Food hierarchy

Indeed, Kursk. I also bet the tank boys at Kursk also had a big breakfast, I can only imagine how hard it is to keep loading 100lbs shells in a tiny space in sweltering heat while hoping you'll still be alive the next second.

cdvegan2023

In New England it’s called the Lumberjack breakfast. DH and I collect our own firewood. It’s given me a taste of how hard those original guys must have worked.

So basically the same principal as some pack animals such as lions and wolves.

Yes , basically the same . The lion (or lions, since some packs have 2 males , usually brothers) protects his cubs from other lions, he's the only hope they've got. If he's not well fed and in tip top shape the whole pack is at risk. Same thing with the men who had to provide for the whole family in a time with fuck all welfare state.

Of course men need more food, they are larger and they have more muscle mass which burns calories faster . 2500 vs 2000 calories for women and that's just the minimum . Now if we're talking about back in grandma's day then when millions of men were doing endless hours in super-physical jobs (without labours' rights and technology of today) then the number would go up to 5k, maybe more.

I grew up in eastern europe and I remember miners having a very low life expectancy (around 50 yo), terrible work conditions and lives in general. And this wasn't back in WW1, this was barely 20 years ago. Smashing coal with a huge pick axe for 10hrs/day... yea I imagine they'd need more calories than a 120 lbs woman. These men literally worked themselves to death so they could feed and house their families, I think they deserved a big breakfast.

Given that we're talking about the accepted treatment of females as second class citizens, that's an absolutely pointless comment.

A little shit stirry, granted. But could it be a thing like smoking? Dad "got" to smoke.

The things are deadly.

So basically the same principal as some pack animals such as lions and wolves.

I wonder if apes have a similar set up in there groups.......seeing as in evolutionary terms we are not that far from them.

Given what we now know about obesity

Given that we're talking about the accepted treatment of females as second class citizens, that's an absolutely pointless comment.

It was definitely a thing in my mother's Irish Catholic family that men/boys got more. There were 5 girls and 4 boys in the family and the boys would just take food whenever they wanted - one boy would sometimes eat a whole loaf of bread on his own. There's no way the girls would have done that. Given that boys would come home from school and do literally nothing while the girls did housework, childcare and cooking, the 'boys need more' argument is frankly bollocks. And of course, living up to the cliche, her father would spend the food money on drink.

The females were thin and the men had stomachs.

Given what we now know about obesity....

This attitude to men needing more food, is still common. I've read plenty of posts from women complaining about their mil dishing out penis portions or being served no red meat at their inlaws house, while the men got steak.

I'm 48 and grew up in NI. My family owned a farm and were also builders. There were 3 girls and 3 boys, plus parents. I grew up thinking it was normal, that the men ate first and the women got what was left. The females were thin and the men had stomachs. The meat was for the men and was piled high on their plates, far more than they needed. When I started working, while still at school I had become a vegetarian, under the circumstances not difficult 😒, I started buying my own food, which my oldest brother would take from my room. When I complained I was told by my brother and mother to shut up, Because he was a man and needed it more. So he got my food, plus a meal. This behaviour was not unusual in farming communities.

Ex H and his Dad used to have large steaks cooked for them every Saturday night by ex MIL. His sisters did not.

My MIL used to plate up Men’s Plates and Girls’ Plates. First lot always had bigger helpings, more meat and were served first. She was WC Londoner, born in the 20s.
It surprised me a bit when encountered it in the 80s, but as a 60s child it was common practice. Men fed first and more.

Perhaps the organisations focusing on girls' schooling in poor countries could focus on providing the girls with good meals while at school?

I think there are great opportunities to deliver many services like this from such efforts. Maybe this is key bit of why they are so successful.

Overall it seems like the agricultural revolution is the worst thing to have ever happened to female humans.

This is another fascinating area of study.

Did you hear the thing on Radio 4 about women and the Temperance Movement yesterday Ava ?

They were talking about the same thing.

How could the mother do that to her wee girl. I couldn’t look at my thriving son whilst my wee girl is clearly slowly dying sad.

Do what, exactly? I don't think it's a good idea to read too much into one photograph when you don't have any background. She's feeding them both, not leaving her baby girl to starve to death in the corner.

And by the looks of it she's feeding the girl formula to fatten her up. In those days formula was considered superior as it was a thicker consistency and more calorific. An undernourished woman would likely have considered her own milk to be substandard and in her eyes formula would have been a godsend as it was guaranteed and consistent in its nutritional value. Plus she might have struggled to make enough breast milk to feed both twins adequately. If the bigger baby always ate more, (as a bigger baby would) it would be difficult to make sure the smaller/weaker baby got enough.

That woman probably spent money she could ill afford to buy formula for her underweight girl while feeding her perfectly healthy son with breast milk because he didn't 'need' the formula.

It's well known that with twins one is often bigger and more dominant in the womb, I know three sets of twins alive now where one has been born significantly healthier and stronger than the other, and that photo is old. It's probable that the woman didn't even know she was carrying twins until she gave birth. There would have been no pre or post natal medical care - it was in the lap of the gods whether a small, sickly or premature baby survived.It was very common then for the weaker twin to die, or to take literally years to catch up in size and weight with the bigger twin.

I am fully aware that that woman in the photo was from a very patriarchal culture where boys were revered and girls were often considered an inconvenience but I don't think we should necessarily be jumping to any awful conclusions about that mother prioritising the boy child and leaving the girl child to half starve.

Yes, I have heard of this before. Some of it did come from the idea that an adult male who was bringing in a wage needed more food (and the fact that men, usually, need more calories than women) but in many cases it got all wrapped up in the idea that women are inferior and should put themselves last.

Thanks SmallClanger, for the reminder of what Barbara Pym wrote!