Eat your gender: Strategies of gendering in food ads

Abstract

This study examines food advertisements in Women’s Health and Men’s Health magazines as a hitherto underexplored site of gendered meaning-making. Using content analysis and multimodal critical discourse analysis, we investigate a large corpus of food ads and identify three dominant gendering strategies: (1) food advertising is more prevalent in Women’s Health, often directing women toward self-care and caring for others; (2) food types are gendered, with ‘healthy’ foods associated with femininity and protein or ‘unhealthy’ foods with masculinity; (3) multimodal representations construct food as feminine through emotional, relational, and sensual appeals, and as masculine through references to performance, science, and sport fame. We show how food is semiotised to reproduce traditional gender stereotypes while also reinforcing newer ideals, such as the muscular female body adding a new regime to women’s labour. Overall, food advertising sustains neoliberal discourses that frame food as a technology for gendering the self and the body.