Women and Food Chains¹: The Gendered Politics of Food

Throughout history, the social relations of food have been organized along lines of gender. Today, in most societies women continue to carry the responsibility for the mental and manual labor of food provision-the most basic labor of care. Women’s involvement with food constructs who they are in the worldas individuals, family members, and workers-in deep, complex, and often contradictory ways. Women perform the majority of food-related work, but they control few resources and hold little decision-making power in the food industry and food policy. And, although women bear responsibility for nourishing others, they often do not adequately nourish themselves. These longstanding contradictions are seemingly immune to the dynamism that characterizes nearly every other aspect of the agrifood system 2 in this era of globalization and innovation.