The gender politics of food

[JellySlice]

A thread about the gender politics of chicken for dinner reminded me of a colleague who was organising a series of large business dinners hosted by our MD. My colleague would always order lamb for the men and chicken for the women. She was distraught one day when a male guest had to drop out at the last minute and sent his female colleague instead. My colleague genuinely believed that it was rude to serve men chicken, and that no woman would willingly eat lamb because it was too rich and heavy.

Is or was this kind of belief common? Man's food and woman's food?

We were on an all inclusive holiday, DH and I both always ordered vodka lemonades. DH was always a triple measure (or more) and mine a single. I'm actually the boozier one so DH always made a point to the barmen that we was swapping.

This happened at a wedding I went to in 1865, sorry, last year. The men were served fillet steak and the women were served chicken. I'd returned my form with dietary preferences and had written "no poultry." I was given chicken anyway. I was a bit annoyed as I'd been asked about dietary requirements 3 times, so I said something to the waiter and was brought steak instead. A couple of women on the table said they would have preferred it. In this day and age, people should be able to choose which they prefer if 2 things are being served, not be palmed off with the perceived lesser option if they are women

The op is wild!! I definitely have similar experience to pp's of men just seemingly not giving a fuck about how much they take re portion size. My family would regularly get together pre covid and my dad and other male relatives (not my partner!) almost always just eat what they want.

Also the same re vegetarian stuff. There's regularly not much left at buffets or shared meals. And similarly at family gatherings if there wasn't loads of a veggie main I'd have to make sure I got in there first!

I've always felt judged for wolfing a huge portion of red meat down (which would last me a few days!)

Many colleagues always seemed to assume I was vegetarian as I have an RP accent and am "arty."