ie o E O ERESIES 2 OOP IS A FEMINIST ISSUE CARIS [ULICE On On akt < POl [KES 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 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. 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 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 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 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 D $24 -institutional Eight-individual issues 0 $27-individual 0 $44 -institutional YoU NEES 4 SUBSCRIPTION To HERESIES, S1LEEW IT'S 4 F2A'NI3T PUBLICATIA 0d AAT AND Please send these back issues ($6 each): 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 HERESIES 0 SUP e ATION ON ARI AND BOTEEIGS PO Box 1306 • Canal Street Station ° New York; New York 10013 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 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 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 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 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 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) 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 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 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 e AFVN fn 4 fiwe s = hest ayege Tab ks and penk at BAWN cick ON hish , , Hen" ® ttlspns. go bsan gdt 4 blen. Fh ‘ 4. crushed P Sor 3 miN: wiTh Gode", s sa put iw ONE 92 w het#yhi Ta v "iNe w mash keons WBA a u hig 1Co s Ee baek, VEJ e/a 2/5 s N SeA e n ma BAOGKLESS TA t B00 K a w v 39AH 110DS 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. 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 » 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 FOOD IS A FEMINIST ISSUE 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 19 D 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 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 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 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.” 21 D 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 "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 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 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 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 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 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 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 : 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 31 D 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 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?” HERESIES 21 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 “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 ) 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 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. 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 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 ) 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 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 HERESIES 21 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 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? 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 aaa o9 é SA n n ? apime EE wanis r a Fa WAWE WI ON e ral SPN R N O W com (AA 5 (CS o) FEN C) D NE N CAN NYG C Ca A with NADY n tS ' 4 nE s4 \0SË WON FVA EV $9 Qo PI O NAA ee TS i N A en v \ AD po RO) 9 ia Don A NE nEw A SNI S C pov An AO | BN etN AaS ao (e)aR TA a N Soo N SBNC “ oWwe A onANP w at hA NmN NxelN Y? n nV (N WAS E Taaa] | IA IA y e on 2 S n e (0) e r S compus se ons AA : e aSa .v Ne Na ney UÉ 5 entere a Vi “G what ; d2 (44 S sen as pleetNA MO N Nv (SAh a wO" nt? Any: Nbe \ t ORC gs eW SN NOA s D oS A iai3kei N y ASJ N : eSVsO e E Yn d Tosa i Le dl eN W NOSAN ro NDS Aa Va N appe"aC n mY P onomy 9s AS TARAN SCA S s BC ov (N nt N EAAS would st v ANAA N V d | mom Ws$ eANES Ye aA m Z55N 5° AaS N AU of 90 M Ma P my t B N A (e)N) s.: .. ° uh ŠA Nb YihnASN i in at |; W(0)(0) hat GNA Ru eenta! dir eC |l| oW! rame REC No mn n mY AAA s55 ss Na 7 ROS ove NE A wna gnare wt N hat W \ EN none sonno e Nao CA : whatÁ e: M ce K N \ (d A (oa cno RS o o ` “ N FEM A A e MI AN 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 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 | 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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) 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 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 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. 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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 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 -FEGIRJPV 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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- 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 . — 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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. 4 70 HERESIES 21 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 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 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 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 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 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 ) 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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 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 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 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 : 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 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. 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 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 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 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 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 ZN P Z, [ | 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. HERESIES 21 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 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. | s e 2a ; E.l CALIFORNIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY / TITLE INSURANCE AND TRUST CO. (L.A.) n p r p. l FOOD IS A FEMINIST ISSUE N, 83 D 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 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 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 er, , 6, a P 8- F ti MUSEUM OF NORTHERN ARIZONA, FLAGSTAF FOOD ISA FEMINIST ISSUE 85 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 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 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 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. FOOD IS A FEMINIST ISSUE 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 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 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 | 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 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 |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 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 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. 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 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 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 * < NY aa D v 7 A va ” f KL Li e| TRPIA Ra 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 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 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 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 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 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 FFANIINIS T STI DIFFS BY WOMEN Three Issues Annually = Back/Single 1 year 2years 3years Issue THE RIVERHOUSE STORIES: How Pubah S. Queen and Lazy Individuals Institutions Larue Save the World by Andrea Carlisle. Pubah is an electrician, Lazy, a writer. The E two may seem unlikely candidates to save the world but anything is possible as Pubah ponders Mail Orders To: t < < lives that include ducks, spiders and muskrats; friends, neighbors, godchildren; work, dreams and love for each other. Paperback, 150+ pp., FEMINIST STUDIES N Amn Z] illus., ISBN: 0-934971-00-5. $7.95. <$ Foreign Orders N Add postage o Airmail: $14/year ballooning over Ursula LeGuin’s house. THE RIVERHOUSE STORIES are wacky, whimsical U $42.00 $79.00 $116.80 = $16 Surface: $4/year solar powered inventions and Lazy dreams of recountings of two women’s lives on the river: $21.00 $39.00 $56.00 = $8 . V Women's Studies Program University of Maryland College Park, MD 20742 ©) WOMEN AND AGING: < AN ANTHOLOGY - The largest proporta tion of the aging population is composed of women who have been ignored not only by society and the media but also by feminists. This anthology provides art, poetry, fiction, essays, interviews, reviews, and a bibliography by women on age and ageism. Paperback. 264 pp., 45 pp. art. ISBN: 0-934971-00-5. $12.00. . Volume 13, 1987: Marilyn Dalsimer and Laurie Nisonoff. The Implications of the New Agricultural and One Child Family Policies for Rural THE WHITE JUNK OF LOVE, Chinese Women. Nora Amalia Femenia, Argentina's Mothers of Plaza de Mayo. Susan Stanford Friedman, Creativity and the Childbirth Metaphor: Gender Difference in Literary Discourse. Josephine Gear. The Baby's Picture: Women as AGAIN by Sibyl James. Translitics of 16th century French poet Louise Labé’s sonnets into Northwest poet Sibyl James’ contemporary voice. Labé’s work surfaces with new life in its obsessive struggle with passion and eroticism. Poetry. Paperback, 75 pp., ISBN: 0-934971-03-x. $6.95. Image-Maker in Small-town America. Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, Second Thoughts: On Writing a Feminist Biography. Lois E P T SR 04 Rita Helmbold, Beyond the Family Economy: The Impact of the Great Depression on Black and White Working Class Women. Molly Hite. Writing-and Reading-the Body: Feminist Sexuality and Recent Feminist Fiction. Deniz Kandiyoti, Emancipated but Unliberated? Reflections on the Turkish Case. Marnia Lazreg, Feminism and Difference: On the Perils of Being a Woman and Writing About Women in Algeria. Elizabeth Lunbeck, Hypersexuality at the Turn of the Century. Florencia Mallon. Gender and Class in Transition to Capitalism: Household and Mode of Production in Central Peru, 1860-1950. Trudy Mills and Judy Aulette. Understanding Women's Contribution to the 1983-1986 Arizona Copper Strike. ORDER NOW FROM CALYX BOOKS! Include postage: $1/each book v NH Leslie Moch, The Case of Teachers in France. Robert Moeller, Mothers and the State in Post-Workd WarII West Germany. Joy Parr, Women's Employment, Domestic Gender Division and Labor Exchanges Among Households in a Canadian Hosiery Town, 1910-1950. Rosalind Petchesky. Fetal Images: The Power of Visual Culture in the Politics of Reproduction. Claire Robertson, Developing Economic Awareness: Changing Perspectives in Studies of African Women, 1976-1985. Sonya 0. Rose, Gender Segregation in the Transition to the Factory: The English Hosiery Industry, 1850-1910. Gillian Whitlock. A Martyr Reluctantly Canonized: The Lesbian Literary Tradition. Judith Wilt, Desperately Seeking Verena: A Resistant Reading of The Bostonians. SPECIAL SYMPOSIUM on Deconstruction (articles by Mary Poovey, Leslie Rabine, &) PO BOX B CORVALLIS, OR 97339 Volume 6, Number 1, Spring 1987 Mary Anne Schofield on the Feminine Quaker Voice Kristina Straub on Anne Killigrew and Alexander Pope Ruth D. Weston on Cynthia Asquith Marie-Claire Vallois on Madame de Staël Plus other articles, review essays, and book reviews. Number 2, Fall 1987 and Joan Scott). ART ESSAYS on Abakanowicz, May Stevens, and Remedios Varo by Leslie Milofsky, Josephine Withers, and Janet Kaplan. CREATIVE WRITING by Talat Abbasi, Nicole Brossard, Ellen Garvey, Diane Glancy, Milana Marsenich, Andrea Rushing, Lynda Schraufnagel, Judith Small, Sharon Thompson, Rosemarie Waldrop. REVIEW ESSAYS by Dina M. Copelman. Martha Howell. Helen Longino, Peter Murphy. Aiwha Ong, Judith Stacey and Deborah Rosenfelt. FEMINISM IS DEAD... 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Return to: Jirecti New Directions for Women 108 W. Palisades Ave. Englewood, NJ 07631 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 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 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 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