Food Links, 07.03.2012

Two cupcake haters in one post! Thank you! But really, I’m pleased to read Claire Melamed calling out of the cupcake feminists. The fetishization of the cupcake is no exaggeration: cupcakes, the ultimate in feminine packaging, feature prominently on the counters of upmarket London sex shops (erotic boutiques).

“Because these cupcakes – mark my words, feminists – these trendy little cupcakes are the thin end of the wedge. It will start with cupcakes and it will end in vaginoplasty.”

Here is mamamia celebrating international women’s day, with a posting of vaginal cupcakes: http://www.mamamia.com.au/food/vagina-cupcakes-some-people-are-so-damn-creative/

A segueway to other concepts of food as gift — international women’s day reminds me of celebrations in Russia, where international women’s day has been created as the sister of Red Army Day. Interestingly for the international West, these Russian celebrations collapse Mothers and Fathers days and Valentine’s day into twinned celebrations of gender roles. On Red Army Day, we celebrate the patriarchs and the soldiers, men in their various heroic relations to women, and (oddly) on international women’s day men of Russia young and old celebrate their mothers and their lovers as two sides of the same coin.

Which leads (back to food) and, further east, the remarkable Japanese practice of ritual chocolate giving. In Japan, on Valentines, women (exclusively) give chocolate to their colleagues and superiors (with a more expensive line of chocolate available for giving to one’s partner), making this, unambiguously, a “love your patriarch / the patriarchy” day. A month later there’s an odd counterstrike, “white day”, entirely conceived by the chocolate distributors, when men may choose to return the favour by purchasing more expensive chocolates, presented in discrete white boxes. Rigged gender potlach!

So international women’s day and “white day” to this forward to this week. What do the cupcake feminists have to say?