependent,
since many of us have lost—or never acquired— the skills needed
to convert raw food materials into consumables. It is no laughing matter that we are part of a second generation of Minute
Rice users. We may not all wish to learn to cook—even íf it is
now more prestigious because men are doing it too. But we
should, at a minimum, reexamine the myths that blind us. Food
is not merely a feared source of calories, or a symbol of our
enslavement; it is essential to human survival. ®
1 John McKenzie, “Social Changes and the Food Industry,” Nutrition
Reviews, No. 40, January 1982 Supplement, p. 13.
2 Henry Arthur, “The Role of Industrial Food in the Family Economy,” Nutrition Reviews, No. 40, January 1982 Supplement, p. 13.
3 Mary Anselmino and Mary Wiza, “Factors Influencing the Emer-

FOOD IS A FEMINIST ISSUE

43)

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I WANT TO MAKE BREAKFAST FOR YOU was done as a mail
art/performance art piece. I mailed the letter to 43 people
(some were couples). Breakfast performances (private,
at the recipient's home) were performed four times.
My silk sari, worn for one such performance,
caught fire in Topanga and was put out without
the breakfaster's having to get out of bed.

I will wear my brown hair in long blonde braids piled high on top of my never-to-be Nordic head. * I will wear
a crown of lit candles and leaves and bring breakfast to you on a tray. * With my hair in large pink plastic curlers I will wear a chenille
bathrobe, make espresso, and turn into Anna Magnani before your sleepy eyes. * I will tell you to hurry or you'll be late to school. * I will
bring a record of Otis Redding singing “Champagne and Wine” and present you with a pitcher of mimosas. * I will invent Bisquick
fantasies for you. * I will wear a Fernando Sanchez black silk slip with lace crocheted by nuns and eat breakfast with you in bed. * I will
draw a bath for you and have tea ready by the time you slip into a fresh bed jacket. * I will call your boss to say you're not coming in. *
I will wear marabou high-heeled slippers and wait for you to make breakfast for me. + I will bring the New York Times (in California) and
the Paris Herald Tribune (in New York). * I will wake you with the sound of my heartbeat. * I will hand an icy glass of grapefruit juice to
you as you shave. * I will knock on your door, as Little Red, with a peasant bread or some curative gruel to prepare you for another day of
toil and recession. * I will write down your dreams as you recite them. * I will let you sleep and make breakfast when you arise at two in
the afternoon. * I will be your French maid. * I will let myself into the house while you are sleeping, brew coffee, make toast, take them
with me, and leave you the smells to remind you of breakfasts past and present. * ! will take your dog for a run while you gulp a blender
drink so you can be to ballet class on time. * I will not tell you how important breakfast is. * I will fill your breakfast fantasies. *

1 want to make breakfast for you.
It is hard to get out of bed when it is dark. * All over America women are still getting up to make breakfast for their children when they
might rather be doing something else. * A man I loved used to make breakfast for me while I wrote down my dreams and dawdled
through la toilette. * Sometimes it takes courage—or at least will take courage—to get out of the house in the morning. * Fried eggs
are called ‘eyes’ in Greek. * A man I may marry has gotten his morning roll at the same coffee shop since 1972. * The Rothschild guests
leave their breakfast request with the household staff the evening before. * No one I know has a family life. * The phrase “the morning
after” invites nostalgia; is more literary than experiential. * A well known critic didn't bother to get up when ! left in the morning. * Slowly
our ceremonies are becoming memories. * My grandmother always got up at six, I at seven-thirty: she paced until she could make breakfast
for me. * Too many of my friends have to travel at rush hour. * Two cures for hangovers stand out in my mind: to put
a raw steak over one's eyes and to keep on drinking. * Women’s art has so often been consumed and
thus invisible. * At the Beverly Hills Hotel a T.V. producer didn’t invite me to his breakfast meeting; nor did he call room service. * I wonder if Lillian
Hellman and Hammett ever made breakfast for one
another. * (You always keep the coffee hot for
me. I want to see you in the morning light before
you grow tense from the day.) * The morning after I lost my virginity I went to Zabar’s and
bought bagels, Tropicana orange juice, and the
paper. * He was still asleep when I returned. * Sometimes it is important not to put knowledge and experience into hierarchies. * I want to make breakfast
for you because there are so many wonderful things
to make. + I want to make breakfast for you so that
you can ingest art. * I want to ease your entry into
the light of day. * lwant to be your morning vision.
* I want to make breakfast for you so that you can
sense union, incorporation, breaking-of-fast, my fantasies, your childhood, just what great coffee is, and why
at one time the consumption of food was ceremonial.

J want to make breakfast for you.
R.S.V.P.

Irene Borger is a writer and ex-cook. Her
work appears regularly in Vogue, the Wall Street
Journal arts page, and other journals. She is on the
dance faculty at The University of California, Riverside.

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I raise my arms

as she lifts the cloth

E

brushing my face
her hands are soft

Appetites

feeding me something sweet
stroking my cheeks my hair
singing a little song
only the two of us share
as she tucks me in

s by Les/ea Newman

the blankets pulled up
under my chin
she lies with me
until I fall asleep

“Next time I'm going to mop it up

dreaming
that this is how it was

with your hair. Now get upstairs!”

I sit at the kitchen table
staring at my oatmeal.
She won't let me get up

I climb the steps slowly
wishing she would die
down there on the kitchen floor
with a green bath towel
full of vomit in her hands.

until I finish it
and | hate it

Late at night I sneak downstairs

even more than | hate her.

moving through the darkness

I hear the water running

as though | were underwater.

as she moves back and forth

I open the refrigerator

carrying glasses and dishes
from table to sink

and the bright light blares
like an alarm clock.

and I swing my legs back and forth

Quietly I take out

wishing I was outside somewhere

2 pieces of Wonderbread
2 pieces of American Cheese

She sponges off the table
sweeping crumbs into her hand

2 Devil Dogs
2 Good Humor Bars

finally saying | can go

and a bagel.

if I just take one bite.

I sit down

I pick up a speck of oatmeal

and the plastic chair beneath me

with the edge of my spoon

creaks.

close my eyes

| eat

hold my nose

the soft foods

open my mouth
and swallow

becoming part of my soft skin.
When I am done | rise

and throw up all over the place
crying as she screams

my belly round and full
as | climb the stairs
tip-toeing past my parents’ room,
remembering my mother told me
she hasn't had a good night's sleep
since her first child was born.
I imagine her lying there
next to my father,
one eye open
like a whitefish behind the Deli counter
its lidless eye forever staring
its body rigid on the ice
waiting patiently for the stranger
who will peel back its skin
pick apart its bones
and devour the sweet meat underneath.

Leslea Newman's first novel, Good Enough To Eat,
has just been published by Firebrand Books, Currently she is teaching women’s writing workshops
and working on a collection of short stories.

HERESIES 21

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everytime you stubbed out a cigarette were saying:
4 At the
mother
uponrestaurant
the rolls.my
“Thank
God!falls
I was starving,”
she says, her mouth full of dough.
She bites into a hamburger,

Only a fool would settle for this.
Mama don't you see | listened to you?
For once in my life l'll admit you were right.

her long red nails digging into the soft bun,

Mama, come sit at my table

and shoves french fries and onion rings

and tell me stories about when | was a little girl,

into her mouth while I push around a diet soda.

how I was born with thick black hair

After the plates are cleared away
she orders cheesecake

long enough for a ponytail,

asking the waitress to bring her

and how you cried because you were so happy

two packets of Sweet 'n' Low:

1 was a girl.

how the nurses all took turns combing it

one for her coffee and one for her purse.
When we get home we each migrate
towards our own bedroom
like homing pigeons lighting on
a branch for the night.
Before | fall asleep
I run my hands along my body
feeling my collarbones, sharp as swords,
my belly curving inward like an empty boat,
my hipbones jutting out like rocks
along a jagged shore.
I sleep like a baby
in a cradle

or a hammock
or a spoon being lifted
towards a pair of red lips
two rows of yellow teeth
and a tongue curled like a finger
beckoning me to enter
the thick warm darkness behind it.

5 Mama
I never called you Mama
though I always wanted to.
Mama, will you tell me you love me?
Will you tell me you think I'm strong
and beautiful?
All I remember was you telling me to lose weight,
do something with my hair
and put on a brassiere.
Mama, tell me you're proud of me
for living on my own
because that's what you taught me
the whole time you shlepped us kids round
to dance classes and Hebrew school,
whenever you made supper and did the dishes,
each time you picked up Papa's suits
from the cleaners
and his socks from the floor
the creases between your eyebrows were saying:
I don't want to be doing this.
Mama tell me about you and Papa,
were saying:
I can't stand this.
And the sighs that escaped your lips

how he'd lie on the floor
with his hands under his head
his eyes closed
while you played the piano
and Grandma fried blintzes in the kitchen
Mama | am hungry for these stories
of how we all loved each other.

Gilah Hirsch has a year's sabbatical from Cal State-

Domingues Hills and is currently traveling alone
through Asia.

FOOD IS A FEMINIST ISSUE

I want to hear them again and again
so | can pretend
I remember.

47 D

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Bit
u
Perched on an elegantly decorated

Who's holding this ferocious-looking

cake, this lady was a monument to

25-pound monkfish of which

the confectioner’s art and to true

only the tail is edible ssib

love. The cake was made for the
wedding of the Princess Royal of
Britain to Prince Frederick William
of Prussia. Usually seen
next to a groom,
she can now
be seen next
to a Lesbian
bride at
alternative
lifestyle
weddings.

s

The One Who Wouldn't Be Stereotyped
Her recipe for Success:
Refuse the pinch of clowning in segregated vaudeville.

Whois this controver- Fold American career.
sial stereotype created Add Paris. Whip the Europeans into

This roast suckling pig was her hus-

by white boys, who has estatic peaks.

band’s favorite dinner served after

inspired a kitchen full Crush racism.

musicales she held Friday evenings

group serving nuclear cocktails in

of analytical books and Feed to nearly 20 adopted children from

for invited guests numbering

Duck and Cover.

critical papers? all parts of the world.

between 250 to 500.

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PI

ted This French actress inspired She founded the inital settle- A novelty of Flora Peake Holtz’s extrava- This narrow-waisted woman had one
to Escoffier to scramble eggs with ment house, Henry Street, on gant Candy Ball, given on the eve of her rib removed to give her doll-like
e garlic and to create a soup, a straw- New York's lower east side, to husband'’s financial disaster, in the mo- appeal. She literally pinched herself
j berry dessert, and a soufflé with feed, nurse, and educate im- tion picture, The Golden Bed (1925). to death.

Í strawberries, as well as migrant families.
Curaçao and
macaroons.

+

(FP6I-9Z6T) Ámues my 9r uppMeg amry ‘uosIəpumı Áumy)

FI (8T61—S98T)
PIH EUTy gz
N: (SIAI
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puy OMA
ET (£Z6T) 19 AMOpaumqsey

( -9£6]) 193901) A29 ST (986T-8Z61) s9SSƏrem 9L 6

| (8Ħ6T-T98T) 31949s00H MIPA ÁPETISII ZI (0F61—Z98T) PIRA MENTI 9

(SZ61-906T) 93eg əuqdəsof Tr (EZ6T-FF8T) IPIeTuag ees S
eum my or (ZEST) 2PHg 93) Suppa F
(SS61-£T6T) Epes mamme) £
(TE6T-T98T) Eq RMN Z

A work-in-progress placemat for AMERICAN DINING: LABORS IN THE 80s. A site specific art installation in diners, including ( -216D PIO EME T
audio works of labor stories and music programmed in diner booth jukeboxes, with accompanying set of four placemats.

© 1987, JERRI ALLYN/ARTIST

R a t a t a l l_e

l
i
i

S

blons leaves iver and gnes to neari

“Why is the liver so important?” This mature, wise-cracking wife to
Quote and diagram from Let's Eat In 1936, 1955, 1965, 1968, 1972, Uncle Sam, affecting a flapper’s bob,
Right to Keep Fit. Even though she and now. She loses her ‘do’ and who sprang full-blown from the imaghad us eating vegetables within five gets a job. General Mills updates ination of her creators in 1926, spent
The infamous “waitress” of all— minutes of picking them and also its famous homemaker in better- 15 minutes every day guiding the
the geisha. Who is this one serving the wrote Let's Stay Healthy, Let's Get late-than-never recognition Housewife through the grim realities
infamous “Duke” in The Barbarian and Well, and A Guide to Lifelong Nutri- of women who work outside, of the 1930s with Radio Recipes, on

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T U N A
I was ten and my sister seven. We were at the kitchen table waiting. My mother put plates
down and cups of milk. There were tuna fish sandwiches. My sister bit into the Wonder bread
and said, “This is too dry. There's not enough mayonnaise.” | agreed. My mother took the
sandwiches apart and mixed the tuna with more mayonnaise in a blue plastic bowl. The plates
were in front of us again. My sister said, “This is too lumpy.” My mother got very red. The
color started in her neck and moved over her face. She tore the sandwiches apart. She put the
tuna in the blender and set it on puree. It made a lot of noise. My mother didn't make any
noise. The sandwiches were in front of us again. Susan took a bite and said, “I can't eat this. It
tastes like cat food.” I didn't want to eat it either. My mother said, “You had better eat it, or I'm
going to stuff it down your throat.” | started crying. 1 swallowed mouthfuls of bread and
paste. My sister wouldn't eat it, and my mother stuffed it down her throat.

—— NANCY KRICORIAN

Iris Falck, Maya and the Crabs, b&w photograph

4 50 HERESIES 21

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I left the British Library, where |

was doing research on some women of the 1890s whose fem-

portionate to men. Lisa Leghorn and Mary Roodkowsky surveyed this phenomenon in their

inist working-class newspaper advocated meatless diets, and

book Who Really Starves: Women and World Hunger. Women,

went through the cafeteria line in a restaurant nearby. Vege-

they conclude, engage in deliberate self-deprivation, offering

tarian food in hand, I descended to the basement. A painting

men the “best” foods at the expense of their own nutritional

of Henry VIII eating a steak and kidney pie greeted my gaze.

needs. For instance, they tell us that “Ethiopian women and

On either side of the consuming Henry were portraits of his six

girls of all classes are obliged to prepare two meals, one for

wives and other women. However, they were not eating steak

the males and a second, often containing no meat or other

and kidney pie, nor anything made of meat. Catherine of Aragon

substantial protein, for the females.”

held an appleʻ‘n her hands. The Countess of Mar had a turnip,

In fact, men’s protein needs are less than those of preg-

Anne Boleyn—red grapes, Anne of Cleaves—a pear, Jane

nant and nursing women, and the disproportionate distribu-

Seymour—blue grapes, Catherine Howard—a carrot, Cather-

tion of the main protein source occurs when women’s need

ine Parr—a cabbage.

for protein is the greatest. Curiously, we are now being told

People with power have always eaten meat. The aristocracy of Europe consumed large courses filled with every kind
of meat, while the laborers consumed the complex carbohydrates. Dietary habits proclaim class distinctions, but they proclaim patriarchal distinctions as well. Women, second-class

that one should eat meat (or fish, vegetables, chocolate, and
salt) at least six weeks before becoming pregnant if one wants
a boy. But if a girl is desired, no meat please, rather milk, cheese,
nuts, beans, and cereals.?
Fairy tales initiate us at an early age into the dynamics of

citizens, are more likely to eat what are considered to be second-

eating and sex roles. The King in his counting house ate four-

class foods in a patriarchal culture: vegetables and fruits and

and-twenty blackbirds in a pie (originally four-and-twenty

grains, rather than meat. The sexism in meat eating recapitulates the class distinctions with an added twist: a mythology

naughty boys), while the Queen ate bread and honey. Canni-

that meat is a masculine food and meat eating, a male activity,

climbing his beanstalk, quickly learned. Folktales of all nations

permeates all classes.

depict giants as male and ‘fond of eating human flesh.”

Meat-eating societies gain male identification by their choice
of food, and meat textbooks heartily endorse this association.
We learn from The Meat We Eat that “a liberal meat supply

balism in fairy tales is generally a male activity, as Jack, after

Witches—warped or monstrous females in the eyes of a patriarchal world—become the token female cannibals.
A Biblical example of the male prerogative for meat ran-

has always been associated with a happy and virile people.”

kled Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a leading nineteenth-century fem-

Meat Technology informs us that the “virile Australian race is a

inist, as can be seen by her terse commentary on Leviticus 6 in

typical example of heavy meat-eaters.” Leading gourmands

The Woman's Bible: "The meat so delicately cooked by the

refer “to the virile ordeal of spooning the brains directly out of

priests, with wood and coals in the altar, in clean linen, no

a barbecued calf's head.”' Virile: of or having the characteris-

woman was permitted to taste, only the males among the

tics of an adult male, from vir FR F2

meaning man. Meat eating \
measures individual and soci- \
etal virility.

Meat is a constant for men, K Í
intermittent for women, a pat- \\ / À j)

tern painfully observed in fam- \¥ / A

ine situations today. Women \
` are starving at a rate dispro-

, children of Aaron.”
Most food taboos address
meat consumption, and they
place more restrictions on

s women than on men. The
i #, common foods forbidden to
M women are chicken, duck, and

1 pork. Forbidding meat to
l women in non-technological

51 D

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cultures increases its prestige. Even if the women raise the pigs,

laborers showed extra meat, extra fish, extra cakes, or a dif-

as they do in the Solomon Islands, they are rarely allowed to

ferent quality of meat for the man.” Women ate meat once a

eat the pork. When they do receive some, it is at the dispensa-

week with their children, while the husband consumed meat

tion of their husbands. In Indonesia, “flesh food is viewed as

and bacon “almost daily,” according to Smith.

the property of men. At feasts, the principal time when meat is

Early in the present century, the Fabian Women’s group in

available, it is distributed to households according to the men

in London launched a four-year study in which they recorded

in them. ... The system of distribution thus reinforces the pres-

the daily budget of thirty families in a working-class commu-

tige of men in society.”
Worldwide this patriarchal custom is found. In Asia, some
cultures forbid women to consume fish, seafood, chicken, duck,
and eggs. In equatorial Africa, the “prohibition of chicken to

nity. These budgets were collected and explained in a compassionate book, Round About a Pound a Week. Here is perceived
clearly the sexual politics of meat: “In the household that spends
10s [shillings] or even less on food, only one kind of diet is

women is common.° For example, the Mbum Kpau women

possible, and that is the man's diet. The children have what is

do not eat chicken, goat, partridge, or other game birds. The

left over. There must be a Sunday joint, or, if that is not possi-

Kufa of Ethiopia punished women who ate chicken by making

ble, at least a Sunday dish of meat, in order to satisfy the

them slaves, while the Walamo “put to death anyone who

father's desire for the kind of food he relishes, and most natu-

violated the restriction of eating fowl.”

rally, therefore, intends to have.” More succinctly, we are told:

Correspondingly, vegetables and other non-meat foods are
viewed as women’s food. This makes them undesirable to men.

day dinner is eaten cold by him the next day.”'^ Poverty also

The Nuer men think that eating eggs is effeminate. In other

determines who carves the meat. As Cicely Hamilton discov-

groups, men require sauces to disguise the fact that they are

ered during this same period, women carve when they know

eating women's foods. “Men expect to have meat sauces to

there is not enough meat to go around.'?

go with their porridge and will sometimes refuse to eat sauces
made of greens or other vegetables, which are said to be wom-

en's food.

In technological societies, cookbooks reflect the presump-

“Meat is bought for the men. The leftover meat from the Sun-

In situations of abundance, sex-role assumptions about meat
are not so blatantly expressed. For this reason, the diets of
English upper-class women and men are much more similar
than the diets of upper-class women and working-class women.
Moreover, with the abundance of meat available in the United

tion that men eat meat. A random survey of cookbooks reveals that the barbecue sections of most cookbooks are

States, as opposed to the restricted amount available in En-

addressed to men and feature meat. The foods recommended

gland, there has been enough for all, except when meat sup-

for a “Mother's Day Tea” do not include meat, but readers are

plies were controlled. For instance, at a time when enslaved

advised that on Father's Day, dinner should include London

black men received half a pound of meat per day, enslaved

Broil because “a steak dinner has unfailing popularity with

black women often found that they received little more than a

fathers.” '' In a chapter on “Feminine Hospitality,” we are di-

quarter pound a day at times.'°

rected to serve vegetables, salads, and soups. The new McCall's

During wartime, government rationing policies reserve the

cookbook suggests that a man’s favorite dinner is London broil.

right to meat for the epitome of the masculine man, the sol-

A “Ladies Luncheon” would consist of cheese dishes and veg-

dier. With meat rationing in effect for civilians during World

etables, but no meat. A section of one cookbook entitled “For

War Il, the per capita consumption of meat in the Army and

Men Only” reinforces the omnipresence of meat in men’s lives.

Navy was about two-and-a-half times that of the average civil-

What is for men only? London broil, cubed steak, and beef
dinner.'?

ian. Russell Baker observed that World War Il began a “beef

Twentieth-century cookbooks only serve to confirm the his-

madness... when richly fatted beef was force-fed into every
putative American warrior.” In contrast to the recipe books

torical pattern found in the nineteenth century, when British

for civilians, which praised complex carbohydrates, cookbooks

working-class families could not afford sufficient meat to feed

for soldiers contained variation upon variation of meat dishes.

the entire family. “For the man only” appears continually in

One survey conducted of four military training camps reported

the menus of these families when referring to meat. In adher-

that the soldier consumed 131 grams of protein, 201 grams of

ing to the mythologies of a culture (men need meat; meat

fat, and 484 grams of carbohydrates daily.'° Hidden costs of

gives bull-like strength), the male “breadwinner” received the

warring masculinity are to be found in the provision of maledefined foods to the warriors.

meat. Social historians continually report that the “lion's share”
of meat went to the husband.

Women are the food preparers; meat has to be cooked to

What, then, was for women during the nineteenth cen-

be palatable for people. Thus, in a particular culture, women

tury? On Sundays, they might have a modest but good dinner.

accede to the dietary demands of their husbands, especially

On the other days, their food was bread with butter or drip-

when it comes to meat. The feminist surveyors of women’s

pings, weak tea, pudding, and vegetables. One observer noted,

budgets in the early twentieth century observed:

“The wife, in very poor families, is probably the worst fed of
the household.” His comment -was recorded in 1863 by Dr.

It is quite likely that someone who had strentgh, wisdom, a

Edward Smith in the first national food survey of British dietary

vitality, who did not live that life in those tiny, crowded rooms,

habits, which revealed that the major difference in the diet of

in that lack of light and air, who was not bowed with worry,

men and women in the same family was the amount of meat

but was herself economically independent of the man who

consumed. In one rural county of England, the investigators

earned the money, could lay out his few shillings with a bet-

were told that the women and children “eat the potatoes and
look at the meat.”!?
Where poverty forced a conscious distribution of meat, men

ter eye to a scientific food value. It is quite as likely, however,

that the man who earned the money would entirely refuse
the scientific food, and demand his old tasty kippers and meat.'?

received it. Many women emphasized that they had saved the
meat for their husbands. They were articulating the prevailing

A discussion of nutrition during wartime contained this aside:

connections between meat eating and the male role: “I keep

it was one thing, they acknowledged, to demonstrate that there

it for him; he has to have it.” Sample menus for South London

were many viable alternatives to meat, “but it is another to con-

4 52

HERESIES 21

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vince a man who enjoys his beefsteak.”° The male prerogative
to eat meat is an external, observable activity implicitly reflecting a recurring fact: meat is a symbol of male dominance.
It has traditionally been felt that the working man needs
meat for strength. A superstition analogous to homeopathic
principles operates in this belief: in eating the muscle of strong
animals, we will become strong. According to the mythology
of patriarchal culture, meat promotes strength; the attributes
of masculinity are achieved through eating these masculine
foods. Visions of meat-eating football players, wrestlers, and
boxers lumber through our brains in this equation. Though
vegetarian weightlifters and athletes in other fields have demonstrated the equation to be fallacious, the mythology and the
myth remain: men are strong, men need to be strong, thus
men need meat. The literal evocation of male power is found
in the concept of meat.
Meat is king: this noun describing meat is a noun denoting
male power. Vegetables—a generic term meat-eaters use for
all foods that aren't meat—have become as associated with
women as meat is with men, recalling on a subconscious level
the days of Woman the Gatherer. Since women have been
made subsidiary in a male-dominated, meat-eating world, so
has our food: the foods associated with second-class citizens
are considered to be second-class protein. Just as it is thought
a woman can't make it on her own, so we think that vegetables can't make a meal on their own, despite the fact that
meat is only second-hand vegetables, and vegetables provide,
on the average, more than twice the vitamins and minerals of
meat. Meat is upheld as a powerful, irreplaceable item of food.
The message is clear: the vassal vegetable should content itself
with its assigned place and not attempt to dethrone king meat.
After all, how can one enthrone women’s foods, when women

of bleeding meat, which are the last symbol of machismo.”

cannot be kings?

The late Marty Feldman observed, “It has to do with the func-

Men who decide to eschew meat eating are deemed effeminate; the failure of men to eat meat announces that they

tion of the male within our society. Football players drink beer
because it's a man’s drink, and eat steak because it's a man’s

are not masculine. Nutritionist Jean Mayer suggested that the

meal. The emphasis is on 'man-sized portions,’ ‘hero’ sand-

more men sit at their desks all day, the more

wiches; the whole terminology of meat-eating reflects this mas-

they want to be reassured about their

culine bias.”22 Meat-and-potatoes men are our stereotypical

maleness in eating those large slabs

strong and hearty, rough and ready, able males. Hearty beef
stews are named “Manhandlers.” One's maleness is reassured

Cindy Tower, Meat Eater with

by the food one eats. During the 1973 meat boycott, men

Cupid, above; Beef Eater, below.

were reported to observe the boycott when dining out with

Both, 1984.

their wives or eating at home, but when they dined without
their wives, they ate London broil and other meats.??
What is it about meat that makes it a symbol and celebration of male dominance? Superficially, we might observe that the male role of hunter of meat has been
transposed to the male role of eater of meat. But there
is much more to meat's role as symbol than this.
Both the words “men” and meat” have un-

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dergone lexicographical narrowing. Originally generic terms,
they are now closely associated
with their specific referent. Meat .
no longer means all foods; the
word man, we realize, no longer
includes women. Meat represents the essence or principal
part of something according to
the American Heritage Dictionary. Vegetable, on the other
hand, represents the least desirable characteristics: suggesting
or like a vegetable, as in passivity or dullness of existence,
monotonous, inactive. Meat is
something one enjoys or excels
in, vegetable becomes representative of someone who doesn't
enjoy anything: a person who
leads a monotonous, passive or
merely physical existence.
A complete reversal has occurred in the definition of the
word vegetable. Whereas its
original sense was to be lively,
active, it is now viewed as dull,
monotonous, passive. To vegetate is to lead a passive existence,
just as to be feminine is to lead
a passive existence. Once vegetables are viewed as women's food, by association they become viewed as “feminine,” passive.

you' vegetables that he wouldn't like.”?
Mary McCarthy's Birds of America provides a fictional illus-

Men's need to disassociate themselves from women’s food

tration of the intimidating aspect to a male of woman's refusal

(as in the myth in which the last Bushman flees in the direction

of meat. Miss Scott, a vegetarian, is invited to a NATO Gener-

opposite from women and their vegetable food) has been in-

al’s house for Thanksgiving. Her refusal of turkey angers the

stitutionalized in sexist attitudes toward vegetables, and the

General. Not able to take this rejection seriously, as male domi-

word vegetable is used to express criticism or disdain. Collo-

nance requires a continual recollection of itself on everyone's

quially, it is a synonym for a person severely brain-damaged or

plate, the General loads her plate up with turkey and then

in a coma. In addition, vegetables are thought to have a tran-

ladles gravy over the potatoes as well as the meat, contami-

quilizing, dulling, numbing effect on people who consume them,
and so, we can't possibly get strength from them. According

nating her subsidiary foods as well. McCarthy's description of
his actions with the food mirrors the war-like customs associ-

to this perverse incarnation of Brillat-Savarin’s theory that you

ated with military battles. ‘He had seized the gravy boat like a

are what you eat, to eat a vegetable is to become a vegetable.

weapon in hand-to-hand combat. No wonder they had made

In her essay, “Deciphering a Meal,” the noted anthropolo-

him a Brigadier General—at least that mystery was solved.”

gist Mary Douglas suggests that the order in which we serve

The General continues to behave in a bellicose fashion and,

foods, and the food we insist on being present at a meal,

after dinner, proposes a toast in honor of an eighteen-year-old

reflect a taxonomy of classification which mirrors and reinforces

who has enlisted to fight in Vietnam with the rhetorical question:

our larger culture. A meal is an amalgam of food dishes, each

"What's so sacred about a civilian?” This upsets the hero, ne-

a constituent part of the whole, each with an assigned value.

cessitating that the General's wife apologize for her husband's

In addition, each dish is introduced in a precise order. A meal

behavior: “Between you and me,” she confides in him, “it

does not begin with dessert, nor end with soup. All is seen as

kind of got under his skin to see that girl refusing to touch her

leading up to and then coming down from the entree, which

food. I saw that right away.2%

is meat. The pattern is evidence of stability. As Douglas ex-

Male belligerence in this area is not limited to fictional mili-

plains, “The ordered system which is a meal represents all the

tary men. Husbands who batter their wives—who, according

ordered systems associated with it. Hence the strong arousal

to social scientists, are insecure men who feel powerless and

power of a threat to weaken or confuse that category. To

not sufficiently masculine—have often been triggered to do

remove meat is to threaten the structure of the large patriarchal culture.

violence against women by the absence of meat.

Marabel Morgan, one expert on how women should accede to every male desire, reported in her Total Woman
Cookbook that one must be carefuk about introducing foods
which are seen as a threat: “I discovered that Charlie seemed

54 e

This is not to say that women’s failure to serve meat is the
cause of the violence against them. This is patently not true.
The true cause of a gun going off is not the trigger. The causes
of domestic violence reside within the batterer and maledominated society.”” Yet, as a trigger to this accepted violence,

threatened by certain foods. He was suspicious of my, casse-

meat is hardly a trivial item. ‘Real’ men eat meat. Failing to

roles, thinking I had sneaked in some wheat germ or ‘good-for-*

honor the importance of this symbol catalyzes male rage. As

a HERESIES 21

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one battered woman reported, “It would start off with him

17 Russell Baker, The New York Times, April 3, 1973, p. 43.

being angry over trivial little things, a trivial little thing like cheese

18 Aaron M. Altschul, Proteins: Their Chemistry and Politics, (New

instead of meat on a sandwich.” Another battered wife stated,

York: Basic Books, Inc., 1965), p. 101, footnote.

“A month ago he threw scalding water over me, leaving a scar
on my right arm, all because I gave him a pie with potatoes
and vegetables for his dinner, instead of fresh meat.
Men who become vegetarians challenge an essential part
of the masculine role. They are opting for women’s food. How

19 Reeves, p. 131.
20 Helen Hunscher and Margerita Huyck, Nutrition, p. 414.
21 The Boston Globe, n.d. (circa 1975).
22 Marty Feldman, quoted in Rynn Berry, The Vegetarians, (Brook-

dare they? Refusing meat means a man is effeminate, a “sissy,”

line, Mass.: Autumn Press, 1979), pp. 31-32.

a “fruit.” Indeed, in 1836, one response to the vegetarian regi-

23 The New York Times, April 15, 1973, p. 38.

men of that day, known as Grahamism, charges that Emasculation is the first fruit of Grahamism.’?°

24 Mary Douglas, “Deciphering A Meal,” in Implicit Meanings; Es-

Choosing not to eat meat means that men repudiate their

says in Anthropology, (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1975), pp.
273,1258.

masculine privileges. The New York Times explored this idea in

25 Marabel Morgan, The Total Woman Cookbook, (New Jersey: Flem-

an editorial on the masculine nature of meat-eating. Instead of
“the John Wayne type,” epitome of the masculine meat-eater,
the new male hero is “vulnerable” like Alan Alda, Mikhail
Baryshnikov, and Phil Donahue. According to the Times, they
might eat fish and chicken, but not red meat. Alda and Donahue, among other men, have not only repudiated macho food
but also the macho role. Writes the editor, “Believe me, the
end of macho marks the end of the meat and potatoes man.?'
Believe me, we won't miss either.

ing H. Revell Co., 1980), p. 13.
26 Mary McCarthy, Birds of America, (New York: New American
Library, 1965), pp. 166-173.
27 Though luse the term ‘battered wives,’ I| am referring to a phenomenon not bounded by a marriage license.
28 R. Emerson Dobash and Russell Dobash, Vio/ence Against Wives:
A Case Against the Patriarchy, (New York: The Free Press, 1979), p.
100.

29 Erin Pizey, Scream Quietly or the Neighbors Will Hear, (Hammondsworth, England: Penguin Books, 1974), pp. 34—5.
30 James C. Whorton, “Tempest in a Flesh-Pot': The Formulation

1 Waverly Root and Richard de Rochemont, Eating in America: A

of a Physiological Rationale for Vegetarianism,” Journal of the

History, (New York: William Morrow, 1976), p. 279.

History of Medicine, 32 (1977), p. 122.

2 Lisa Leghorn and Mary Roodkowsky, Who Really Starves: Women

31 The New York Times, editorial, August 17, 1981.

and World Hunger, (New York: Friendship Press, 1977), p. 21.
3 Lloyd Shearer, “Intelligence Report: Does Diet Determine Sex?”,
summarizing the conclusions of Dr. Joseph Stolkowski. Parade Magazine, June 27, 1982, p. 7.

Kathy Gore-Fuss, Conundrum, 1985.

4 William and Ceil Baring-Gould, The Annotated Mother Goose,
(New York: Bramhall House, 1962), p. 103.
5 Elizabeth Cady Stanton, The Woman's Bible, (Seattle: Coalition
Task Force on Women and Religion, 1974, reprint of the 1898 edition
published in New York by European Publishing Co.), p. 91.
6 Frederick J. Simoons, Fat Not This Flesh: Food Avoidances in the
Old World, (Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1967), pp. 108
7 Leghorn and Roodkowsky, Who Really Starves: Women and World
Hunger, p. 20.

8 Simoons, p. 73.
9 Ibid.

10 Bridget O'Laughlin, “Mediation of Contradiction: Why Mbum Women do not eat Chicken” in
Michelle Rosaldo and Louise Lamphere, Woman,
Culture and Society, (Stanford: Stanford University
Press, 1974), p. 303.
ff Sunset Books and Sunset Magazines, Sunset Menu
Cook Book , (Menlo Park, Ca.: Lane Magazine and
Book Co., 1969), pp. 139, 140.
12 Oriental Cookery from ChunKing and Mazola Corn
Oil. This cookbook was called to my attention
by Karen Lindsey.

13 Dr. Edward Smith, Practical Dietary for Families, Schools, and the
Labouring Classes, (London: Walton and Materly, 1864).
14 Maud Pember Reeves, Round About a Pound a Week, (London:

Cindy Tower was born on an Air Force base. In college she joined

Virago Press, 1979, reprint of 1913 edition published by G. Bell and

a sorority. Currently she is working in advertising to support her

Sons), pp. 144, 97, 113, et seq.

Art Habit.

15 Cicely Hamilton, Marriage as a Trade, (London: The Women's

Pennelope Goodfriend is an artist and photographer who lives in

Press, 1981, reprint of 1909 edition), p. 75.

New York and travels frequently.

16 Todd L. Savitt, Medicine and Slavery: The Diseases and Health

Kathy Gore-Fuss lives and works in Olympia, WA. Her work con-

Care of Blacks in Antebellum Virginia, (Urbana and Chicago: Univer-

cerns human transformation through conflict, opposites, and

sity of Illinois Press, 1978), p. 91.

absurdity.

FOOD IS A FEMINIST ISSUE

55

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This project, of several distinct components, focuses around a
powerful central object—a sculpture entitled Pound of Flesh.
The Pound of Flesh Project includes the fabrication of the sculpture, its exhibition, a public feast, artists’ performances, and a
video production.
The sculpture itself is a ten-foot-high skeletal structure of
welded meat hooks, resembling a Duchampian readymade.
This structure forms the “bones” of the human figure. Slabs of
raw meat articulate the figure and create an apparent musculature, reminiscent of Rembrandt's pieces of hanging meat or
of Arcimboldo's painting of a butcher made of meat.
The fleshed-out sculpture will be encased in a 12'x4' transparent glass case, a refrigerated unit that will keep the meat
frozen and edible.
Pound of Flesh will be exhibited in a gallery for one month.
It will then be transported to Area, a club in Lower Manhattan,
where an art event will culminate in the butchering, cooking,
and serving of the meat at a public feast. Professional Benihana-

21

i

type chefs will do the carving and slicing, and other performance artists will entertain the guests.
To help underwrite the project, a series of certificates will
be designed and printed. Made available in a publicly advertised “stock” offering, these certificates will give contributors
a “share” in the project and will give a record of the event.
Ms. Walsh will collaborate with other videomakers to produce a documentary for distribution and broadcast. This video
production will address the same basic themes developed in
the sculpture and art event— the issue of survival, the life/death
cycle, what we have to give to get what we need. Associated
themes include our connection to nature and to our own “flesh,”
the place of meat in contemporary society (safely locked in
refrigerated cases in plastic packages), consumerism in the art
world, and the ecologically efficient proposal—eat art!

HUMAN SKELETON
BACK VIEW

Alida Walsh is a NYC artist who has been working on interdisciplinary projects and multimedia environments for 20 years. She is a video, film, and
performance artist and is executive director of Women Artist Filmmakers.

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The story of Baubo and me began out of a minor

of displeasure, many people's sneers and words

paranoia, an extra weight probably carried by all

of disgust—you EATWANTNEED too much.)

fat women. Always knowing you're different—
Big—Bigger—Biggest. Out of bounds, out of control, over the limits—175 pounds, 200 pounds,
225 pounds, 250 pounds, 300 pounds, 375 pounds,
more. Fat women are/are not fearful to

measure up?

One day I was photographing Annie Goldson.

We began modeling together, looking in the
mirror to check the poses. I asked her, “How do
you feel next to my body?” “Fine,” she said. Did
she feel lessened by my largeness, I needed to

aTe) Aa o1 Te e

(Fat women get used to tidy women’s looks

Buoyed by her answer, I photographed
myself.

Faam rae

I decided that I would make drawings.
I placed paper on the wall.
KiTa e Kea N NA irate

NNAS: ad ee
The words, “Because of You, There's a Song in
My Heart,” rushed to my throat.
Soon after, I discovered Baubo, a fat, baudy,
sexy, trickster goddess. Many women carried

SRNA

around her likeness. It was she who taught
—— Sandra De Sando

1

YA

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MARK DIAMOND

by Joanne Giannino
I think I'm fat, I become anorexic

day. If I'm hungry, tough. I wait as long

ries. We're smart. No problem. The health

I'm fat. I don't know what I see. |

as | can, then | eat a granola bar, one

spa women say we don't need to lose

know what I see. Don't try to tell me I'm

hundred twelve calories. No supper. | go

weight, just tone and firm—abdomen,

not. My uncle says I look sick. But he

to the health spa every day. I do three

back behind the breasts, thighs, but-

doesn't like me fat does he? I fit into my

times the exercises I'm supposed to do. If

tocks. We disagree. To be loved by men,

stepmother’s old clothes. I am her in

I can't go to the spa, I do exercises in the

adolescence before her first marriage,

living room or in my mother’s bedroom.

the body must behave.
This is about control. When noth-

before pregnancy, before the bonds of

This needs an explanation: This is the

ing else in the world can be con-

traditional femininity imprison her; | live

room where my relationship with my

trolled I can control my body. If I can

and refuse to be a woman; she dies a

mother blooms; it is here that we agree

control my body I will be admired

woman defined by her associations with

that I am fat, that my body must be

and loved by men. I will be envied

men: wife, daughter, mother, mistress. |

controlled; this is what her father has

by women who want to be loved

don't eat. I drink Kahlua at family gath-

told her through her mother; this is

by men. I learn this by watching tv,

erings. I'm ok in altered states. I don't

what my father has told me through her.

have to deal with my family. Alcoholism

This is the way I want you to be; this is

my parents. I don't know that I'm

is ok. Obesity is not.

the way you will be. Men are created

falling into a trap. Not yet

looking in magazines, and watching

I don't eat. I'm fat. There's a bulge

in the image of the creator and must

I do one hundred sit-ups a day. If I

between my hip bones. The ultimate is

see that all things are perfected in his

don't do them, I watch the bulge in my

the little bones sticking out of my jeans.
That’s what I thanked the ladies at the

image

stomach and feel sorry for myself. If I do

The room has a smokey mirror in it.

the sit-ups, I feel great. The bulge will go
away soon. I'm three steps in front of
the other women.

health spa for, for fitting into my old

When I look in the mirror I look smokey,

jeans, for remaining a child, for being

like a movie star. I love looking in that

the best a woman can be, for having

mirror and so does my mother. I know

those little bones back.

she does. Why else would she have it

off from one's body is to deny

there? My father bought it for her.

strength

When | stand it's great. It's hunger,
feeling myself thin ..……1love it. It’s the
only time | like my body. I don't eat. I'm
in control. Anorexics don’t want to be

My mother thinks she can work in

This is about competition. To take

The spa has a glass window in front,

the world without conforming, but she

all covered in white. The carpet is pink,

must. She does leg lifts on her double
bed. She eats as little as I do, no pota-

the walls pink, the lipstick that outlines
the tree of women’s names who have

shower, I watch my protruding belly rell

toes, no sugar, no ice cream, no fun. She
cries because of men. She has to look

all won a dollar for each pound they've

over itself. Im fat. I look in the mirror; |

good and work hard. I think she cries

see the bulge. I straighten my back and

because of me, too, because | am like

pounds: in cursive letters, in pink lip-

hold in my gut. “Hold in your stomach;

her; we're both fat and want to be

stick: our family tree. The lockers are

it will learn to hold itself in.” My aunt

loved. No men love fat ladies. She's five

pink, the nautilus machine, the bikes.

told me this. I was twelve years old. I

feet seven, weighs one hundred thirty

The sweat tanks are pink and white.

have to eat. My stomach is growling. I

five pounds. I'm five four, weigh one

All designed to get rid of unwanted
loathsome female flesh, how unfor-

women controlled by men
I get up, eat half a grapefruit, I

feed it. l eat an omlet (two eggs), slice of

hundred fifteen pounds. We live by

cheese, coffee with no sugar. Four hundred calories a meal. Twelve hundred a

weigh ourselves. All day we count calo-

4 58

pounds and calories. Every morning we

lost weight this month is pink. They've
lost. My name is included, I've lost ten

tunate our gender! We wear towels
around our necks as we sweat. The

HERESIES 21

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showers have those smokey glass doors;

twelve hours a day. This is how | figure it:

a husband, my father, domineering and

no one can see the bodies inside, only a

1 protein portion, 90; 1 vegetable por-

silhouette and the pink stick-ons. Every-

tion, 45; 1 bread portion, 65; 1 skim

be. No kids. I don't have my period. I'm

one is careful to dress in the pink dress-

milk portion, 90; 1 oil portion, 30; 1

safe. No belly, no fat, I don't eat. I get it

ing stalls. The sun room is also pink. We

fruit poriton, 40; 400 total. No excep-

off, all off. I won't eat like her either. Not

wear eye coverlets because the artificial-

tions, no deviations from the rules:

“everything on my plate” to get “big

sun-in-a-fluorescent-tube may blind us.

1,200 calories per day per female

and strong.” Women don't get big and

body

strong. They get big and pregnant and
bossed around. l'Il eat when | come

Women are taught that their role
in society is to please men, no matter
what the cost or pain. We lie

I'm on a date. We're at the drive-in.
I'm hungry. It's been hours since I've

arrogant. I can't be that woman. I won't

home, late, when they're asleep. Cold

The spa women all weigh ninety

eaten. I hear the grumblings of my stom-

rice or spaghetti from the fridge. Left’

pounds and eat M&M's. They exercise

ach. I feel them; I must eat. I pull out a

overs, but not at the table, not in front of

eight hours a day and burn off the

granola bar. I always keep one in my

them. They can't make me. They won't

empty calories. They try to teach me to

purse, just in case, so I don’t eat fool-

do the same. I do better, I lose fifteen

ishly. I eat it slowly, and I offer a bite to

see me. They'll never see. I won't become them. I won't. And no one will

pounds in one month because | eat

my date. But, if I don’t eat it all, l'Il be

know.

better than they do. They balance them-

hungry sooner than planned. Each piece

This is about collusion. Anorexia

selves by eating candy and exercising.

has only so many calories. I divide the

They stay the same. I lose because |

bar accordingly and calculate how long it

is a family problem. The family is the
mouth of our culture
In one month I have lost fifteen

know more than they do. To maintain

will fill me: twenty-five calories per fif-

weight, one must burn off the calo-

teen minutes or one hundred per hour

pounds. | fit into my old jeans. I write a

ries one takes in. To lose weight, one
must burn off more calories than one

or one calorie per minute in a sedentary

letter of thanks to the spa for making

position. At the food stand I buy him a

takes in. Both of these statements

chocolate chip cookie, 200 calories, and

this possible. They publish the letter in
their testimonial book but don’t include

talk about calories, not nutrition. Peo-

a soda, 175 calories. Empty calories;

my picture. I am ugly. I wear glasses. My
breasts are too small. My feet are too big.

ple who eat non-nutritive foods burn

he won't be full for long. I drink coffee,

off their own muscle for necessary

black with no sugar. My stomach groans

nutrients. These people are eating
themselves. When women take off

for relief. I can take it. I'm in control. |

in record time. Anorexics lose twenty-

stay out till 2 a.m. I don’t eat a thing.

five percent of their body weight

their own flesh, they agree to be
controlled by men
This is about constructing truth,
not distinguishing. This is about dis-

This is about control, lying, denial, the pursuit of love. I don't want
to be a woman
My friends at the nursing home where

torted perception and current ideas

I work say I look great: my male friends,

about body size. This is about fash-

my female friends. I don't believe them.

ion. This is about teaching women
to hate their bodies

I never eat anymore. | count calories for

My ass is too small. I've reduced my body

There's gully above my navel. All the fat
old ladies ask me why I come to the spa.
We sit in the sauna. I tell them I tone and
firm. One woman eats a piece of cake
for lunch. It has two hundred and fifty
calories. She makes a trade. No lunch.

old people, they would never count them.

We live by pounds and calories. Nutrition
doesn't matter. It's calories that count

They're deviants; locked up away from

and burning them off so we look like fif-

wich on pita bread. It takes twenty min-

society. I must have gained weight hang-

teen year olds. So we are loved by men:

utes. I watch the clock. I take a bite. | put

ing out with them. They don't know the

then we can get dressed with pride that

down the sandwich and wait thirty sec-

rules. I must have gained weight work-

we have no bulges, but until then, life is

onds for the next bite. I do this every day
at 10:30. That's when | eat lunch. I'm

ing here. That explains why I suddenly

hell and every morning we must remind

got fat. It happened here among all this

ourselves to eat slowly and not drink too

seventeen, in high school. If I'm hungry

food. Cake, cookies, jellos. Now I only

before lunch, I chew sugarless gum.

eat the diabetic desserts, no calories.

much and sit straight and hold in our
stomachs and exercise before work and

Usually, four hundred calories is good for
four hours. Twelve hundred calories:

I can't gain weight. I can't be like my

after work, whenever we can get rid of

mother tied to home, dishes, laundry,

that fat, that awful ugly us. o»

l eat a peanut butter and jelly sand-

A

a writer, and lives in Brockton, MA.

FOOD IS A FEMINIST ISSUE

59

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. — S — ——_—
—— m m t

KOT

E

Suzanne Siegel, Holy Family Holidays: Perfect Bar-b-que, mixed media with objects, 1985.

Suzanne Siegel, Holy Family Holidays: Heavenly Birthday, mixed media with objects, 1985.

R E e a ai a e e i an an Sm S

|

Pi

HERESIES 21

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Suzanne Siegel, Our Lady of Constant Calorie Counting,
mixed media with photo self-portrait, 1982.

the most ordinary moment
I found change and a raisin
in the sheets.
— Susan Stinson

Peanut butter on a nipple
attracts my dog. She
strains arthritic legs to mount my bed,
sniffing at my breast,
licking, nudging my still side
in search of more. She
presses her nose against my skin.
A matter of hunger for her.
— Susan Stinson

FOOD ISA FEMINIST ISSUE 61 D

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by Nancy Sullivan
Cannibalism is even juicier anthropological

symbolic possibilities for the act (kin should

to be slandered. In The Man-Eating Myth,
he does briefly explore how, as often as

material than its cousin, witchcraft, because

be boiled, enemies roasted, etc.), decades

it is the inversion of humanity. The publica-

of distillation have yielded some working

tion in 1979 of William Arens’ book, The

categories: endo-cannibalism, eating mem-

ism, the natives in turn accuse their women.

Man-Eating Myth, compelled anthropolo-

bers of one's own group; exo-cannibalism,

There she is at last: the ultimate Other.

gists to review the data on anthropophagy.
Arens concluded that the evidence wasn't

consuming outsiders; and auto-cannibalism,

Westerners accuse the ‘natives’ of cannibal-

Throughout the literature this pattern is
repeated, beginning with the sixteenth-

munching on one's self (?). To determine
the motives involved in the act calls for such

century German seaman, Hans Staden, who

cannibalism has been a widespread practice

terminology as: gastronomic cannibalism,

said that the 'maneating’ Tupinamba women

among non-Western peoples. Man-eating

or, just for the taste of it; ritual cannibalism,

does occur; we all have heard of the Don-

transubstantiation of certain body parts for

ner party and starving prisoners of war. But
these are instances of survival cannibalism

their powers; and survival cannibalism, in-

meat-handler and cook makes the accusa-

dulging out of necessity.
We also can now consult a source tak-

tion palpable to the male informants and

there to prove the popular assumption that

and thus different from the vast body of

of South America 'make a joyful cry’ during
the act. No doubt woman's usual role as

the male anthropologists alike—the mys-

ing an ecological approach, which gives us

tery of the kitchen, and all that. It may be

come down to us from the time of early

calorie counts and nutritional values, and

only because the men and women of a tribe

New World explorers up through yester-

which can be judged by such unforgettable

are generalized as ‘the tribe’ that we don't

day's field notes. By and large, according to

pearls as: “Data from different New Guinea
societies indicate that the balance between

find ‘Primitive Women’ under the heading
‘Cannibals’ in the Human Relations File.

protein-inputs varies with such things as
ecological zonation and the structure of the

Most of the thousands of maneating
stories have come to us from male infor-

tors and supporters must admit, with John

local ecosystems involving human populations.” From the scantiest of first-hand ac-

Only recently have women begun to double-

Porter Poole of the University of California,

counts, the structuralists, ecologists, and

San Diego, that “whether a given group of

popularizers alike arrive at some basic prem-

on female informants. Elizabeth Faithorn,

people does or does not do it, the holding

ises: that cannibalism not only exists but was

for one, has been studying pollution (ritual

of ideas about the phenomenon ...may be

once more pervasive; and that the subjects

uncleanliness) in an area notorious for fe-

headhunting and maneating tales that have

Arens, modern anthropologists have been
repeating nasty rumors as matters of fact.
When faced with the sheer number of
stories on cannibalism, both Arens’ detrac-

mants reporting to male anthropologists.
back on the territory and base their studies

male cannibals, New Guinea. Among the

almost universal.” Nearly every group of

of their energetic study are the ‘primitives,’

people has been called cannibalistic at one
time or another. The Romans accused the

the ‘natives’ and the ‘aboriginals.’

Mae Enga of Papua's western highlands,

The debate over the fact or fiction of

women are considered so dangerous that

cannibalism has been revitalized by the re-

contact with menstrual blood may cause a

tian babies for blood. (As late as 1909, one

cent discoveries of paleoanthropologists Raymond Dart in East Africa and Paolo Villa in

echoed in St. Augustine's contention that

German scholar offered a chapter headed,

France. They have found bones that seem to

“Is the Use of Christian Blood Required or

show that our ancestors were the original

menstruating women should not be allowed inside churches. We're familiar with

Allowed for Any Rite Whatsoever of the

partakers of human flesh. Villa's find—

the prejudices of our own Western past; St.

Jewish Religion?) Europeans have called

6000-year-old bones that seem to have been

Augustine again, writing circa 400 A.D.,

Africans cannibals, while Africans believed
Europeans were practitioners of the deadly

gnawed and scraped for food just like any
other animals'—could show that ancient

woman: “Childbearing women do often

art. A tribe may accuse their neighbors of

man viewed outsiders as mere subhuman

early Britons of it, and the Christians in their

turn accused the Jews of sacrificing Chris-

man’s slow decline and death. This fear is

mirrors the belief in the ‘primitiveness’ of
long for evil things, as coals and ashes. |

cannibalism but profess that they them-

dinner meat. Said one member of the team,

saw one long for a bite of a young man's

selves have given it up (as a way of saying,

“It is the ultimate sort of ‘us’ and ‘them.’ ”

neck, and has lost her birth that she bit off

writes Lyle Steadman, “how far they've

'Us' and ‘them’ pervade every aspect of

his neck until he was almost dead, she took

come.) Even if Europeans may no longer

the cannibalism debate. Most of the origi-

such a hold.” Today we may have dismissed

stand accused of cannibalism, the Human

nal accounts of anthropophagy are filled

stories about cannibalism among the Picts,

Relations File, a scholarly compendium of

with the heathen ‘them’ of the New World;

Irish, and Scots, but New Guinea's cannibal

cultural traits, still lists numerous non-

the modern material is also filled with infor-

women still spark our imaginations.

Western peoples under the heading ‘Canni-

mants’ accounts of how ‘them’ yonder are

If you visit the sumptuous Michael Rocke-

balism' (some, oddly, listed because they

maneaters. The scholarly observers are di-

feller wing at the Metropolitan Museum of

are assumed not to be cannibals).

vided into two camps. One camp shoulders

Art in New York, you can see a beautiful

Anthropology has come a long way

charges of ethnocentricity aside; they main-

headdress, isolated on a pedestal, that comes

since the time when Boas, Bateson, Mead,

tain we should weigh the pervasiveness of

from a Nimangki Men's Society in the New

et al. first went into the field to study. Its

cannibal accounts and the extreme variabil-

Hebrides Islands. It depicts a woman's head,

data collection procedures have become so:

ity of human culture and therefore con-

sophisticated that, in comparison, early re-

clude that cannibalism is more than rumor

that of the mythical cannibal ancestor Nevinbumbaan. Her husband rides like a small doll

cords look like gossip columns. But evi-

and less than an insult—it’s a matter of

on her shoulders. Throughout this region

dence of cannibalism, strangely, still relies

fact. The second camp persists in sniffing
out the nature of the Other's otherness.

there are legends of female cannibal ances-

on hearsay and unreliable accounts.
Where the rumors leave off, a virtual

tors. These legends are more ‘real’ to these

industry of classification begins. Since Claude

But even Arens, who convincingly revealed
the slanderous intent of most of the man-

eating his children is to us; they listen to

Levi-Strauss compiled the first cookbook of

eating material, neglects those most likely

the tales to see how they have evolved from

4 62

people than the West's own tale of Kronos

HERESIES 21

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the culturally and biologically primitive life of the

gles thru’ the photoplay FY

cannibal. Everyone
wants to say, “Look how

farwe've come,” especially since new finds of

gnawed human bones
suggest that a// of us

were once cannibals. In
his defense of self-

image, the noble savage
in the field is quick to
point the finger at his

wife. Astonishingly (or
not) for men who scorn

rumor-mongering and
cultural biases, our field
observers love to take
the men’s words down.
In 1976'Dr.'D.C.
Gajdusek won a Nobel
Prize in Physiology/Medicine for his conclusions
that the dreaded neurological disease of kuru
had been transmitted by
the Fore women of New
Guinea during secret
acts of cannibalism. At
the time, some researchers thought a sounder
theory was that the disease, which can be transmitted only through direct contact with a vic-

tim’s brain, passed to
the women during funerary rites, when women handled and embalmed the corpse. But
I suspect Dr. Gajdusek is
a terrific fan of horror
films; he chose the more

dramatic thesis and
came up a winner.
I have this cheap pa-

perback with a jacket
that asks, “Was there a
Countess Dracula?” |
don't know, but it

sounds like a more appropriate legend;

number of stories of broken taboos to say

women, as we've seen, should make the

that taboos are indeed broken —they may

pological Association, Washington, D.C., 1986.

best cannibals. Isn't a vampirella better than

end up accusing ordinary modern women

Kolata, Gina, “Are the horrors of cannibalism

a vampire any day (or night)? Along the

of maneating based on these pop-horror

same lines, George Romero's Night of the

products. Their evidence will consist of

Living Dead gives us more than anything
Motel Hell or Texas Chainsaw Massacre ll

of women’s 'primitiveness,' their closeness

can offer when we see a young girl zombie

to nature with a capital N. Modern women

begin to devour her own mother. In pop

are pretty dangerous, too, it seems. ®

horror products, women often dwell in that
pre-cultural realm of Freud's in which noth-

psycho-sexual fantasies fueled by men’s fear

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

ing, not anything, is taboo. Books and

Anglo, Mick, Man Eats Man: the Story of Canni-

movies keep churning out these psycho-

balism, Jupiter Books, London, 1979.

sexual fantasies so that by now women

Arens, Willian, The Man-Eating Myth, Oxford

Ethnography of Cannibalism, American Anthro-

fact or fiction?,” Smithsonian Magazine, March
1987.
Leakey, Richard E., The Making of Mankind, E.P.
Dutton, N.Y., 1981.
Rosario, Michelle Zimbalist and Louise Lamphere,
eds., Women, Culture and Society, Stanford
University Press, Stanford, 1974.
Steadman, Lyle and Charles F. Merbs, “Kuru and

Cannibalism?,” American Anthropologist, Vol.
84, No. 3, September 1982.
Nancy Sullivan is a painter and sculptor of issueoriented work. Her works frequently combine art-

maneaters are a pretty familiar theme. And

University Press, Oxford, 1979.

historical and archaeological elements to make

those anthropologists who rely on the sheer

Brown, Paula, and Donald Turzin, eds., The

their point.

FOOD IS A FEMINIST ISSUE

63 D

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SUNDAY DINNER THE BAD TIT
for you I never got much to eat
I hope my daddy ain't cold tonight
walkin’ the streets
with nothing to eat
While I'm here eatin’
turkey and sweet potatoes
and Crystall’s home baked cornbread

when | was comin’ up
Momma gave me sugar water
till checkday came
When she died
daddy's new wife
cut the bacon in half
before | ate it

When the veal got passed around
at dinner
I got a thin piece

P O E M S B Y AlI S HA E S HE iik
I can't ignore all of this

for a baby suckin’
at her momma's breast
be satisfied
should

4 64 HERESIES 21

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Everytime I cut up chicken

“He looks like my daddy”

I think of grandmom

I think

when she usta say

As I watch him eat the peas and rice

“Jus gimme the las’ part

“Excuse the cracked plate”

that goes over the fence”

I say to him

“This sure is good”
Everytime I cut up chicken

He says

I feel sorry

ignoring what I said about the plate

when | cut off the tail end

“I wasn't sure what you like to eat”

but grandmom ain't here

I make another attempt

to eat it no more.

This time he answers
“understand
we haven't known each other long

STARVED

but the food you serve
reminds me of home
Of my mother

I don't have to drink

Of Africa

sugar anymore

Remember I told you

and | give my stale bread

your mother’s picture

to the birds

reminded me of my mother
Well now it's the food

lve come beyond
my hunger years

That's a lot to take”
I wanted to tell him
that my daddy is tall like him

in fear of my foodless years

and darker than me like him
The good lookin’ face
The smile

Maybe even the voice
If I can remember Daddy's voice
spoken 20 years ago
but he did say

“That's a lot to take”
So I smiled

and reminded him to drink his tea
before it got cold

He's tall

Looks strong
like daddy usta look

His face is easy to look at

I glance into the pierce of his dark eyes

It's Sunday at my dinner table
We eat Crystall's African Stew
Sylvia de Swaan is a photographer
born in Rumania. She currently lives
in Utica, NY, where she is the Director of Sculpture Space.

She sits proud
in her child's seat
I watch them and wonder what's next

65 D

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DONT TOUCH
IT' S hot by Carol Dorf

She puts a pot on the table. Macaroni casserole. I am
so hungry. He is not at home.

As a child she wouldn't eat. They sent her to the
Children’s Seashore Home to flesh out her bones.
Fall to winter. That decided her never to forcefeed
her own children.

Casserole, a new oven-to-table baking dish. We agree
with her how pretty. I am hungry this day. He isn't
home. Outside kids play in the courtyard. She takes
something out of the cabinet. Then sits down.

I reach to pull over the casserole. It is so hot. My hand
sticks. The skin pulls away as I jerk back. She puts ice
onit.

When he burns me, he puts butter on it afterwards
to make it better.

Not hungry anymore. That night before bedtime he
feeds me ice cream.
Carol Dorf lives in California and has had many poems published.
She's general manager of the San Jose Poetry Center and has a book
forthcoming from e.g. press.

4 66 HERESIES 21

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by Marjory Nelson

one who dressed as though she were proud to show
off her fat body. Floss didn’t stop to analyze why
that made her uneasy and, with her next thought,
plunged into a deep and well-worn channel.
Floss wondred whether they could take their
lunch and sit in the sun; some place where they
would not be surrounded by people counting the
calories in every bite they put into their mouths. She

The morning after the meeting, Floss felt so happy

speculated over what foods it would feel safe to or-

she was singing and dancing around her apartment

der and how much it would feel safe to eat. She knew

before eight o'clock in the morning. She opened

that, even though she might end up eating less than

her back window and talked to the birds sitting in
her bottle brush tree. She even remembered to water

any of the thin women around, everyone present
would swear that these two fat women consumed

her spider plant and her Swedish ivy. In ecstacy, she

twice as much as anyone else in the restaurant.

relived all the events of the previous evening, savor-

ing each precious detail of her conversation with
Bert.

Bert and Floss had made a date to meet at one

But what Floss didn't know and what gave her
great anxiety, was whether in fact Bert might eat
ravenousļy, thus justifying all the criticism and com-

ments Floss feared. What if Bert sat at the table

o'clock and then go out for lunch together. Bert

with her flesh hanging out for everyone to see and

worked in a bakery down on Church Street, only

had the audacity to enjoy herself as she ate?

five or six blocks from the variety store where Floss

worked. She told Floss that she'd meet her at the

lt was too much to consider. Floss spun into a
panic. What could she do? Accepting a common

store and then they could decide where they wanted

belief that fat women do not deserve to enjoy their

to go to eat. It had all seemed simple and reason-

food, Floss had learned a habit of ordering small

able when the women had parted the previous

meals in public and eating quickly to get the whole

evening.

meal over with as painlessly as possible. Although
she did love good food, it had been years since she

All morning, Floss could think of little else but
the meeting, and she was hoping to continue the

had known the pleasure of eating her fill in a res-

magic she and Bert had spun together. Bert had

taurant, or any public place. She went out to eat
with her friends because she enjoyed the social con-

when Floss entertained the simple questions about

tact, not the meals.

where to go for lunch, she did so out of the desire

It was one thing to sit in a meeting with other

to extend her newly discovered moments of pleasure.

fat women and talk about all the changes she wanted

Yet before she realized what had happened, Floss
was wondering whether she wanted to be seen in

to see in the acceptance of fat women’s rights, and

public eating wtih another fat woman, especially
Marjory Nelson is a lesbian writer, hypnotherapist, and fat activist in San
Francisco. This is an excerpt from her novel in process, Dora's Aura.

quite another matter entirely to start behaving in
public as though she already believed that she deserved these rights.
As Floss turned this problem over in her mind, it

7

(< E r
r

FOOD IS A FEMINIST ISSUE

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was an easy jump to the question of whether Floss was in fact

And it was done. The waiter found a table along the win-

ready to start eating anything she wanted. She wasn't sure

dow and pulled the surrounding tables back a few inches, giv-

that she deserved to have any food at all. Even though at the

ing them ample room. Bert thanked him and winked at Floss
as she sat down.

group meeting she had said she wasn’t going to diet any more,
did this mean that she was going to stay this fat for the rest of

Bert was wearing a bright blue dashiki printed with a geometric design, blue corduroy pants and a dark blue cap.

her life?

When she dieted, Floss could hold the illustion that at some
future time she would be thin. Even though she knew that her
dieting had never been successful for more than a few months
at a time, as long as she was dieting she felt herself to be
acceptable. She could show the world a diet plate and tell
people about her latest efforts.
While Floss was dieting, she never had to confront the fat
woman who lived in her body, the woman with the great passions, the women of large ideas. As long as she dieted, she
could pretend to be a thin woman, an acceptable woman who

Hmm, she looks terrific, Floss thought, and asked, “Do you
always wear a hat?”
"Only when I'm not sleeping.”
The waiter brought menus, water, and a basket of bread
and butter. Bert dove in. “You'd think I'd get enough of this
stuff at the bakery, but I never eat there, so I'm starving.” She
pulled a piece of bread off the loaf and buttered it. “Besides,
we don't make this sourdough at our bakery. Just sweet stuff.”
Floss watched fascinated while Bert devoured her bread
and then reached for another slice. Shoving the basket toward

measured her life out in small portions. Her fifty-eight previous

Floss, she said, ‘Don't you want any? It's wonderful and hot.”

diets were a powerful tribute to the tenacity of this illusion.

The pungent aroma of meat roasting on charcoal added to the

If Floss stopped dieting, she would be forced to live with-

yeasty scent of the bread, filling the room. Floss felt her mouth

out this protective screen, to accept herself as she was: a woman

grow juicy, while her stomach rumbled. She tried not to smack

of great magnitude. A fat woman. Could she do this? She
wasn't sure.

her lips.

Suddenly, it became very clear to Floss that she was too fat
even to think about being acceptable. She had no right to be
in a public place eating, or even taking up space. She felt out

"No, thanks, I'm not very hungry.” Floss lied. She had already decided that Bert could eat her share of the bread so
they wouldn't have to ask for more.
“Well, what do you want to eat? I'm starving.” Bert was

of control of herself and her life. How could such a person ever

grinning, obviously enjoying herself immensely. “Pick out what-

presume to talk about her rights? It was the meeting and all

ever you want. This one's on me.” She rolled her tongue around

the brave things that were said there that were the big illusion.

inside one cheek and picked up the elaborately calligraphied
sheet of paper that described the day's specials.
Floss looked at her menu and decided on a bowl of Greek

All morning, these thoughts roared through

lemon soup, agleomeno. That would be fine, but she knew

Floss's mind, spinning her round and round, deeper and deeper

then and there that what she wanted more than anything else

into self-deprecation and despair. By the time one o'clock rolled

in the world was some of that sourdough bread, thick and

around, Floss was a wreck. She wanted to back out of the date

warm, to dip into the hot soup. She took a surreptitious look

with Bert entirely. She was so upset, she could not speak the

at the bread basket to see if there really was enough for both

words that needed to be said. Instead she was gruff and aloof.
Bert wasn't surprised at the change in her new friend. Bert

of them just as Bert looked up from her menu.
C'mon Floss, have some bread.” She pushed the basket

had been through it all plenty of times herself. She told Floss

toward Floss. “It's delicious. C'mon, enjoy yourself. When the

very firmly that she was going to have to take control of these

waiter comes, l'll ask for more.”

İSSUES.

Hesitantly, Floss reached into the basket and tore off a slice.
“Floss, you're a big strong woman, you must vanquish that

There was still another piece left, and several squares of butter.

monster again and again until it no longer has the strength to

“This'll be enough for me, I'm sure,” she said, hoping that it

return.”

would be enough for Bert, too.

“Why don't we pick up some sandwiches at the deli and
take them over to Dolores Park? It's a beautiful day. I'd love to
be outside.”
“I hate eating sandwiches on my lap. I want a table in

It wasn't. When the waiter returned, Bert immediately requested a refill of the basket and more water. Floss ordered
the soup.
“Don't you want more than that?” Bert chided her. “How

front of me. We can go to the park after lunch if there's still

can you work all day and not eat more?” Bert ordered the

time.” Bert suggested one of the good restaurants on 24th

soup, a large salad and a serving of spanikopeta. “Try some of

Street where they could enjoy well-cooked food at their leisure.

that, Floss, you'll love it.”

“No, let's just go to the cafe. It's easier there.”
“What the hell is EVER easy? | want to treat you to a really

“No, this is really all I want,” Floss maintained. She was
fiddling with her fork, tracing patterns on the blue checkered

good meal. l'Il bet you never treat yourself.”

tablecloth, trying to figure out what she was doing. She had

Floss's sheepish grin said “You're right and you win.” The
women left the store and walked the short block to the corner

When she ate out with Janet or Shirley she might feel self

of Noe Street, where a royal blue awning advertised the
restaurant.

sat in restaurants before, but this feeling was something new.
conscious, but somehow, because she was with them, eating
in public felt possible; only barely so, but manageable.
This was definitely different. As she sat in her chair by the
window and looked across at Bert, Floss felt a moment of

As she walked through the door, Floss checked
out the seating arrangements. Small tables were crowded one
upon another. She looked at Bert pleading, ‘Let's get out of

panic that she was not going to get through this. Not in the
same old way.
Floss might only order soup and skimp on bread, but Bert

here.” But Bert forged ahead, requesting the waiter to find a

would still have a fine time eating what she wanted. No matter

comfortable place for them. She turned to Floss to explain. “The

what she did, and regardless of whether she took any pleasure

room isn't crowded. That is a reasonable thing to ask.”

for herself, Floss felt guilty by association with this fat woman

4 68

HERESIES 21

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who was joyously satisfyng her own needs. Floss felt like her
skin was peeling off, leavng nothing underneath but her fat,
exposed and unprotected.

“I know you said that last night, but I'm having a terrible
time believing that you're right.”
“You have NOTHING to lose,” Bert said. “Why not find out
for yourself whether or not dieting can help you? Better yet,
make a decision to take good care of your body and see where

s At her home the previous evening, Floss had
been able to see Bert as another woman like herself, different in

that leads you.”
Freedom sat across the table from Floss wearing a blue cap

some ways, and with great information to share. Up to this point,

and smiling. Floss didn't know how to respond. She felt some-

their friendship had been amazingly easy. But out in public was

thing springing loose all over her body, but since she didn’t

another matter, for now there was no ignoring the substance

recognize the feeling, she did not know that it was her soul

of either of them. With Bert, Floss saw herself through the eyes

stretching for space.

of the waiter, the other patrons in the restaurant, even the
pedestrians on the sidewalk who stopped to look in the window.
Floss took a drink of water and all of her self-hatred boiled
up into her throat, gagging her, choking her. As she spluttered
and coughed, the waiter
came over to see if he could

Floss knew what she was doing when the words formed,
and some urge to hurt Bert let them slip out. "Well, that's easy
for you to say.”
The words hit their mark. Bert sat up and pulled her hat
down over her brow. “What
does that mean, Floss? Do

help. Floss felt eyes on her

you think that I was born un-

and wanted to die.

derstanding about fat op-

Something was happen-

pression? When | told you

ing here, and there was not

that I stopped dieting three

one thing Floss could do to

years ago, didn't it occur to

stop it, nor any place to run.

you to think about what that

She took deep breaths and

was like? Do you think it was

tried to get herself under con-

easy?"
Floss looked at Bert's

trol. As her coughing subsided, Floss looked helplessly
across the table.

angry face and thought; It
isn't you I challenge, it's my-

Bert saw the question in

self, my life that faces me in

her face that lay unspoken

you. Softly, she asked, “How

in a pool of words in the bot-

did you learn? How did you

tom of her eyes: How can

change?”
Bert's face relaxed into a

you live and be so fat?
“Are you okay?” When

big grin. “I thought you'd

Floss nodded yes, Bert asked,

never ask. | started talking to
another fat woman about

“How are you feeling today

about the meeting last

what we'd really been doing
to ourselves.”

night?”
“There's so much new

“You mean you were just
like me?”

stuff that I'm going round
and round in circles trying to

“I'still am,3Floss.'

figure out what's right for

The food arrived. Bert

me. You know, Bert, I just

looked at Floss's single bowl

can't imagine saying that I'm

and asked kindly, “Want to

not going to diet any more.”
“It seems unamerican?”

change your mind and order
something else?”

Floss chuckled, “I guess

“No, thanks, this soup

s will be enough.” Floss was

it does. Only worse.”
“The important thing is

drooling over the spinach pie

to start loving yourself. You
don't have to put yourself down all the time just because you're
fat. Do you believe that?”

with steam rising out of its
delicate brown crust. Like a hungry dog, Floss watched every
bite that Bert took.

“Not really. I want to, but it's so damned difficult. I hear
you talking, I listen to your words, and they're magnificent.
But then I walk down the street and every shop window | pass
tells me how ugly I am, what a failure.”
“That's your judgements, Floss. That's what you have to

By the time Floss climbed the hill to her home
that night, she was hungry and discouraged, too. She wanted
to believe Bert, but wasn't sure that she dared. Although she

change. The time has come for you to make a decision. Stop

meant well, Bert's pushing still made Floss feel defensive. The

this eternal deprivation, this constant vigilante action you force

more she was exhorted to change her self-deprecating ways,
the more Floss felt like a failure. She did not know how to

on yourself. Be free. Be a fat woman—a healthy, happy fat
woman.”
Elizabeth Layton began drawing in 1977 at the age of 68. Drawing pictures of

latch on to Bert's words and use them for herself.
Floss realized that she would have to find a way herself.

herself to express personal and social concerns, she has had exhibitions in

But with a shock of recognition, Floss knew at last that she

nearly 100 cities across the country.

wanted to try. ®

FOOD.: IS A FEMINIST ISSUE

69 D

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IN THE KITCHEN
by Helane Levine-Keating
The wife is in the kitchen

with her vegetables. She
is paring them one by one,
chopping them into little squares
to be crushed in the mouth,
small green cubes simmering hotter
and greener. Her meat’s in the oven,
succulent, growing tender,
skin tanning to a perfect shade.
Her timer’s on: she always knows
when to stir her food, how
to make her meat and vegetables come
together at exactly the right moment:
the juicy, bubbling climax of deliciousness.
One minutes to go—countdown.
She unwraps the peasant loaf
with its hard thick crust,

the yellow butter smooth as her stomach.

i |

-

l

| |

| J

Ice crystals pop in fluted water glasses.
the timer rings.

She makes ready to serve,
but what's this? Like clockwork,
her husband enters the kitchen.
Eyes soft and hazy, arms
roping her in, he pins her
to the dishwasher. Her scents
turn him on. Once again she’s
queen of all that's nourishing.
But her thoughts are elsewhere:
an apron divides them, whets
his appetite all the more—
this husband who wants her most
while she's spooning string beans.
“Dinner's ready!” she snaps,
her arms breaking his loving grasp,
hands pushing him out
to the table, to her meal.
Annoyance smolders,
the burnt remains of countless
other dinners cooked to perfection
in centuries of women’s kitchens.

Helane Levine-Keating’s poetry has appeared in many
literary magazines. She is an assistant professor of
English at Pace University in NYC.

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I had a weekend of it and I have had enough now
l am not obliged to be giving 24 hours a day

I told him it tasted fine, he moved in and out

The delicate aroma of my kitchen is overrun with his scent
He has his ideas and his wandery ways

Silence and space, the comfort of my own body

Or go, or sleep, or sing

that the recipe always works.
5 people, 7 people, or 12 or more. Balmy night feels like spring in fall or vice versa. Coming
together. For soup. Throwing the key out the window each time, an accepted and cryptic
greeting. Men and women (still no androgynes). Soup, the beginning, thin, isolated vegetables, flaky herbs.

Relaxing, talking, laughing, arguing. The stars are all out behind the smog. The idea that
something is there even though one can't see it. The streets are unusually quiet. Someone puts
on music, African, pygmy polyphonics. Imagine singing with our neighbors every day. It is there
if we just could see it. Waiting for soup. It's there too, but not quite ready.
The women and men continue to relax, talk, laugh, and argue. We continue to wait. The
soup continues. The night is balmy like spring in fall. The street is unusually quiet. The key has
passed through the window 13 times. There are 4 distinct circles of conversation, there are 2
by the water (kitchen sink), there is one alone. The stars are all out behind the smog. They are
all there, we can't see them.
We eat soup together, laugh, relax, argue, talk. It is fall, we are here, together, a clamor
arises from the street and fades. Evening preserved through the delicate balance of soup,
laughter, men, women, key, water, two, one, etc.
Joanie Fritz is an actor and activist living on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. She is cofounder of Protean
Forms Collective. Kim Hone collaborated with Ms. Fritz on the broad outlines of “Soup.” She is an actor/dancer/
choreographer living in NYC and would like the piece to be a community dance and a ritual feed. And a play.

71 D

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THE POLITICS OF SIZE

When you are big cute cloze dont fit
you wear big blouses from India
little boys will call you fatso

a total stranger walked past me and said smoothly
chilling me, “You're getting fatter. The reason blunted
the assault sharp.
You can be exercising your human right to eat a donut
when and where you choose, such as walking down the street
and at the same time choose not to respond to some
teenagers, “Bey Baby,” as you eat and be told, “That’s why you fat!”
No thot, compunction—you are the butt of insult, you are a joke
fat joke fat joke fat joke laff laff till you cry vomit laff laff

at your big ass your funny rotund gigantic ass everyone knows
you eat too much weight weight better get that weight off if
you wanna dance act sing. Sing? What singing got to do with
fat?

Big women git ignored
or stared at

Ask Florence Ballard and Dinah Washington.
Drop drop the pounds the pills till your mouth dry up and your brain

or people look away and try not to see

burns a marathon in circles dry you up wasted your mind nerves

big women get more than their share of

gain back more than you ever lost fast fast at last 14 day fast enema

disdain, ridicule

colonic fast plastic pants sweat sweat the fat is still there

the bigger you are

it is the last to go sweat sweat water heart tissue, muscle tissue,

the less you're seen

brain tissue go first, too weak now to wear the pretty dress or

they cant take their eyes off the rolls of flesh

running shorts, too tired to show off the cellulite free legs

the lumps, hanging belly

Ahh some green and orange dexadrine left at the bottom of the

the fat compells tears out their eyes

tiny amber vial, now we feel good like a cigarette should puff

but you remain invisible

puff ANYTHING rather than eat, leave your money at home

fat and ugly become synonymous

dont bring it you might buy something to eat

you can be ugly without being fat

oh god oh god I'm gonna kill myself i cant stand it ugh!

but you cant be fat without being ugly

i hate looking in the mirror

and in the land of the beautiful

if i wasnt so fat i'd be—i'd do—i could—if i wasnt so fat

to be ugly is to be unseen

i would—as soon as i lose weight i'm gonna...

like being differently formed, no one can take their eyes off
the missing or different limb, in this case the, to their mind,
excess flesh

admission of greasy lip nites, secret masturbatory glory
swathed in chocolate, grits, fried things and cream puffs that
turn to ripples on your thighs, hard lumps on your hips,
mountains of flesh out of control out of control

There was a lady who got so fat that when she got sick

seeping over elastic waistbands, spilling from underneath bras

and had to go to the hospital they had to get the fire department

forming hills that sit on thighs sweet sweet looking for

to knock the walls of her house out cause she couldnt fit out the door.

something to eat, round defiance, corpulent rebellion
in the land of Farrah Fawcett and Jackie O so slim so rich
so wite
in the land of the free and the slave
in the land of the never too thin never too rich
to be big is to be invisible

the wider the you, the narrower the view

I read that in Jet Magazine. How did she get to the bathroom— take a
bath, piss, shit? The light of day? How long had she gone without a walk
to the store, church? How did she live? Even welfare demands a
face to face every three months. Did she have a husband, lover?
500 Ibs. That's deep. They had a picture of them bringing her out.

It took a lot of them. She looked blurred, a dark mountain with short
pressed hair sticking up.
(now for some reason sitting here retyping this I think of the goddess.)

4 72

HERESIES 21

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BY SAPPHIRE

Dexatrim, Metracal, Pepsi Light, Diet Pepsi, Diet 7UP No Cal, Lo
Cal devoid of sugar fulla chemicals saccharin, cyclamates,
dexadrine, dexamil, benzadrine, take a pill.

Fat people dont-suffer. The lithe and pale pine away.
Surrounded by flesh equals insensitive. Yes, of course,
if you were sensitive you wouldn't be fat. But anyway,
the maiden by the sea has long brown hair, anemic skin, her eyes
are deep dark burning wells with smokey circles underneath,
the anguish of unrequited love eats away at her, her skin stretches
over protruding cheek bones.
The maid the maid she sleeps on old sheets under a worn coverlet.
Suet, blood porridge, her cheeks as apples, rolls around her waist
like large wite donuts du// insentient creature that has never
known upper class heart rendering appetite killing love.
The slave the slave she is lacing Scarlett O'Hara into her stays.

Fat people are hated.

Little southern sylph. Fat black elephant. Ponderous lump of lard

“... work has been done to delineate the ways in which

devoid of any emotion except worry, worry over her everloving

these body types are perceived by others on the basis of

in love PASSIONATE winsome, long haired, thin mistress, “Oh Missy!

shared cultural beliefs... the endomorph (rounded) body

You gonna kill yourself, you got me worried near bout to death! You ain

type was clearly seen as perjorative. The endomorph was

et, you ain slept, come on wont you please eat a little somethin for Mammy!”

described with words like lazy, mean, and dirty, while such

Where her thighs meet are sore now, the flesh rubbing together has

words as strong, friendly, heatlhy, and brave were used to

chafed the skin. The bright wite shoulder straps of the 48EEE bra cut

describe the mesomorph.

deep into her flesh, the whalebone is a constant hurt girdling the fat,

... this was believed in general by all people (fat, thin, or

keeping it in, from jiggling. She is strong standing over the stove,

athletic) it was found that wite male and female school

ironing cloze, starched, crisp, unsmelling, unfucked. Now she is totally

children wished to and did keep greater distance from the

for them, who jump on her bosom finding familiarity and reassurance in the
soft mammoth, a comfort, they wouldnt have her any other way.

endomorph than the other two body types. ... Dyrenforth,
Freeman and Wooley examined the attitudes of preschool age (emphasis mine) children in an effort to find
the age at which such concepts emerge. When presented
with two life-size rag dolls, identical in every way except
corpulence, 91% of the children who expressed a preference indicated they preferred the thin doll over the fat
doll... it was striking to note that although three of the
overweight children correctly identified themselves as

meso
ecto
endo
MORPH

hard & muscular
tall & thin

being ‘like’ the fat doll, all three preferred the thin
doll. ... obese high school seniors were found to be accepted for college admission less often than normalweight girls.

The obese were less likely to be helped out by strangers
than the normal-weight people.”'
Did ya hear what I said? i said: FAT PEOPLE ARE HATED.
1 A Woman's Body in a Man's World: A Review on Findings
on Body Image and Weight Control by Susan Dyrenforth,

soft & round

Orlando W. Wooley, Susan C. Wooley.

which are you?
Sapphire is a writer, black, poet, lesbian.

which would you rather be?

FOOD IS A FEMINIST ISSUE

Carrie Cooperider is a visual artist living in Brooklyn.

73 )

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WHY
BIOGRAPHY: I weighed 63⁄4 pounds
at birth. When I was fourteen, I weighed
142. At eighteen, at my full height of
51⁄2 feet, I weighed 155. Ten weeks after
graduation from college I was married,
and on my honeymoon I weighed 186.
Two years later my husband went into
the Army, and I stayed home and went
on a high-protein diet; when he came
back, I weighed 146. Three years later,
after my first child was born, I weighed
159. Two years later, after my second
child was born, I weighed 169. I went on
a low-protein diet and lost 15 pounds.
Just before my third child was born, |
weighed (pregnant, but nevertheless)
194 pounds. After she was born, |
weighed 177 for a long time.
When she was three and I was thirtyfive, I fell in love and lost a lot of weight.

I went to Weight Watchers and came out
weighing 157 pounds, which was short
of my goal. A year later, still in love, I

weighed 146 pounds. I bought a pair of
white pants. At my son's Bar Mitzvah I
weighed 162 pounds. After that I got
depressed, and my weight dropped to
148 pounds. I had my first malted milk in
fourteen years. I wore the white pants
again, bought a Size Ten dress, and
wore a horizontally-striped tank suit in a
snapshot taken by my husband on a

For My Mother
by Ona Gritz

beach in Jamaica. I also had a photographer friend take a set of naked photographs of me to remember myself by.
A card from Weight Watchers dated
April 2, 1972, says I weighed 1612

How awkward I must have made you
pulling all your weight
dead center and forward
to accommodate my forming.
YOU say I ruined your teeth
robbing you of calcium

pounds. Three weeks later, I'm down for
1582. That year I fell in love briefly, lost
weight, and joined a consciousnessraising group. The next spring I went to
Paris and hated myself because | felt fat
and dowdy. I took some speed pills my
mother gave me, but they hopped me
up too much. When I stopped smoking, |

the way sometimes

weighed 156 pounds. When I went to

1go through your closet

my first artists’ colony, I weighed 162

taking only what I must have.
I wonder at two women,
having shared the same body for months,
craving the same foods,
pulled by the same needs,

pounds. My husband and I almost split
up, and I lost some weight. In 1977,
when my first novel came out, I weighed
168 pounds. In 1980 | wrote a magazine
article about a woman who had lost 235
pounds and was so impressed that I lost
twelve pounds myself. On June 10, 1983,

each bracing her weight

the day of my son's wedding and a

against this simple fact.

week before the publication of my second novel, I weighed 167 pounds. Last
year I weighed in for my Pap test at 184

4 74

HERESIES 21

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To quiet the pangs.

To build a fortress.

To cool the fires.

To cushion the blows.

To disarm the enemy.

To annoy my husband.

To avert aggression.

To digust myself.

To divert hostility.

Because | never learned to
say no to myself.

To fill out my frame.
To share the wealth.

Because I'm hungry.
Because the menu makes it
sound so attractive.

To mystify the curious.

Because | hate to disappoint.

To get back at my mother.

Because it's there.

To return to childhood.
To rival my father.

Gwen Fabricant is a painter who lives and
works in New York City. She teaches at Smith

To frustrate my friends.

College in Massachusetts.

To outdo my children.

Ona Gritz is pursuing a M.A. in the creative
writing program at NYU. She is an editor of

To challenge my shrink.

Slow Motion Magazine, a poetry publication
based in Brooklyn where she now lives.

To defy the world.
To sustain the spirit.
pounds. I took some lessons in Alexander Technique. In December 1984, on
the day of my final exam in Messianic
Ideas and Movements in Jewish History,
I weighed 169 pounds. o»

To discourage extramarital sex.

Rolaine Hochstein is a novelist and short-story
writer working in the NJ writer-in-the-classroom
program. She is married and has three grown
children.

To soothe the beast.
Elyse Taylor is a visual artist living in Brooklyn.

To contain the beast.

She has a B.F.A. from Boston University and
has had solo exhibitions in NYC and Boston.

To fill the abyss.
To mortify the flesh.
So I can be bigger than he is.
To comfort the dying.
To clean up the icebox.
To keep the edges straight
(cakes, pies, lasagne).
To support the economy.
To be social.
To stimulate the senses.
To activate the engine.
To fuel the fire.
To see how it tastes.
To pass the time.
To coat the raw ends.
To numb the sore spots.

FOOD:IS. A. FEMINIST ISSUE

75

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e WL my
mily, I can nouris

Bie Annale cA oe

| S 338

Erica Rothenberg,
Inspirational
Vegetables,
mixed media, 1986

n ueEau
LI

(Geant) (Gatto

AN

(76 HERESIES 21
Erica Rothenberg is a political, feminist artist from NYC currently living in California.
She is represented by P.P.O.W. Gallery, NYC.

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Маіе Уоісе Оуег: А СНІСКЕМ ТНАТ'$ МОВЕ

ТНІЗ 1$ А МЕУ/ КІМО ТНАМ РЬШМР. ҒВЕЅН АМО
· ОҒ СНІСКЕМ.

| ВНТ-ТО-ЦРҒЕ СНІСКЕМ.
| ТНЕ СНІСКЕМ ТНАТ ВЕАЦУ
| УАСШЕЅ НОМАМ ЦҒЕ.

Вогп-Адаіп СһісКеп, 1982 Егіса ВоіепЬего
МОВА ЅОРЕВЮВ РАОООСТ5 / ЕОЦАЦ- ОРРОВТОМІТҮУ ЗАШСЕ: 30 ЅЕСОМОЗ.

Е$ ІТ.

АСЕ МҮ БРАСНЕТТ т НО МҮ БАМИХ 0151 НОТ ТОМЕ

МАОЕ ІТ МҮЅЕШЕ... ГОМЕЗ 1$ ТНІЅ:

Е

т
са

"Осие,

МТ ТНІ$ ТО Уоісе Оуег. РВОСВЕЅ$$О.
МҮ ЅРАСНЕТТІ ЅАОСЕ АМО МОВО, ҮОШ'Ш. И ТНЕ ЗАСЕ ТНАТ РІСНТ$
І5 АСАІМ5Т ВАСІЗМ. \МАМТ ТНІ$ ОМ ҮОШВ РАЅТА. ВАСІЅМ.
РНОТО: АРАМ КЕІСН

Едиа! Оррогіипііу Ѕаисе, асгуііс оп рарег, 1982 Егіса ВокһепЬегд

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I tried to discuss the subject with my
friends on the beach. They did not want
to know or talk about it. This vacation
was our only opportunity to tune out the
world. Not trusting my strong negative
emotions, I decided I must be overreacting.
A few days later, I called several of my
LLZ

of ‘Genetic Roulette’,” sent the bio-tech
word GENE-SPLICING racing through my
mind. I thought it might be more interesting than the first. However, the article's predictions of impending doom
almost drove me to crumple up my news-

by Clarissa Sligh

paper more than once. Who wants to
read this crap while sitting on a beach in

While on vacation, as I was leafing lei-

Fire Island?

surely through the Sunday New York

But a masochistic sense of my duty to
be an informed citizen won out. This is

Times, | came across a long article about
food on page two of the Business Sec-

the gist of what the author said: “One

tion. For a moment I thought I was read-

would think, after the accident at

ing the Home Section, but a quick glance

Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, that the

at the page heading assured me that |
wasn't. Then I discovered the article wasn't

Government would have developed a

one, but two articles. The first was in

ogy... [it's] reminiscent of the Gov-

favor of, and the second opposed to, a

ernment assurances about the safety of
fallout from nuclear tests in Nevada...

recent Food and Drug Administration rule
allowing the IRRADIATION of fresh fruits

healthy skepticism about nuclear technol-

Each plant requires the use of one million

and vegetables, pork, and grains for the

to 10 million curies of radiation to operate

first time and tripling the dose currently

—the equivalent of concentrating all the

allowed to be used on spices. What food

long-lived radiation from a one megaton

irradiation was, and why it was or was

nuclear explosion ..… [plant workers] will

not desirable, was treated very differently

be at risk of immediate death from radia-

by the two writers.

tion sickness should they be exposed.” If

The tone of the first article, “A Healthy

a worker opens the wrong door...

Way to Extend Food Life,” annoyed me. It
was written as if the reader was an

piece of science fiction, but I knew it

elementary school kid to whom the rules

wasn't because it was in the Business

of a new game were being explained:

Section of the New York Times. Then |

“Irradiation involves radiant or light en-

I was aghast. The article read like a

got angry. I go to health food stores and

“health-nut” friends and casually asked
them what they had thought about the
articles. None had seen them. Their Business Sections had been discarded along
with the other sections that were never
read. However, they'd all heard about
FOOD IRRADIATION -and were able to
give me additional information.
I read all the material I could get my
hands on. I learned how food irradiation
worked. Gamma radiation from radioactive cobalt-60 (half-life: 5.3 years) or
cesium-137 (half-life: 30.2 years) is beamed
through foods to preserve them. The
food does not become radioactive, but
some cells are altered by the radiation.
Mutations are formed. The gamma rays
damage DNA, the “blueprint” for cell
division which is contained in all living
cells. The more complex the organism,
the larger and more radiation-sensitive its
molecules of DNA are, and small radiation doses can do it damage. Thus, small
doses (100 kilorads) can prevent onions
and potatoes from sprouting and kill or
sterilize insects, but larger doses (1,000
kilorads or more) are required to kill
bacteria and viruses.
Then I compared the benefits versus
the hazards of food irradation.

BENEFITS

ergy that passes through food..……It is not

pay a premium for natural food. Even

unlike passing a briefcase through an

then I can't know whether my natural

airport scanning machine... The briefcase

food has been irradiated— there is no

is perfectly safe to handle when it comes

nating bacteria. It preserves food and

current requirement to label irradiated

gives it a longer shelf life than the chemical preservatives currently in use.

1. Food irradiation is effective in elimi-

out the other side... The food industry

food. Moreover, there is no test the Gov-

welcomes this technology as another

ernment can use to check whether it has

option among a wide variety of modern

been irradiated, even though the radia-

food preservation methods...”

137, which is created as a byproduct of

tion dosage for food will be 200 times

making plutonium for atom bombs. The

the lethal exposure for human beings.

U.S. Department of Commerce reports:

The second article, “The F.D.A.'s Game

2. Food irradiation plants use cesium-

Ten
A
Lae, timadad sror
:

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lematic. An accident or mishandling of
radioactive materials could cause large
land areas to become permanently uninhabitable. Some workers in a New Jersey
food irradiation plant actually threw some
contaminated water down shower drains
into public sewers.
7. Workers in food irradiation plants
would be at risk of immediate death
should they be exposed to the radioactive
materials.
8. The Food and Drug Administration's current labeling requirements exempt identifying irradiated ingredients.
Additionally, the FDA has no empirical
TII IHI| IRRADIATION ||!

tests to detect irradiated foods; there-

COBALT
CESIUM-137

fore, agency regulations are unenforceable.
Clearly, the hazards of food irradiation outweigh the gains. Then why is it
being done? Once more the political and
economic interests of a government-business combination are antithetical to the
health and well-being of its consumer
citizens. Food goes into our bodies. Un-

“Food irradiation will substantially reduce

Since foods will later be cooked, there

the disposal costs of nuclear waste.”

will be an even greater nutritional loss

3. It may eliminate many chemical
sprays used to preserve stored food.
4. It might be an alternative to some
chemical preservatives.
5. It will make some people very
wealthy.

than from cooking alone.
3. Agriculturalists say crops must still
be sprayed in the field, and then, after
irradiation, will have to be treated again
with chemicals to prevent re-infestation
of produce. So food will be irradiated in
addition to being chemically sprayed.

HAZARDS
1. Irradiation creates new chemicals

4. Bacteria and viruses can develop

healthy food makes unhealthy people.
We are back to the times of “Let the
consumer beware!”
Let yourself be heard on this issue.
Write to the Health & Energy Institute for
information on how to get in touch with
a consumer protection group in your
area. This private organization advocates
the preservation of a healthy environment, the wise use of energy resources
and safe technologies, and the protection of human health and life. ®

resistance to radiation, just as insects do
to pesticides. Dangerous mutations and

in foods called “radiolytic’ products, in-

new strains of pest organisms may

Health & Energy Institute, 236 Massa-

cluding hazardous compounds such as

develop.

chusetts Ave. N.E., No. 506, Washington,

5. The microorganisms that cause

benzene, peroxide, and formaldehyde.
Some studies show that irradiated foods

meat to smell or look spoiled may be

cause cancer, kidney and liver disease,

killed by the irradiation process, but oth-

birth defects, and other problems when

ers requiring a stronger dosage could

fed to animals. Other studies, however,

survive. Thus meat that might be contam-

suggest that “radiolytic’ products can be

inated could appear to be harmless.

consumed safely.
2. Radiation depletes vitamins and
minerals in food just as cooking does.

6. The transportation and disposal of
radioactive materials used in the food
irradiation process could become prob-

D.C 20002.

Clarissa Sligh grew up black and female in the
southeastern United States. Her work derives from
life experiences including the early Manned Space
Flight Program, Wall Street, living with an activist
Jewish husband, and adventures in the Far East,
Africa, and Europe. As the journey of her life continues to unfold, it becomes increasingly her art.

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Narrator: To the Hopi, life is part of an infinite pattern, a continuum of cycles within cycles. The spinning of the planets is
reflected in the cycle of the seasons, and the circular journey of
human life mirrors this larger pattern.
The Hopi believe they emerged from below into this world
after three prior worlds had begun and ended.
S: When our people emerged from the world below, the Great
Spirit gave all people a choice of destiny by offering them different corn. We chose the smallest ear of blue corn. This corn
would sustain us in a hard but enduring life.
E: We have a commitment to raise the corn. We committed
ourselves to live by that law and the law is the corn.
DENVER MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

Narrator: The Hopi plant where the sandy soil protects mois-

I a

The Hopi'’s Spiritual Connection to Their Staple Food

ture below, and in the flood plains, where the few inches of
precious rain, flowing from the mesas, feed the plants. Farming here is an art, an act of faith.
E: The working of the corn is a very sacred thing. Because

excerpts from a film by Pat Ferrero, Hopi: Songs Of the Fourth

there's no irrigation, it's conscious preservation of every drop

World, with commentary from the film's resource handbook.

of moisture in the ground. And so, when a Hopi farmer comes
to plant, he has to push this dry surface away and eventually,
he gets down to the moist dirt, and then into this soft place, he

This film depicts the world of Hopi through the eyes of peo-

puts the seed. The very sacredness of life is corn, and it is this

ple who have experienceûd life in that world...and tries to

sacredness which keeps the Hopi coming back out to his field,

show Hopi culture as an adaptive and viable force that has
sustained the Hopis, as a people, from time immemorial. It is
a film that focuses on the historic continuity of Hopism, even
as it has undergone change in response to both internal cultural needs and external contacts with other peoples.?

even though looking at it strictly economically, it seems futile
to see Hopis come out and do the work in the way that they
do it when it could be done a lot more efficiently.
The planting stick is a magical stick that carries with it all of
this knowledge.

Along with beans and squash, corn has provided the basis
of unirrigated cultivation in a region that appears to be too
arid for farming. As the staple food, it is served in some form
at every meal and so figures prominently in traditional foodpreparing activities. It also has an important place in ritual
activities: “Corn appears in virtually every Hopi ceremony
either as corn meal, or as an actual ear of corn, or as a symbolic painting.” ... Archaeologists suggest that the Hopi received maize cultivation around three thousand years ago from
casual contacts with nomadic bands from Mexico ... The Hopi

MS |

say, instead, that Maasawu, who greeted the Hopi on their
emergence into the Fourth World, gave them corn and the
digging stick for planting it at that time, saying “Pay nw’ panis
sooya'yta,” (“I have only the digging stick; if you want to live
my way, that’s the way you have to live”)?

Editor's note: To preserve their privacy, the Hopi speakers from the
film will be referred to by their first initial only.

Material set in italics are excerpts from the film Hopi: Songs of
the Fourth World, © Ferrero Films; the excerpts preceded by initials are the voices of the many Hopi speakers who appear in the
hour-long film. The interspersed commentary is from a series of
essays that are part of the study guide that accompanies the film,
© Ferrero Films.
Excerpts from the study guide are by: 'Carlotta Connelly,
? Mary E. Black, Emory Sekaquaptewa, “Hartman Lomawaima.
Mary Black's essay in the study guide, “Corn as Metaphor,”
appeared in full in Ethnology, Vol. XXIII, No. 4, October, 1984.
Used in the study guide courtesy of Mary E. Black.
Rentals and sales of the film and study guide information is
available from New Day/ Ferrero Films, 1259A Folsom Street, San
Francisco, CA 94103, 415-626-3456.

CALIFORNIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY /TITLE INSURANCE AND TRUST CO. (L.A.)

4 80

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l |
l |

S: Our Hopi world has its own directions. These are the points

p

of the sun marked along the horizon. They show the summer

Z

and the winter solstices. These points determine the time for

WOMEN’S SPECIAL RELATION TO CORN
Metaphors for corn as female entity (themselves subsets of

planting and ceremonials.

the People-are-corn metaphor) rely on two principal metaphors, “Young corn plants are maidens,” and “Corn is our
mother.”

The various colors of corn signify the cardinal directions of

During ceremonials, corn plants are almost always re-

the Hopi world: beginning always with yellow corn for the

ferred to in song as manatu, unmarried girls or maidens,

northwesterly point, and moving counterclockwise with blue-

instead of as humi'uyi, corn plants. Manatu may be pre-

green for the southwesterly point, red for the southeasterly

fixed by the color of the corn crop, as in the song below, or

point, and white for the northeasterly point.”

by other descriptions. The Long Hair katsina song tells of
the rains it is hoped will be coming during the hot summer growing season.
Qootsap qaaoo maanatu
sakwaap qaaoo manatuu

White corn maidens
blue corn maidens

Umuungem natuuwaniwa
taal'aangwnawita.

for your benefit they are raised in

Uraa aawupoq

As you know, when it is going to

yookvaaniqoo

the growing season.
rain all over the land.

aatkyaaqw suuvuuyooyangw
uumumii pew

from down below, a steady rain

yoohoyooyootaangwu

the rain moving along steadily.

comes falling to you here

Once the plants reach the state of development known as
talaa kuyva (tassles emerging), they are seen to be like virgins awaiting fertilization/pollination. In Korosta Katsina
Tawi, a katsina song recorded by Natalie Curtis, the corn
plants are referred to as humisi manatu, “seed corn flower”
or “pollen”-bearing maidens:
sikyavolimu humisi manatuy Yellow butterflies, while going
along beautifying themselves

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION

l |

In the Hopi lexicon, the importance of corn is reflected in the

l z}

large number of terms that refer to types of corn, parts of the
plant, stages in plant development, stages in the grinding of
cornmeal, and corn-based dishes. Additionally, corn figures in
a number of metaphors that appear regularly in speech, frequently, but not exclusively in the context of ritual song. Two

talasiyamuy with the tassle flowers of the corn
pitsangwatimakyangw pollen maidens
tuvenagoyimani colorfully chase each other
sakwavolimu morisi manatuy Blue butterflies, while going along

.

painting themselves

talasiyamuy with the tassle flowers of the bean
pitsangwatimakyangw pollen maidens
tuvenangoyimani colorfully chase each other
humisi manatuy amunawita Among the corn pollen maidens

taatangayatu, the bees will hum and do their
tookiyuuyuwintani dance
morisi manatuy amunawita Among the bean pollen maidens

taatangayatu, the bees will hum and do their
tookiyuuyuwintani dance
umuu uuyiy amunawita

Among your plants

yoy'umtimani taawanawit

all day long the thundering rain

umuu uuyiy amunawita

Among your plants

yoy'umtimani taawanawit

all day long the thundering rain

will fall

will fall

of the most prevalent Hopi metaphors pertaining to corn [are]
“People are corn” and “Corn plants are females.”

E: The corn, in Mother Earth, in its womb, is born by emerging

The fertility theme underlying conceptualizations about
women and corn is further evidenced by the use of the
term poshumi in reference to both. It refers to both the
kernels of corn retained and used for germinating future

out of the ground. And it is treated as a newborn, with all of

crops, and to the young women of a clan that are capable of

the loving care and all of the right attitude, cheerfulness that

bearing children, who assure the continuation of the ma-

the person is capable of bringing. You know, you'd think that

trilineal line. When the ears of corn begin to develop, it is

talking to plants was some new idea. The Hopis have always

said that the plant is tirmu’yva (has come to have children),

done it.

the ears being timat (its children). Thus, in a sense, the
plant reaches womanhood.

F: As the corn grows, one farmer must be singing. It doesn't
need any special song, but there must be music along with the

Adapted from study guide material contributed by Mary E. Black

growth of the corn.

FOOD IS A FEMINIST ISSUE

81 D

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ZN
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E: We emerged in this world the same way the corn emerges.
After a while it gets to the point where the leaves out of their
weight fall back to the ground as though for support. We lean
on Mother Earth for support.

Corn and land are symbolized in Hopi songs and prayer rituals as Mother, possessing the gift of nourishment from whom
all life on earth receives sustenance. The terms Qa'ömanatu
(corn maidens) and Tuwapongtumsi (earth maiden) are typical words in songs to describe the female powers of fertility.?
One of the women's songs heard in the film is a HopiTewa grinding song, part of the traditional song lore. Such a
song would have been sung by young girls, grinding in the
evenings and hoping for their chosen boys to come to their
peepholes, as in the courting scenes nostalgically recalled in
the film.!

t

H: The girls, they used to go out to the edge of the village
after the dance, you know, in the evening. So the girls all sit
down in a row and then when the boys come, they stand
behind them, you know. And then they sing songs, like serenading them. And they are not allowed to visit with each other
at any time during the day. The only time they can visit is at
The ears of corn become “mother” to the humans who
cared for them—in the literal sense of actual nourishment,

night when the girls grind corn.
The door is latched and the mother sees that no one comes

and figuratively as tsotsmingwu, the perfect ears of corn

in. And they have the little hole where they can talk to each

that are “mother” to initiates and infants. The nourish-

other, and that’s the only way they can visit. If a boy is whis-

ment and energy received from corn in turn allow the hu-

pering from outside and the girl doesn't want to talk to him,

mans to continue to care for young plants. Humans may
die, become qatungwu, but the continuation of human
life is assured by poshumi and sustained by nourishment

she doesn't stop grinding.
She usually knows when the right one comes, you know.

[ |

And she might stop ginding and talk to him. And of course the

from the corn mother. Thus the life cycles of corn and

first time the mother knows that she isn't grinding, she gets

humans complement one another and repeat through the

up and goes and investigates and ask her who is the boy, and

ages. Is it any wonder, then, that the mutual interdependence of corn and humankind is represented and emphasized so frequently and powerfully in ritual??
Narrator: The sweet corn is baked by its own steam in a
pit. Two ears, representing Mother and Father Corn, are
wrapped in wild herbs and offered to the spirits of the six
directions. The first ear is thrown into the bottom of the
pit, and the corn is heaped upon ít.

she'll tell him. And if she doesn’t approve, then she said not to
talk to him. And if it's the boy she approves of, she lets her visit
with him.

In Hopi storytelling. Spider Woman is a central figure. The
spirit of Spider Woman represents all earthly knowledge. Spider Woman was intrumental in making the world habitable
for humans. She is believed to be the driving force behind

H: When the sweet corn is ready to bake, they invite all
the friends. And the man who keeps up the fire stays there
all day long keeping up the fire.

discovery and invention. The spirit and prominence of Spider
Woman is manifested in the Hopi matrilocal tradition, where
everything is of the woman's house— children, household goods

Early in the morning, the same one who was keeping
the fire will go early and open it up. Then he'll invite all the
spirits to come and eat first, in a loud voice. “The spirits
from the east, come and partake of this corn.” That's what
he say.

And then he stays there and lets the steam come out

and equipment, artistry, farming plots, orchards, etc.
The Hopi are a matrilineal, as well as a matrilocal, people.

l |

In the Hopi world, the family unit consists of all blood-related
and clan-related members—the clans themselves being large
extended families. Since the Hopi have a matrilineal kinship
system, clan identification is passed along to the children

to cool it off and then they take it our and then husk it.

through the mother’s side of the family. If your mother is sun

Narrator: This first ear of corn, the father corn, is eaten by
all who are there.

are also exogamous, which means that a member of a given

H: And it’s just very sweet; it’s nice, really.
Narrator: Wherever there is mist, steam, moisture, breath,
there is life and the kachinas are present.

S: At Hopi, our weddings are a process that may take years.
Corn, robes, and baskets are made and exchanged before the

NANA
4 82

clan, for example, then you are a Sun clan member. Hopi clans
clan cannot marry a member of the same clan.’

ceremonials are completed.

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R: My mother took me to my husband’s parents, y'know, and

growth. The red dots above the

I stayed there and I had to grind corn for three days straight,

tassel at the base of her gown

y'know. There's a lot of women that help the bride prepare

symbolize the months of blood

l l
l |

the cornmeal for the feast, and it's hard work and a lot of

that nourish the embryo... The

ladies and mens come to the feast.

red rings and threads, encircling
the tassels are the veins in the

Narrator: The corn is stacked and stored until needed. Then

uterus that feed the child...

the moist, blue corn is ground and mounded in bowls, pottery
jars, and metal tubs. Many Hopi foods are made with blue
cornmeal, but piki is special to Hopi. It is a paperthin bread
that Hopis have eaten for a thousand years.
R: When you make piki, you have the blue cornmeal and the

A bride, like a corn stalk, carries
the capacity for bearing children. She
carries the future.

A symbiotic and complementary relationship is seen to

ashes. Just put a little bit and it will color the whole batter. This

pertain to corn and humans. Young plants are cared for as

is our bread. When I put my first touch on the stone, it’s hot.

children by people; if they are properly cared for, encouraged

Your fingers have to get used to ít.

and prayed for, they are able to mature from maidenhood to
maturity. After “bearing children” and being harvested, the

Narrator: The valuable piki stones undergo a long and labori-

plants die, become corpses (qatungwu). Their lines of life are

Ous process of treating and seasoning to prepare their smooth

carried on in the ears of corn, some of which become poshurmi

surface. They are considered heirlooms and a good piki stone

for the next germination cycle.”

will be cherished for generations. While making piki, Hopi
women can use various agents to grease the stone, including
sheep brains, deer spinal cord, watermelon seeds or (more re-

[ |
| |

cently) peanut butter...

Making piki is part of daily life as well as a necessary preparation for a birth, a wedding, or a ceremonial. Women make
vast stacks of piki for the wedding feast.

The wedding preparations continue as the groom’s father
or clan uncles weave the bridal robes, and the bride's mother
and family make a special basket for the groom.

The fertility theme underlying conceptualizations about

E: The corn plant is like the human body, a body in which life
resides. The ears are the children of the stalk, just like children
are offspring of men and women.
Mother Corn is a perfect ear of corn which survives the
profane world of insects and bugs and crows and turns up
with kernels all the way to its end. This corn plays a role as a
mother, as you go from one phase of life to the next phase.
Narrator: When a child is born, it is cared for by its mother and
aunts in a darkened room for 20 days.
At dawn, the child, protected by a perfect ear of Mother

women and corn is...evidenced by the use of the term poshumi

Corn, is presented to the sun in its naming ceremony. A pinch

in reference to both. It refers to both the kernals of corn re-

of fine, white cornmeal is put into the baby's mouth.

tained and used for germinating future crops, and to the young
women of a clan that are capable of bearing children, who

H: And they say, this is what we eat on this earth. And so you

assure the continuation of the matrilineal line.

eat that, too. You have come to the earth to eat this kind of

Narrator: In her arms, the bride holds the wedding sash. On

E: May you live free from pain, and may you live long and go

each side, corn tassles and fringes are symbols of rain and

to sleep from old age.

food, that's what they tell the baby.

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CALIFORNIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY / TITLE INSURANCE AND TRUST CO. (L.A.)

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FOOD IS A FEMINIST ISSUE

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83 D

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Corn is the staple food and is prepared for eating in several
different ways—from its fresh state to its preserved dry state.

M: But when we see the clouds forming, we know they are
coming. We can't say it's our people that are coming. We say,
kachinas are coming!

Spiritually, corn is used to “feed” the katsinas by sprinkling
cornmeal on them, as well as to consecrate a pathway on which
the katsinas enter the village. It is also used to carry the mes-

i J

sage of prayer, when it is deposited at the appropriate shrine

E: May our hard labor, prayer, our sacrifices come to fruition in
rain, clouds, corn, growth, life.

for a ceremony.

The katsinas who are masters of Natwaùi (or the art of

The Hopi world is a world where cooperation is very impor-

raising corn and other plants) come to visit the Hopi people,

tant for survival, as against competition. People need each other.

through ceremonies, from midwinter through midsummer.

Traditionally speaking; in Hopi you don't have formal training

Their songs admonish the people, if they are wanting in their
reverential attitude toward the essence of Natwani ...?

of young people. They are respected as human beings who
come to realize their own potential in their own time. The
Hopi culture teaches us cooperation without submission.

Narrator: The Hopi believe that when they die, their last breath
— their spirit—becomes a cloud, and the clouds that bring
the rain are powerful spirit forces called kachinas.

Narrator: The game of bone dolls, taught by the grandmother,
is a map of the child's life. Women’s traditional skills are still
passed down face to face from mother to daughter.

E: Kachinas become clouds. They travel. They have this power
to make life. And so the Hopis look to the kachinas for this life
blood called rain.

Narrator: From winter to the summer solstice, the kachinas come
from their mountain homes to the plazas to dance.
The kachinas help the people prepare for the time of planting, a preparation that takes place fitst in the hearts and minds
of the people. “Be faithful, keep your thoughts happy so that
your crops will emerge straight and tall.” For the Hopi, thoughts
and prayers, wishes and feelings, all affect the balance of the
world around them.

H: We're building houses for the dolls to live in. The family will
be the father and then the mother and then the children.
Three children and then the grandmother so she can help take
care of the children.
We call this the grinding stone. You should start right now
so we will have plenty of time to grind a lot of corn. It's a girls’
game, of course. It gets so interesting that sometimes boys
come around and watch, you know.
When the new day comes, each person has a duty, and
the mother assigns the daughters to do something, and if the
father has sons, he will give them jobs, you know.

MUSEUM OF NORTHERN ARIZONA, FLAGSTAFF

4 84

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er,
,

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MUSEUM OF NORTHERN ARIZONA, FLAGSTAF

FOOD ISA FEMINIST ISSUE 85

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The Women

Who Feed
the World
VILLAGE WOMEN AND
THIRD WORLD POLITICS
A thread runs through women’s lives, which leads them from
defenselessness to responsibility. From children fed by their
own mothers they become the mothers who feed the world’s
children—the women who grow, harvest, thresh, bake,
brew, trade, and store so much of the world’s food.
In all this work women are handicapped by sexual stereotyping and role segregation. The roles they are expected to
assume are said to be particularly suited to women and are ,
often clothed in ritual trappings that muffle women’s chances
to assume new roles. The figure of Demeter, who assured the
Greeks of their harvests, strides through the world's fields.
Although she is expected to provide much of the food
for her family and community, the woman farmer is rarely
brought into the development process or consulted on technological and other solutions to food supply problems, and
she is often frozen out of cash-earning agricultural ventures.
Her relegation to the margins of a country’s agricultural plans
increases the insecurity of her position—and the insecurity
of her country’s homegrown food supply.
In the articles that follow, two of which were delivered as
speeches in Nairobi at the nongovernmental counterpart to
women discuss their challenges. They call to mind the prob-

AFRICA’S FOOD CRISIS:
PRICE OF IGNORING VILLAGE WOMEN?

lems faced by the small farmer throughout the developing

by Sithembiso Nyoni

the UN's conference on its Decade for Women third-world

nations, but we should not think our own agricultural situation here in the United States is so divorced from theirs. Of

In international terms, | am not a very important woman,

the many difficulties discussed in the articles, a great number

but because | am directly engaged in struggle I am very impor-

are also weaknesses of our own farming scene: a buildup of

tant to hear. My community and | are in the midst of a food

fertilizer salts that leaches into water supplies, erosion and

crisis. So we are interested in sustainable agriculture not for

depletion of soils, deforestation, less genotypic diversity in
seeds, the stranglehold of commodity dealers and weaknesses

luxury, not for earning more money, but for our very survival.
Even at the village level we are very aware that the main

in the distribution system, the debt crisis brought by heavy

causes of our food crisis are economic and political. It is a

investment in expensive capital equipment, farmers being

direct result of governments and multinationals taking over

forced off the land by large-scale commercial agriculture, and

control and the means of production from us, the people, who

the vulnerability of farm economies based on monoculture.

should have the right to feed ourselves.

Our corn and wheat farmers are finding out today what
Filippino sugar planters have already discovered.
We must act on the words of Margaret Snyder of the
United Nations Development Fund for Women: “Women are
not just the victims of crisis. They are not just the objects of
welfare. Women are the potential agents of profound change.
They are the backbones of the economies of innumerable

countries.” —KB for the Heresies 21 collective

4 86

We are also aware that this food crisis is directly related to
Africa's environmental crisis. In my village, when I was a little
girl, we used to have many trees around and water used to
flow out of springs. Today my children do not know what a
spring is, because the water table has lowered so much.
Sustainable agriculture, which is controlled by and directly
benefits the poor, is a very important component of national
stability and national security. It also directly affects our environment. My immediate environment is the basis of my village

HERESIES 21

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economy and my survival. It is from the land, after all, that |

THE GAMBIAN WOMAN’S BURDEN

get my food. It is from the land around me that | get my

by Comba Marenah

fuelwood and my water. lf the land around me declines, my
means of survival—even the possibility of it—declines.

The Gambia, occupying a 15 to 30 mile-wide band along

As a women, the environmental decline means that I have

the River Gambia, has over 800,000 people. It is one of the

to walk long miles to fetch firewood and water and | have very

Sahelian countries, which have been suffering from drought

little time to grow vegetables and other food.

for ten years now.

And because the environment in general has deteriorated,

84 percent of the Gambian population is rural, and the

my soils have also deteriorated. So, even if I have seven chil-

women are the major subsistence food growers, farming dur-

dren and some can go to fetch firewood and another group

ing both the dry and the rainy seasons. They grow rice, The

can go to the fields, we still will not produce as much as my

Gambia’s staple food, and millet, sorghum, and maize as well.

grandmother did. So, if I want my agriculture to be sustaina-

They also process their crops, using arduous methods such as

ble, then my environment also must be sustainable.
Now, as I've said, this is not just my village's food crisis, not
just a rural crisis, but a national crisis. From my experience
coming from Zimbabwe and Southern Africa, | have discovered it is also a regional crisis.
In Mozambique, after three years of drought, the environment has deteriorated so much that food cannot be grown in

pounding and grinding. They must attend to other traditional
duties as bearers and minders of children, housekeepers, water
bearers, and fuelwood gatherers.
Gambian women walk long distances in search of fuelwood.
In the early 1970s, Sahelian governments banned cutting down
trees and the burning of wood for charcoal without permission from the governments’ forestry departments because those

some parts of the country. Thousands of families have had to
move to the eastern part of Zimbabwe. My government finds

like conditions. Women, the prime users of firewood and char-

that it has to look after 50,000 Mozambiquans who could not

coal, were the hardest hit by these regulations.

sustain their own agriculture.
As a village woman, I know what it means to be without

The Gambia’s National Women’s Bureau, with the cooperation of the department of forestry, introduced woodlots-cum-

any seeds. I know what it was in the good old days when,

orchards to village women’s groups, to bring firewood closer

after harvest, I would select the seed for the following year.

to home and to add more fruits and vegetables to their diets.

And I know that when I use the improved hybrid seed | can no
longer do that.

Gamelina arbores, mangoes, and guavas were among the
trees planted. They provide shade where it never existed becontinued >

When one day I was in a meeting in Harare and I stood up
to say this kind of thing, the then-minister of agriculture said,

Comba Maranah works for the Gambian government's Women’s Bureau.

“Here is a woman who wants to take people back to the eighteenth century.” And yet I know that before I had control over
my seed; now that I am using hybrid seed, I cannot re-use it. |
have to go back to the one who controls the seed.

ADVOCATE FOR WOMEN

I know also that my well is in my field. When I come from
my farming chores, I can take a bucket of water back home.
But where I have used lots of fertilizer around my well, my
water has been contaminated by it.
I know that if you intercrop, some crops will survive the
drought even if others die. But my agricultural experts tell me
not to do that because it is primitive.
I know what roots from the bush I can dig up and mix with
what I grow at home in order to make a nutritious meal for my
children. But the nutritionists in town think I should feed my
children on Pro-Nutro.

The International Women’s Tribune Center is an international,
nongovernmental organization set up following the International Women’s Year Tribune held in Mexico City, 1975. It
supports the initiatives of women throughout the Third World
who are actively working to promote the more equitable and
active participation of women within the development process
of their country. They offer technical assistance and training,
information services, and a locus for women’s networking.
In one of their 1986 quarterlies, they reported on efforts to
offer women appropriate technological tools to process and

But our rulers of today—our ministers of agriculture—are

cook food for their families and for home or small businesses.

busy interlinking with the multinationals, with international cash

In many parts of the world, women’s contributions to family

crop markets, and they forget that we, the people, are the

income from small enterprises are vitally necessary —even an

basis of their power. If we are starving, they should be ashamed.

obligation. The IWTC reports, “There are countless examples,

They have the power to ask for more aid for our poverty.
If I were one of my country’s rulers, I would go back to the
people; now it is no longer a question of keeping up with the

worldwide, of ‘improved’ technologies that were created for
women without ever consulting them. Peddle-powered technologies have been created for women who are not permitted

Joneses—it's a question of survival for the village women in

to straddle a bicycle; solar cookers have been introduced that

Africa. Survival is a creation of the peasant who is involved in

need constant turning during daylight hours when women are

the struggle, who is taking control, who is trying to live under

working in the fields; a Nigerian hydraulic oil press failed

very difficult conditions.

because, although oil pressing is traditionally a women’s skill,

If I do not control food, there is nothing else in the world |
can control. o®
Sithembiso Nyoni is an executive officer of ORAP, Organization for Rural

the mortar used in the press was too large to be handled by
the average woman.”
On the following pages are technologies that worked.

Associations for Progress, Zimbabwe.

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fore and prevent soil erosion, keeping the land suitable for
agriculture.

ing, and 80 percent of harvesting and selling of surplus
food in the market.

Gambian women, in another effort to preserve the soil,

Traditional women’s groups, such as the Njangah in Cam-

have also embarked on building dykes to prevent salty water

eroon, Essusu in Sierra Leone, and Kafo in The Gambia, each

from encroaching on their rice fields.

have a function to play in their communities. In The Gambia,

Although it is widely accepted that much of the world’s

the groups are organized at the village level to provide labor

food is grown by women, especially in Africa, few improved

for each other on member's farms, taking on such tasks as

farming methods are geared toward them. Rural women have

plowing and planting, in addition to the groups’ other social
functions.

little access to appropriate technology and the support services
necessary to improve productivity.
There is only one major agricultural project for women in

The great merits of these groups are that they are closest
to the problems and are available when needed at little or no

The Gambia: the Jahally-Patchar irrigated rice project. It uses

cost. During the rainy season, for instance, they plow and plant

mechanized farming practices to assist women rice growers

members’ fields free of charge and use payments from serv-

and their families, seeking to improve their farming techniques

ices sold to non-members to improve the village environment

and to achieve food self-sufficiency for The Gambia.

and to further community projects.

But the sophisticated machinery used to plough the fields

The system, however, lacks an environmentally sound and

and to pump water onto them calls the sustainability of the

technologically appropriate mechanism for increased produc-

project into doubt, particularly because of high maintenance

tion and management of areas needing more labor. In part

costs. By May 1984, the project had cost 17 million dollars, a

this is because of women’s lack of effective land rights. Even if

lot for one project in a country with few capital resources.

women's labor makes the improvements that make land a more

Traditional methods provide the only sustainable form of

marketable commodity, it is men who have the rights over the

agriculture for Gambian women, I think. African women spend

land. The system seriously constrains the efforts and active par-

up to 80 percent of their labor on farmwork, particularly in

ticipation of women in agricultural development, thus losing

relation to gathering and storing the harvest. One paper at this

the benefit of their skills and experience.

conference indicated that, although women did only 5 per-

The time and energy spent to reach the almost inaccessible

cent of the felling of trees and clearing of forest, women’s

rice fields negatively affects food production. Land develop-

involvement increased to 30 percent of all the plowing, 50

ment efforts aimed at reducing women’s drudgery should com-

percent of sowing and planting, 70 percent of hoeing and weed-

mand favorable reception among donor communities. ®

The Nada Chula Stoves, Built by Women for Women

Grating Cassava for Bread-Making Enterprises

The Indian government is sponsoring a national project for the

The members of the Lu Fuluri Dangriga Women's group in

development and partial financing of improved stoves for rural

Belize have been grating cassava by hand all their lives. When

women. The women of the Harijan Nada helped develop this
particular model based on their need for better smoke re-

they started a bread-making enterprise, they adopted the

moval from the kitchen. Rural houses, by and large, did not

was too slow to allow them to expand their productive

have chimneys, or the baffles and dampers in the stove that
facilitate the chimneys’ operation.
Women were trained to build the stoves for other families
as a trade, and, thus, at a single stroke, the women stove
manufacturers gained a new income source and the villages

traditional method of hand-grating the cassava but found it
capacity. Using available commercial grating services meant
walking long distances with their cassava supplies and waiting
their turn in line. So they found a funding agency willing to
loan them the BZ $500 they needed for a simple, mechanized
grater.

better stoves. The stoves are made of sun-dried slabs of mud,

The machine has had unexpected results, good and bad:

soil, and a clay fiber mix. They can be made in a variety of

the women have learned to run their business profitably, are

forms to suit different incomes, kitchen space, cooking needs,

planting more cassava since they can process more of it

and aesthetic preferences, as long as the dimensions of the

(increasing the country’s food supply), have gained respect,

firebox remain constant. The stoves are not only less smokey

and have earned the income they were seeking; but the

but also more efficient in fuel use and faster in cooking times.

cassava grater disrupted a traditional sociability that once

The Indian government has started offering subsidies to

surrounded cassava grating by hand, and it has led to a

village women to allow more of them to hire the services of
the women stove artisans. Several thousand of this type of
stove have been built successfully.

greater division of labor in the enterprise. Economic success
may lead to changes in village class structure. The Lu Fuluri
Dangriga group is the only women’s organization that owns
such a machine and produces cassava flour collectively.

4 88

HERESIES 21

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|

A JAKARTA HOUSEHOLD
Thirteen men and two women share a household in Jakarta,
which is both a boarding house and the site of a small business. Such a-household is called a pondok. This particular pondok
is owned and managed by a woman named Ibu Mus. The loft
of her tiny shack serves as a sleeping platform for the whole
household, and the ground floor is their storage, working, cooking, eating, and bathing area. This pondok’s central enterprise
is ice-cream making and selling, but it could be engaged in

4 A zi

making any of the many foods that are sold on the streets of

UNICEF PHOTO BY LING

Jakarta. Ibu Mus buys all the materials for making ice cream
and sells it to ten of the men, who are the actual ice-cream
makers and vendors. The men also rent their vending carts

Mus's husband has the responsibility of keeping the ice-cream

from Ibu Mus. Since ice cream is, of course, perishable, each

pushcarts and the house in repair; he has helped the collective

worker must stay on the streets until what he has made each

business by constructing a device that makes ice-cream cones.

day is sold. Each worker buys two meals a day from Ibu Mus,
although they do not pay her any rent.
Other people in the household also have their allotted tasks.
For Ibu Mus herself the day is long and arduous. She shops for
the evening meal once a day, which she prepares. She also
buys herbal remedies in the market, which she prepares and
sells. On her route she sells batik cloth made in her rural village
and collects old clothes, which she will sell back in the village
when she goes there. She also lends money at 30% interest,
and part of her daily rounds is taken up collecting on the money
she has loaned. Her brother-in-law’s wife shops in the morning and prepares the pondok’s morning meal; as she cooks

Her husband's son-in-law (her husband has another wife in
the village) operates this machine during the day, when everyone has cleared out of their small quarters. Two other members of the household work at regular waged work —one is a
driver and one is a waiter. Their incomes are lower than that of
the ice-cream vendors, but they are steadier.
All these householders come from the same village outside
Jakarta and are bound by ties of loyalty. These ties allow for
the extension of credit from Ibu Mus to the workers and for
the entrusting of money and valuables to each other when
they are away or when they need such valuables taken to their
relatives in the village. For everyone it is an exhausting day on

breakfast, she prepares the fried food she will hawk from a

the streets; then, a hard night, for the sleeping arrangements

tray on her head near one of the government buildings. Ibu

in the pondok are less than ideal. ®

Beekeeping Makes Women’s Group Independent

Turning Surplus Fruits into Snacks for Sale

The Kibwezi Women's Group of Machakos, Kenya was formed
expressly to set up a honey-producing cooperative. Several
small villages are involved in the group. The Kenyan Ministry of
Agriculture introduced the women to an improved beehive
that has saved them enough time to enter into other incomeproducing activities—raising poultry and goats, and brick
making.
The Top Bar Hive improves on the traditional long, treehanging hives in several ways: first, it can be easily moved to
exploit changing flowering times or to attract new swarms;
then, it makes beekeeping simpler and safer; its improved
smoker (used to calm the bees before removing the honey
comb) yields better-tasting honey; and it can be constructed
with homespun materials or purchased ready-made once the
operation expands.
The women's group highly recommends beekeeping to
other village cooperatives, considering the ready market for
both honey and beeswax. They caution that improved transportation and distribution to urban areas is needed ifa
nationwide industry is to be created by village women.

FOOD IS A FEMINIST ISSUE

Pueblo a Pueblo, a small nonprofit foundation in Honduras,
has set up cooperatives to process the fruits of the cashew
tree, which often go to waste because they have an astringent
flavor when eaten fresh. (The cashew nut grows at the end of
this cashew apple.) Using a combined osmotic-solar method
of drying fruits and vegetables, local women can prepare a
date-like snack from the cashew apple for home consumption
and outside sale. The bitter fruit is cooked in sugar, which
begins the osmotic drying part of the process, and then
sun-dried in a special solar dryer. Over 200 of these special
dryers have been distributed by the foundation, bringing
added income to 200 peasant families. The women are
pleased with the technology because it is simple and does not
demand a heavy commitment of their time.
The women can produce 15—20 pounds of the finished
sweet each day. When the product is packaged, it has a 6—8
month shelf life, giving it good potential for sale. The dryer's
simple design is made possible by a special, longer-lasting
plastic—a successful transfer of sophisticated technology into
the developing world.

89 D

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|n large parts of the world, the pri-

w Many governments encourage mono-

«Worldwide, the grain eaten by meat

mary economic activity in the country is

culture and cash cropping to earn for-

animals is rising twice as fast as grain

the production of food and drink.

eign exchange. Consequently, more and
more kinds of foodstuffs must be

eaten by people.

|n East Africa, it's estimated that

imported.

o The Irish suffered in the 18th century
when the British forced small farmers off

o Nutritional needs are increased by the

the land so the encroaching British land-

women work 16 hours a day. As well as
doing most of the housework, they raise
60-80% of the population's food.

parasitic infestations endemic in the de-

owners could rear cattle and pigs for

veloping world. For example, hookworm

cheap salt meat for British army. Central

e A study in the Philippines found that

infections increase the body's need to

American peasants today have been

families spent more money on food for

consume iron, a mineral often in short

forced out by agribusinesses raising

boys than for girls.

supply in protein-poor diets. In New-

o |n Brazil, female-headed households

worm infestations; thus, women, who

o Testimony before Congress during

increased 200% from 1960—70.

spend the most time in the gardens,

the Depression: “The farmers are being

o in Nigeria, urbanization has brought
increased seclusion for Moslem Hausa

This complicates the women’s state of

populations, and the industrial popula-

health, considering their recognized need
for more iron than men.

tion is being pauperized by the poverty

cattle for cheap hamburgers.

Guinea, the gardens have heavy hook-

suffer greater infestations than men.

women. Men are under no cultural obli-

pauperized by the poverty of industrial

of farmers.” Not a unique situation.

gation to pass the proceeds of the increased productivity stemming from

0 30% of the labor in food manufactur-

o Ethiopia's program of land reform

development capital aid along to wives
or other female relatives. Aid cannot be

ing is in handling the material.

encourages peasant possession. The land

assumed to aid all family members equally.

0 In Africa, women supply 85% of the

is designated for family units, and, in a
labor of food processing and storage.

o Married women with children work

patriarchial culture, this has made women
more dependent on men. In polygamous
areas, only one wife is registered with

more hours than married men. In Java,

In Egypt, cottonseed oil is the coun-

husband as land holder, meaning the

men work 21⁄2 fewer hours than their

try's basic oil. Cotton is one of its basic

younger co-wives have lost all rights.

WiVes.

exports. Waste not, want not.
o As the price of sugar collapsed in the
world market, Filippino plantation owners took over their workers’ small farm
plots to grow more sugar to offset the
lower price. They also decreased wages.
Thus, they forced families now earning
even less money than before to have to

Cheese-making in Chawirapampa, Bolivia, was formerly a traditional home industry,

buy vegetables they once grew for

overseen by women. The quality of the cheese varied, however, and what little the

themselves—and the vegetables cost

women sold outside the home went at such a low price that the sale barely covered
the cost of the milk and their hours of labor.
The Appropriate Technology for Rural Women Project has successfully hooked

more because the sugar workers were
no longer selling the surpluses of their
small plots in local markets.

together several development agencies to set up a communal cheese factory in the
village. One agency investigated the possible market in nearby La Paz and what price

r The FAO estimated in 1978 that 40%

the village could charge, another helped design the factory, and the agricultural

of the world’s food harvest went to

ministry trained the people in improved cattle raising techniques. The village organ-

waste, claimed by insects, rodents, insuf-

ized its own committees to run the enterprise, and the women have assumed

ficient processing facilities, lack of trans-

chief responsibility for day-to-day manufacture.

port, and inadequate training.

The women have gained status and self-confidence from their participation in
the factory's management, in a society that most often allows women little public
stature. The time they once spent making cheese can now be devoted to other

Women agricultural advisers make up
only 8.5% of such experts in Latin Amer-

productive purposes without depriving their families of fresh cheese. The more

ica, 2.9% in Africa, and .7% in Asia (and

scientific process possible in a larger-scale production mode has improved the qual-

what percent here?).

ity of the cheese and increased the quantity made. And the community now
has a growing community fund from the profits of the venture.

o The Fijian government started a cocoa
processing factory on the island, run by

To order IWTC publications, write IWTC, 777 United Nations Plaza, NY, NY 10017.

village men. The men, although they had
chainsaws and trucks at their disposal,
used firewood near the village to fuel the
factory. The women now have to walk a
mile on foot to gather wood for cooking.

HERESIES 21

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Food and children had been the
things that had bonded women
across cultures, she had been
taught. She was, after all,
a gringa in the kitchen—
it was January in

Managua, Nicaragua,
and very hot.
Together with
the women she
was making a dinner;
beans, rice and
vegetables served in
big leaves. In her broken

Spanish, for some reason she
could not fathom, she began to
talk about pie fights. The other

women looked up, surprised,
disgusted with the idea.

How could anyone
in their right mind

throw food around?
These gringos—
she saw them shake
their heads—
sympathetic or not,
these gringos.

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FOOD
POLITICS

POWER

A FEMINIST PERSPECTIVE
BY CHARLOTTE BUNCH

This is taken from a speech given at the Pacific Regional Women
and Food Conference in Sydney, Australia in February, 1982.
FEMINISM, in this wave, began with the assertion that the
personal is political as a means of uncovering injustices previously considered private and non-political. Through this concept, we came to understand sexual politics—that the relations
between the sexes involve issues of power and control, issues
of economic and social policy.
Similarly, our first assertion in discussing feminist perspectives on food must be that food is political. The issues of how
food is produced, prepared, and distributed are matters of political control and economic power that must be taken out of
the realm of the private and exposed to the scrutiny of political
analysis. On the global level, Susan George has effectivly documented in How the Other Half Dies that political and economic decisions, not a shortage of resources, cause world
hunger. Food is also a matter of government priorities. This is
clearly demonstrated by the calculation that money spent on
the military in all countries in one day would be enough to
provide basic food, clothing, and shelter for all the people in
the world for one year.
Food and the withholding of food are political weapons
that governments use internationally to get other nations to
agree with their policies, and internally to exercise control
over their own people. This is seen dramatically in times of
war and famine when political considerations determine who
gets relief. It is also clear in the aid policies of most industrialized countries of both the East and the West. But food is also
used in less obvious ways that affect the everyday lives of
women. For example, many women are trapped in destructive marriages because of economic and cultural practices
that would deny them and their children the food to survive
if they were on their own.
Even in so-called “developed” countries like the United
States, the gap between rich and poor is widening: women
and children make up an increasing percentage of the underfed everywhere. The right wing advocates “pro-family” policies, consciously based on denying economic resources to
women who step out of line, or simply do not fit into their
view of the middle-class, heterosexual, nuclear family unit.
George Gilder's Wealth and Poverty (considered by some to be
Reagan's economic bible) spells out why government should
not adopt policies that result in more income through welfare
or jobs for women—especially for Black female heads of households—because it increases their independence and thus
undermines the patriarchal family.
On the personal level, food is a factor in controlling women's bodies and in assuring continued service to the family.
Susie Orbach, in Fat is a Feminist Issue, observes how women's
obsession with diet and thinness contributes to negative selfconcepts and the struggle to meet external male standards for
our bodies. The constant demand on women to prepare the
correct food for their famlies and the guilt associated with the
idea that any food problems are the mother’s fault play a role
in women’s oppression as well. Further, throughout the world,
when there is not enough to eat, men and boy children get
priority within the family, and females, therefore, constitute a
disproportionate number of the malnourished.
Food is used as a weapon in the home as well as in international politics. And it is a potent and deadly one. Yet women,
Disadvantaged women worldwide are locked into a lifestyle of exploitation.
The Voluntary Fund for the United Nations Decade for Women, established
in 1975, is trying to improve their lot through projects implemented on a
village level, such as providing fuel-efficient wood stoves for cooking.

UN PHOTO 152,831/KAY MULDOON

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*

<

NY aa D

v

7 A

va ”

f

KL

Li e|

TRPIA

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HELIAS FOUNDATION

give them a plate of food.”
who are on the most intimate terms with food as its producers,
purchasers, and preparers, have almost no say over food policies at any level—local, national, or global. Women must move
from food preparation to food policy. We must bring feminism
to bear as a perspective in examining the issues of food. As a
movement of activists, we must struggle for changes in food
policies based on feminist perspectives.
In the 1980s, feminists must expand our movement's horizons and address all kinds of issues of human life from a feminist perspective. At an international feminist workshop in
Bangkok, Thailand in 1979, a small group of women from
diverse regions of the world worked to establish some common goals for feminism that could be seen as global. We agreed
upon two inseparable aspects of feminism: 1) the achievement
of each individual woman's equality, dignity, and freedom of
choice through her power to control her own life and body
within and outside the home; and 2) the achievement of social
transformation that would end the domination of any group
by another through the creation of a just social and economic
order.

Around the issues of food production, preparation, and
distribution, these two goals clearly come together. There is
not a more crucial area of control over our bodies than that of
control over the food put into them. Food determines both
our ability to survive and the quality of that survival. Yet we

FOOD IS A FEMINIST ISSUE

cannot entirely control our individual consumption of food because it is so connected to society's food policies. Given the
intimate relation of women to food, I only wonder why it has
taken us so long to focus on this issue.
In the industrialized countries, groups have questioned the
safety and healthiness of the food we consume. But we must
also look at the issue of food in a global context. Redistribution
of world food resources and relocation of government priorities are a must. The exploitation of the worlds’ resources by a
few—at the expense of the many—and the withholding of
food for political purposes or economic profit must be
challenged. Feminists must analyze agribusiness and multinational corporations in order to create alternative policies for
food production and distribution. We need to think of new
approaches to the issue, such as preparing national budgets
that would demonstrate how allocations would differ if priority shifted away from the military and toward the meeting of
human needs.
In this process, we must question what has come to .be
viewed in the U.S. as an appropriate (and even desirable) standard of living—one that is based on wasteful consumption
and destruction of the world’s resources. American patterns
need to be changed at the level of social production, mass
consumption, and advertising. A new food policy cannot be
achieved simply through individuals having enough money to

93 D

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UN PHOTO 151,969/LOUISE GUBB

As part of the relief effort in the drought-stricken regions of Ethiopia, the
Voluntary Fund for the United Nations Decade for Women has joined forces
with the Ethiopian Nutrition Institute to teach women in those areas how to
make the best use of relief food supplies from abroad and produce their
own food through gardening and poultry raising.

buy “health food” or going back to the land, where earth
mothers again end up doing all the work from scratch.
In questioning the American standard of living, we must
seek to replace it with a vision of a higher quality of living.
Given the poisons in our food, water, and air, it would be hard
to claim that industrial development in the West has led to
quality development. Our culture has emphasized the quantity
of goods at the expense of quality and safety, just as business
has sought profits even at the expense of life. It will not be
easy to change these patterns, and feminists must not romanticize pre-industrial cultures as the solution. Rather, we must
examine what has been both useful and problematic in capitalist and socialist industrialization, as well as in agricultural
societies, in order to find new approaches for the future.
In this complex task of re-defining the quality of life and
looking for ways to meet the world’s needs more equitably,
there is no better place to start than with issues of food production, preparation, purchasing, distribution, and consumption. If we can find feminist approaches to these food issues,
we will have created a necessary cornerstone for any social
transformation that could lead to world peace with equity and
justice for all. o

4 94

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Eve Arnold/Magnum

South Africa is among the top

[1 Enclosed is a contribution for $

seven food exporters in the world.

to help spread the message about

Every year it exports more than a

hunger in South Africa

billion dollars worth of beef, grain,
vegetables and fruit.
Yet every day 136 black children
die from hunger.
The problem is not a lack of food
but a lack of justice. It is apartheid—South Africa’s system of racial domination—that keeps the
black majority hungry.
° Blacks are 70% of the population
but can own land in just 13% of the

° A black infant in a rural area is 20

[1 Send me more information on how I
can help stop apartheid

times more likely to die than a white
infant.

• Blacks are forced to carry internal
passports, and every three minutes
a black person is arrested for violation of ‘‘pass” laws.

NAME

ADDRESS

CITY ER EIS,
STATE ZIP
Institute for Food & Development Policy

• Blacks are denied basic rights

1885 Mission Street
San Francisco, CA 94103-3584

such as voting and deciding where
to live.

country.

° Blacks can own no more than 4

There can be no end to hunger in

acres of land, while white farms av-

South Africa without an end to

erage 3,000 acres.

apartheid.

I Want to Help

Stop Apartheid!

© Institute for Food and Development Policy

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FFANIINIS T

STI DIFFS

BY WOMEN

Three Issues Annually = Back/Single
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WOMEN AND AGING:
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Plus other articles, review essays, and book
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Number 2, Fall 1987

and Joan Scott). ART ESSAYS on Abakanowicz, May Stevens, and Remedios Varo by Leslie Milofsky, Josephine Withers,
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NG COUNCIL
OF LIT

E

THE 1986

YOUNGER WR)

1B

RS

®© Julia Alvarez for fiction

published in the new renaissance.
® Sandra Joy Jackson-Opoku for fiction

published in Heresies.
® Rodney Jones fOr poetry
published in River Styx.
®© Ewa Kuryluk for a literary essay

published in Formations.
© Jim Powell for poetry

published in The Paris Review.
®© Eliot Weinberger for a literary essay
published in Sulfur.

These awards honor excellence in new
writers while recognizing the significant
contribution of America’s literary
magazines.
This year’s judges were: Michael Anania,
Thom Gunn, Elizabeth Hardwick,
Margo Jefferson and Charles Simic.
For information about The General
Electric Foundation Awards for Younger
Writers, contact: CCLM, 666 Broadway,
New York, NY 10012. (212) 614-6551

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Articles, Stories, Poems
3 Food for Thought/ Heresies 21

46 Appetites/Leslea Newman

collective

50 7una/ Nancy Kricorian

4 Growing Up Fat in America /

51 The Sexual Politics of Meat /

Bea Kreloff

Carol Adams

8 Here She Comes, Myth California /

58 The Menu of Love / Joanne Giannino

documentation of beauty. pageant protests organized by Nikki Craft
10 Being Women, Eat Crumbs:
Thinking About Food Prohibitions /
Kathie Brown

16 The Communal Kitchens of Peru /

61 Petand The Most Ordinary Moment /
Susan Stinson
62 The Oldest Accusation: Notes on
My Collage for Heresies / Nancy Sullivan

64 Suite of poems/ Aisha Eshe

Charlotte Bunch

66 Dont Touch, It's Hot / Carol Dorf

47 La Quebradita / Mary Moran

67 Monsters / Marjory Nelson

18 The Farm / Elizabeth Kulas

70 /n the Kitchen /

23 An Only Pleasure / Michael Kendall
24 Queen Kaahumanu / Susan Ribner
26 Bullets / Melinda Goodman

Helane Levine-Keating
74 Excerpts from Soup / Joanie Fritz
and Kim Hone

72 Some Things About The Politics of

27 Toilet Brag / Mari Ketes Reinke

Size / Sapphire

28 Formerly Fat / Susan Thomas

74 For My Mother / Ona Gritz

34 Drink / Ann-Chernow
35 Excerpts from A Woman's Body &
Other Natural Resources / Sondra Segal
39 The Fragmentation of Need: Women, Food, & Marketing / Joan GUssow

74 Why! Overeat/ Rochelle Hochstein
78 Nuclear Food / Clarissa Sligh

30-33 Kay Kenny
Personal Growth
(painting/text series)
34 Olivia Beens/From 7he
Fit & Flab Diaries

40 Helen Redman / Home Ecch
41 Kathryn Sinn / Everybody Loves
Grandma's Sugar Cookies
43 Shoshana Rosenberg / Cartoon
44 Annette Savitski / Pie Crust Failure
47 Gilah Hirsch / The Miracle of the
Peaches
48 Jerri Allyn / Name That Dame

(placemat for performance American
Dining in the 80s)

50 Iris Falck / Maya and the Crabs
53 Cindy Tower / Beef Eater with Cupids
and Meat Eater
54 Pennelope Goodfriend / Photograph
55 Kathy Gore-Fuss/ Conundrum
56 Alida Walsh / Proposal for Pound of
Flesh Project

80 Corn Is Our Mother: The Hopi's

57 Sandra DeSando / The Goddess

Spiritual Connection to Their Staple

Baubo and drawing, Because of You

Food, excerpts from the film Hopi: Songs

45 / Want to Make Breakfast for

of the Fourth World / Pat Ferrero

You / Irene Borger

86 The Women Who Feed the World:
Village Women and Third-World
Politics / Contributed by the Inter-

There's a Song in My Heart
58 Linda Brown / The Clean Plate Club
60,61 Suzanne Seigel/ Collages from
the Holy Family Holidays and Our Lady

national Women's Tribune Center

series

92 Food, Politics, Power:

62 Nancy Sullivan / Woman Eats Man

A Feminist Perspective /

64 Sylvia de Swaan / Photograph

Charlotte Bunch

69 Elizabeth Layton / Grandma s
Thanksgiving

Contributions by
Visual Artists

74 Kim Anno /Soupspill and Pteryptus

7 Martha Edelheit/ Cock Au Vin

74 Gwen Fabricant / Around the Fish

from A.B. Cockless' Talk Book
13 Nancy Halvorsen / Your
Hunger Is My Starvation

72,73 Carrie Cooperider / Drawings

75 Elise Taylor/Mmmm Good!
76,77 Erica Rothenberg / /nspirational
Vegetables, Born-Again Chicken, and

14 Shoshana Rosenberg / Cartoon

Equal Opportunity Sauce

17 Nina Kuo/Photograph

914 Annie Goldsan/ Food Fight

23 Emma Amos / Painting

93 An arpillera from Chile, con-

27 Nina Kuo/Photograph

tributed by the Helias Foundation

This content downloaded from
134.82.70.63 on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 19:10:17 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms