Food Quality and Sustainability: a Gender Analysis Perspective

In approaching food quality, socio-legal research should consider gender. We propose to investigate the following aspects: 1:Women tend to suffer more from eating disorders compared to men due to a major social pressure to have a pleasant body. Is food quality associated to healthier food? Are women more interested in food quality than men? 2: Women tend to be in charge of food and nutrition education as they still mainly are in charge of cooking and grocery shopping in households and also occupies educational roles in the majority of public institutions that delivers nutritional education (e.g., schools). Data also shows that women tend to read more food labels on packages than men [1]. Considering that food quality regulations communicate quality through food labels: is there a gendered attitude to label interpretation and knowledge? If yes, does it influence food quality access? 3: Women are still in charge of passing on culinary traditions. How much is food quality associated with tradition? Does women responsibility in passing on culinary traditions should be considered a driver to food quality knowledge sharing? 4: Data shows that more women (71%) than men (59%) adopt sustainable practices [2]. Men’s consumption generates more greenhouse gas emissions than women’s. Women also seem more careful to food choices in relation to workers’ conditions and broadly environmentally and social sustainability. Is food quality associated with more sustainable practices and is there some gendered practices that can be highlighted? 5: There still is a stigma around female and male food. Some products are more consumed by one gender or the other, commercials are an important driver of these social constructs. Is it possible to identify differences in the communication of food quality if destined to men or women? Finally, if gender may be one of the social factors that influence food quality access, other variables should also be considered, in particular: socioeconomic class, race, and age gap. We propose to analyze food quality access in relation to all those indicators.