Women's Food Matters Stirring the Pot

Women have always been inextricably linked to food, especially in its production and preparation. This link, which applies cross-culturally, has seldom been fully acknowledged or celebrated.  The role of women in this is usually taken for granted and therefore often rendered unimportant or invisible. This book presents a wide-ranging, interdiscplinary and comprehensive feminist analysis of women’s central role in many aspects of the world’s food systems and cultures. This central role is examined through a range of lenses, namely cross-cultural, intergenerational, and socially diverse.  

Chapter 1: A brief  feminist history of cooking.- Chapter2: ‘High’ and ‘low’ cuisine: the development of culinary hierarchy.- Chapter 3: A History of the Industrialisation of Food and Its Impact on Women.- Chapter 4: Threats to Biodiversity, Culinary Diversity and Food Sovereignty.- Chapter 5: Women feed the world: biodiversity and culinary diversity.- Chapter 6: Cooking as an Expression of Female Inter-Generational Food Culture.- Chapter 7: The Sexual Politics of Domestic Cooking.

Vicki Swinbank is an Independent Researcher and Writer. She obtained a PhD in 2008 from the University of Melbourne, Australia. Her research interests focus on feminist politics and food issues. She has published on issues including food entitlement as a human right; the debate within feminism on vegetarianism; the sexual politics of cooking; and food and migrant identity.