Food Studies - An Academic Discipline

Illustrations of appetizers in the Victorian era (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Food scholarship has also been hindered by another Victorian relic, the “separate
spheres” – the idealized bourgeois division between the private female sphere of
consumption and the more public male sphere of production. While the concept
did not reflect the daily realities for most women – to this day women are major
food producers across the globe – the ideological polarization certainly influenced
the development of middle-class academia, for it effectively segregated women
professionals in less valued “domestic” disciplines, particularly dietetics, home
economics, social work, and nutrition education (along with elementary school
teaching, nursing, and library science). Conversely, the male-dominated realms of
industrial agriculture, food technology, mass retailing, and corporate management
have generally received more public respect and academic prestige.

This institutionalized bias delayed serious attention to food even after the women’s
movement obliterated the separate spheres. While more women began to enter all
fields of academia in the 1960s, it took several decades before scholars could begin
to consider the traditional female ghetto of domesticity without Victorian-era
blinders and prejudices, and even today, feminists who do treasure their cooking
heritage and skills may risk the hostility of colleagues who feel that women should
move on to more “serious” pursuits