Masculinities and Diet

The topic chosen for this essay is masculinities and cooking. This essay is separated into three sections: men and diet culture, vegan masculinity, and transgender men and fitness in America. These parts are made to further understand the connection between men’s masculinity and fitness culture, on how food consumption is used as part of fitness further touching on how food is gendered and builds the hegemonic masculinity in America.

Within this topic, masculinities are researched in relation to cooking where men are only seen cooking professionally and not much domestically. Women’s cooking is seen as a responsibility, they cook to serve their family and to ensure that the family receives the right amount of meals and nutrition, any deviation from that might open them to ridicule as a wife or a mother. However, men’s cooking poses a different perspective. They are applauded and praised for doing something that is expected of a woman; they cook for leisure and seduction. Food remains to be gendered right from the preparation to the consumption, it signifies ethnicity, gender, class, and profession. The past decades have redefined what it means to be a woman and a man. More so when there is an increase in body positivity movements for women who have continued to be judged and tortured with the insidious notion to ‘maintain their figure’. However, the message seems to be lost regarding manhood and man. Society has taught men to be caring and sensitive but also to be a ‘real man’. “Young boys worry about getting enough protein, so they can be strong and build muscle, but they are desperate to stay lean.” (Joyce. 2022, para. 6). While there is a traditional presumption that eating disorder mostly relates to women pushing for thinness, it offers another paradigm where men seek to build muscle through the excessive obsession of intense over-exercising and dieting. This is not to compare women’s and man’s issues with fitness and diet culture but to indicate that man’s relationship with these discourses has been less researched and traversed. Especially within America where men are heavily connected with the hard consumption of the meat and burger culture to the point where it is a large signifier of what considers to be manly in the country.

Men and diet culture

Diet culture has always been related to women getting slim from the ridiculous expectations from society. It is related to salads, losing weight, and consuming fewer amounts of food. So, when men go on diets, they prefer to refer to it as ‘bulking up’ and ‘getting gains’, differing themselves from the feminization of going into a diet. Nevertheless, dieting is more than a feminization of men (Yuen, 2014) it is demonstrating that like women, men also have certain bodily expectations (even though it is not as prevailed or serious as women’s), but it remains to be an issue faced by many men. Presently, parents are taught to focus on the negative body stereotypes that might affect their daughters who are exposed to a barrage of body pressures early on, but boys too receive the same societal pressures with their figure (Joyce, 2022). They are expected to be lean yet not so much till they look as slim as a girl, they need to bulk up, gain muscle to seem stronger, to be tall so that they can attract women. Boys create this specific, curated, conventional view of what is ‘attractive’ to conform to this one-size-fits-all mold (Joyce, 2022, para. 10). All these expectations continue to pile up and increase, manifesting eating disorders in boys as ‘muscularity-orientated’, exercising obsessively, and following dangerous trends such as “dry scooping” which is the practice of swallowing protein powder without supplementary liquid to gain more energy to work out (Joyce, 2022, para. 7).

This creates anxiety in being seen as feminine (Hollows, 2003) where any action done by a man cannot be related to femininity no matter how subtle the relations may be. It generates anxiety where they feel the need to compensate and make excuses or explanations to ‘justify’ these acts of femininity. Since dieting is related to femininity how does one make it manly? The gendered presumption of food indicates that salads or vegetables are more for women whilst men only need meat. Men feel better or more ‘manlier’ if they are dieting using meats and protein whilst disregarding most vegetables. For example, America’s “Liver King” deemed vegetables do not have enough raw materials to produce ‘a healthy set of testicles’ and instead opted to eat other animals’ testicles to strengthen one’s own (Anggeler, 2022, para. 7). This presumption continued towards the more extreme, whereby cutting out processed foods is not due to nutrition but to further push the ‘beastly ancestral diet’ concept of only eating whole foods of meat (Anggeler, 2022). The ancestral concept then facilitates the perception that there are no hard times required to make strong men anymore (Anggeler, 2022, para. 33). This is because masculinity is often associated with a mobility that is anti-home (Hollow, 2003) as there is an impression that home signifies femininity, familiarity, and comfort. Certain men do not feel manly when there is comfort because feeling comfortable means feeling soft, which in turn makes them vulnerable. This vulnerability spurred them to modify their bodies to seem stronger and not affected by the comfort associated with being in the modern world (Joyce, 2022). As Anggeler (2022) claimed that “there is a certain cohort of American men concerned about other American men being constitutionally weakened by insidious forces like smartphones and European tailoring.” (para. 34). No matter the conditions men never want to be seen as feminine. Nevertheless, some wish to break the stereotypes of this ‘ancestral path’ of being a man. Vegan masculinity has had a breakthrough in modern fitness where bodybuilders and fitness trainers build muscle without consuming meat, fish, eggs, and dairy products stating that “you don’t have to kill to look killer” (Vodvychenko, 2021, para. 9).

Currently, there is an increase in veganism in America where men have decided to pursue a vegan diet in contrast to the traditional meat-heavy diet to bulk up. Veganism is often associated with women and femininity due to the stereotypical belief that women are naturally more caring and compassionate towards animals and the environment. On the other hand, men are thought to express indifference towards animals, especially animals being bred for consumption. The discussions of men’s emotions around food work are comparatively rare (Szabo, 2014). It is a common conception that men do not ‘do’ emotions, they act like they are tough, and they feel less, especially when compared to women’s responsibility surrounding food work, they use it as leisure and not something serious. This pushes the rejection of veganism as it shows men being compassionate and empathic which are emotions mostly connected to femininity. Especially since boys have concerns about how they are perceived in terms of their masculinity, but they do not express these concerns as easily as girls do and would rather choose to maintain silence (Joyce, 2022, para. 17). A study carried out by the Californian Journal of Health Promotion found that boys ages 11 to 18 in the “healthy BMI” category feel dissatisfied with their body shape (Joyce, 2022, para. 15). The rejection of being emotionally vulnerable does not merely exist in men’s relation to food but also in every other aspect of their lives where boys are taught to be emotionally restrictive right from the crib to their grave.

However, veganism has had its evolutionary stride in its food production whereupon many large corporations start to provide a vegan option within their menus. Vegan masculinity signifies a change in the contours of hegemonic masculinity in America where vegans reject the many values upheld by hegemonic masculinity (Yuen, 2014). In many ways veganism expands the relations of hegemonic masculinity and the qualities that men can exhibit by embracing traits and values usually associated with femininity and women, thus embodying a form of hybrid masculinity. Hybrid masculinity allows men to challenge the hegemonic ideas of masculinity. It represents the incorporation of the different elements of masculinity and sometimes femininity to create men’s gender performances and identities. This constant shift in hybridization makes the hegemonic notion fluid and able to reconfigure itself to suit the current societal hegemony. Nevertheless, this change in hegemony towards a more acceptance of plant-based diets does not necessarily bode well with most men in America. This is because it causes men to question the traditional form of masculinity, as men in America seem concerned about a “soft man” problem where being vegan and consuming vegetables seem to go against the “earliest, ancestral ways of being most-jacked” (Anggeler, 2022, para. 2). Further fueled by the media’s projection of men with extreme bodies such as Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson leads boys into body dysmorphia territory where they aim to be “Dorito-shaped” (wide muscular shoulders and thin waist) or build muscle when their bodies are not suited for it yet (Joyce, 2022, para. 11). Despite the rise of veganism representation in the media, it does not change the lack of body representation and positivity for young boys. Using veganism to promote fitness and a nice body shape challenges the traditional masculinity of meat consumption but at the same time does nothing in the face of body positivity.

In addition, those who prefer to abstain from drinking milk and consuming animal products are often labeled as ‘SoyBoys’ as a supposed emasculating term. Soy was specifically targeted due to its connection to contemporary Asian culture where Asian food and men are seen as a lower class and have long been depicted as effeminate to American men. More so when soy is high in phytoestrogens and supposedly will lead to a reduction in testosterone levels despite phytoestrogen not having any association with estrogen which is the female sex reproductive hormone (Vdovychenko, 2021, para. 13). This myth of bodily feminization is based on existential worries about power and status. The idea of veganism is rolled up with emotions such as empathy for animals and the environment which are deemed feminine traits by modern American cultural standards. Common tropes of masculinity are violence, physical domination, and self-interest. Include that in the extensive history of white western colonization and meat has become related to white, heterosexual men. Thus, they feel that plant-based meats take away their identity and sought to eat meat as a way to reclaim that identity.

Vegan Masculinity

Anggeler, M. (2022, May 11). Meet the Liver King, the TikTok star who wants you to eat raw organ meat every day. GQ. https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/lifestyle/article/the-liver- king-raw-meat-interview

Hollows, J. (2003). Oliver's Twist: Leisure, Labor and Domestic Masculinity in The Naked Chef. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 6(2), 229–248. https://doi.org/10.1177/13678779030062005

Joyce, A. (2022, April 26). What parents need to know about the hidden body image issues in boys.The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/parenting/2022/04/26/boys-body-image-problems/

Szabo, M. (2014). Men nurturing through food: Challenging gender dichotomies around domestic cooking. Journal of Gender Studies, 23(1), 18–31. https://doi.org/10.1080/09589236.2012.711945

Vdovychenko, N. (2021, September 15). Reshaping Vegan Masculinity. Diggit Magazine. https://www.diggitmagazine.com/articles/reshaping-vegan-masculinity

Yuen, S. M. (2014). From men to ‘boys’—The cooking danshi in Japanese mass media. Women's Studies International Forum, 44(1), 220–227. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wsif.2013.08.002

Societal practices and institutions have bound us into binaries of gendered subjects the moment we are born. Transgenderism provides an extension of that spectrum and offers a way to understand how gender could be defined. Transgender men demonstrate that sex and gender are mere cultural norms created by society and do not define the meanings of bodies and identities. In this case, the muscles and the body become the power of transformation for these men, allowing them to become what they wish to be. Transgender men find that they have to negotiate with both discourses of traditional femininity and masculinity in order to project this transformation onto their bodies (Szabo, 2014). During this transformation, it is common that these men encounter the same insecurities as many heterosexual men face which is being insecure about muscle size and body shape. Muscles in American culture symbolize masculine strength and power, it demonstrates the ‘naturalness’ of male strength making transgender men find the need to reduce their fat through extreme diet and exercise to become more masculine. However, these physical practices transcend the notion of just being ‘masculine shaped’ but more so the feeling of training, consuming protein shakes, and ‘eating big meats’ itself signifies the feeling of being more masculine. For instance, The Liver King pointed out that when a culture is already created in that sphere, some feel the need to either start including themselves in that culture or opt-out of it (Anggeler, 2022, para. 10). The hegemonic notion of extreme fitness being related to the American man causes transgender men to relate themselves to that sphere of culture in order to feel that they are truly ‘man’.

Furthermore, transgender men reclaim their own bodies as spheres of masculine identity and as a site to practice their version of masculinity (Harrow, 2003). Queer people have been continuously scrutinized in their everyday life, even more so when they enter public gendered spaces. Transgender men who enter the gym to masculinize their bodies did not feel like they fit in and would unconsciously compare themselves to cis men and get misgendered. This causes transgender men to create their own spheres of masculinity by negotiating with the main purposes these gendered spaces are made for. For example, the negotiation of the gym as a site of disconnect where people try to align themselves with their embodied figure is the same as transgender men wishing to connect to their masculinity and create a body, they are comfortable with which suits their identity. “It is important we emphasize the functionality of our body, that it’s not an aesthetic” (Joyce, 2022, para. 22), the body functions in a way that shapes our identity, it is not merely an aesthetic but a site that the embodiment of gender is illuminated.

In conclusion, the fitness culture of men exemplifies the importance of our understanding of masculinities. The discourse on diet culture, vegan masculinities, and transgender men and fitness highlight the complexity involved in the large umbrella of how food can largely affect the hegemonic definitions of masculinity. I argue that vegan men do embody the hybridization of masculinity by removing the idea that the consumption of meat is equated to being ‘manly’ and breaking the barriers of the association of food with gender. However, it still paints the picture that men need to be muscular and ‘jacked’ to be able to disprove any preconceived notion of what is considered ‘manly’. In a way, they are still feeding toward the hegemonic idea that men need to be in a certain shape to be considered a ‘man’. More so when these associations are seen in transgender men when they negotiate with their discourse of feminine and masculine body types and build their bodies to fit the hegemonic notion of ‘man’. This is not to say that being muscular and supplying the hegemon is a negative remark but more towards the different dimensions the relationship between masculinity and food could achieve under further investigation. I hope that within this essay I managed to demonstrate the complexities of men and fitness culture under the umbrella of masculinities and cooking.