Her Turn to Eat: Reclaiming Eating in the Female-Gendered Realm of Cooking and Feeding (Others)

Abstract

The principal purpose of this essay is to investigate and analyze the visual summation of gender performativity, as conceptualized by Judith Butler, in contemporary art through food symbolism. I aim to contribute to postfeminist discourse concerning the constituents of gender and the corporeal effects categorizing bodies has on women in North America today. Food is the most effectual medium for disseminating the limitations gender imposes on female bodies, because of the deep-rooted cultural link between food and women. This is substantiated by contemporary artists like Chloe Wise, Stephanie Sarley, Amanda Kung, Emily Eveleth, Theresa Newsome, and as I will explore in this essay (the practices of) Lee Price, Roxana Halls, and Sarah Bahbah. I will focus on revealing the physical consequences that socially constructed and enforced femininity has, and has had, on the contemporary female body. Susan Bordo is a feminist philosopher known for her scholarly contributions to studies of contemporary culture and corporeality, through one of her most celebrated works Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body. Bordo combines her research of historic rhetoric and popular culture analysis to develop her critical account of gender as a primary factor in the feminization of eating disorders, which I argue represent the corporeal consequences of femininity. Referring principally to Bordo’s Unbearable Weight, I will analyze several paintings from American artist Lee Price’s series Women & Food, British artist Roxana Halls’ series Laughing While, and photographs from Palestinian-Australian artist Sarah Bahbah’s series Sex and Takeout.