“You eat like a boy.”
So went the so-called burn by someone to me once as I stuffed my gob with all the food I could find on the heaving table of delights at a Christmas party.
Chicken wings. Mac and cheese. Jalapeño poppers.
I ate it all.
According to the internet, that’s not very ladylike of me. Because what I ate there sounds a lot like what has been dubbed a Husband Meal.
According to GQ, a Husband Meal is normally huge (whole pizzas, three people’s worth of Chinese food) or long and complicated (three-day marinated BBQ steaks) and only eaten by men when their spouses are out of town.
I, as a woman, however, should be more interested in Girl Dinner — picky bits of stuff from the fridge plated up and consumed with a “naughty” (spare me) glass of wine.
You can package this whole thing up however you like, but all I see is that food is still being used as a gendered weapon. That we are still imposing what it is to be a woman and what it is to be man through what we stuff in our faces.
That we are supposed to like different things from each other.
That we pretend what we choose to eat is our choice, and not influenced by societal norms.