Metrosexuality can Stuff it: Beef Consumption as (Heteromasculine) Fortification

Abstract

In this essay I explore the importance of beef consumption in performing a traditional masculinity that defies the supposed effeminization embodied in the image of the metrosexual. Research on perceptions of men and women eating demonstrates cultural visions of eating as a masculine activity. Furthermore, cultural analysis bears out the link between meat consumption and masculine identity. The recent popularization of metrosexual masculinity has challenged the harsh dichotomies between masculine and feminine gender performances. Against such a trend, burger franchise advertising portrays burger consumption as men's symbolic return to their supposed essence, namely, personal and relational independence, nonfemininity, and virile heterosexuality. In all, I demonstrate the relationship between men and food as productive of a masculinity that perpetuates a male-dominant ideology in juxtaposition to women and metrosexual masculinity.

Keywords:

• Food Studies
• Masculinity
• Meat
• Metrosexual
• Gender Performance

Acknowledgements

An earlier version of this essay was presented at the 2007 meeting of the Mid-Atlantic Popular/American Culture Association. Philadelphia, PA.

The author would like to thank Kelly Dorgan, the editors of this issue, and the anonymous reviewers for their comments, suggestions, and encouragement. The essay is dedicated to the author's late father who generously sent him shipments of frozen steaks throughout his graduate school career.

Notes

1. Deutsch notes this assumption as well, drawing from popular press imagery of male-only Neanderthals cooking meat over fire (109–10).

2. Robert Brannon defines traditional masculinity's core elements as the edicts “no sissy stuff,” “be a big wheel,” “be a sturdy oak,” and “give 'em hell.” Similarly, Nick Trujillo finds that idealized masculinity includes physical force and control, occupational achievement, familial patriarchy, frontiersmanship, and heterosexuality.

3. Though the numbers suggested vary, the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) finds that in the US as many as 10 million women suffer from bulimia or anorexia. Though equally serious in nature but less so in occurrence, the NEDA also estimates one tenth as many US men as women struggle with those same eating disorders. The National Institute of Mental Health, a division of the National Institute of Health, reports similar statistics regarding the number and prevalence of eating disorders among women over men. The Academy for Eating Disorders underscores the frequency of eating disorders among women, noting that beyond the number of women diagnosed, as many as “10 percent or more of late adolescent and adult women report symptoms of eating disorders.”

4. Research shows that some men assimilate their eating behaviors to be more like their wives, which often includes reducing the amount of meat consumed (Sobal 146–47).

5. My thanks to John Suits for bringing this reading to my attention.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

C. Wesley Buerkle

C. Wesley Buerkle (PhD, Louisiana State University) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at East Tennessee State University