The Genderization of Moroccan Cuisine Research Assignment (Article Sample)

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The Genderization of Moroccan Cuisine
Over the years, the term man has been used to refer to both the female and male genders, the term mankind has been used to refer to humanity and gender neutrality has been an issue most nations have been struggling to gain. In meetings, if the chairperson is a lady, we have often heard the people say chairman when they actually meant chair lady. This raises eyebrows especially to the female gender who want to be heard, felt and recognized in this society. We have to accept that the trend is not an exception in Morocco where even there is genderization of what male eat and what females eat.
What sparked my interest in this topic:
I recently went to a grocery store in Morocco and asked the store owner the type of chocolate I should have. I pointed at one type where he bluntly told me that that was meant for men and even if I bought it, it wasn’t for women. I decided to buy three of them one for me and the remaining two for my girlfriends who had accompanied me to that store; we ate them in his presence. This action could have been so rude and culturally insensitive, but I think it should raise the question of whether foods in this country are classified for men, while others are classified for women. This clearly shows how there is much gender insensitivity in Morocco. A Moroccan friend of mine once laughed at me so loudly because I asked whether the desert called a halwa was for men or women; he then said that it is served with tea in the morning or after lunch meals. His exact words were "There is no food for men or woman Hahaha you cracked me up! No it's served with tea, maybe in the morning or after lunch."
There is a vast degree of seriousness that food taboos has impacted on some regions and societies around the world. This has caused division among men and women since some societies have a stereotype that only certain men are supposed to eat certain foods and certain women are supposed to eat certain food; example being that a pregnant woman should not eat certain vegetables because it would affect their health and that of the baby even though that’s just a misconception. Foods have divided people based on economic status; where families that constantly eat chicken and meat are deemed to be so wealthy while those that eat vegetables frequently are deemed poor. Having meals together as a nuclear or extended family or as a community enhanced intimacy among the people sharing these meals. If it happened that one or more people are excluded from such gatherings, it either showed that there is a kind of social status ranking or someone is regarded as a distant relation or that someone is viewed as an enemy. “Food in itself is believed to be the cement that binds all relationships, be it between humanity and god or even amongst humanity themselves (Appadurai 1988).”
There is no doubt that, in Morocco, there is still some more defined and clear separation of roles among the genders. There is always a mentality that women are supposed to always be in the kitchen and that their work is to serve the men, especially the ones who are married already. On the other hand, the work of the man is protection and provision.
Women are not allowed to smoke and drink in Morocco, not by law, but by the communities’ perception and societal stereotypes. Everyone who does that is viewed to be a prostitute because only prostitutes are able to do such acts. This mentality, in the recent past, is slowly fading away and even the women who culturally are supposed to be putting on veils are not doing so these days. There are women who these days drink in sophisticated bars, people see them and take them normally. To men, this is a normal situation and they can drink all they want and also go to the café’s that are reserved exclusively for the men.
Men and women in Morocco are not so much limited to what each of them can eat since most of the Moroccans have the tendency to always eat together, the afternoon meals are always shared as a family first before everybody else go to back to work. They start their meals with salad or vegetables that are commonly known as tapas, then this is immediately accompanied by tajine which is soup. Some common foods in a Moroccan Lunch are bread, chicken, boiled eggs, and meat; either red or white meat such as chicken. This answers the question of whether the men and women both have to eat at the same table; they do because all meals are shared with the whole family that comprises of daughters, sons, wife and husband and sometimes, an extended family.
Moroccans believe so much in sharing of food, they believe in Al Baraka which according to them reborn a spiritual energy in the family whenever they eat together. This encourages most families to eat collectively and share food from a single bowl.
Since most people believe that the woman’ place is in the kitchen, not only in Morocco but also in other cultures too, there is a tendency for the Moroccan women to prepare food. Whether single or married, because of how they have been brought up. No man is to be spotted in the Kitchen. For women, however, it is not a must for all of them to be in the kitchen the rich ones normally hire maids to take care of the family delicacies while some rich ones normally prefer to just be in the kitchen with the maid to help them out in cooking what they want in the best way possible.
After the preparation of these meals, it’s the women who bring them to the food with the help of the daughters in the house and a times, out of respect when there are few women in that household, the sons may help out both to bring the food to the dining area and to return them to the kitchen after the eating/feasting is over. This has been made this way by the cultural and religious norms of the country since women are to be submissive.
In regard to gender sensitivity and differences, Morocco is one country that still needs help on this area because this gender differences are so much open and plainly on sight. There are, however, many proverbs that people have come up with that still sensitizes and elaborates more these issues. Some include: Beltfani says that a woman “is the key of her house” this, in simple terms, means that a woman is a gateway through which the house must be kept safe. Normally, where there is no key, there is no lock and therefore the house that’s supposed to be locked becomes unsafe; using this same logic, Beltfani’s proverb says that a house that has no woman is not safe at all and thus a wife should always be imprisoned in the house till her death (Beltfani 16). This explains to us clearly how inferior women are in the eyes of this proverb.
Some other proverbs are:
She is beautiful, but I need to buy her a brain, A woman is the quarter of an intellect, A woman is half a brain. These three proverbs are used to insult the woman’s intelligence and to make her look so dummy thus subordinating her place educationally, that’s why most communities prefer not to educate their girls and always take them as objects used for gaining wealth by marrying them off for dowry.
Some Moroccan thinks that these proverbs have no influence to their culture but as Appadurai states that “Food in itself is believed to be the cement that binds all relationships, be it between humanity and god or even amongst humanity themselves” these proverbs are the once that the ancestors used and created for themselves a make dominated society and made females feel so inferior and backward.
This dominance is in a way taken even in the type of food that the men eat and those that the women eat, where for example, there are certain parts of the chicken that the men will eat and the women will forgo peradventure a man is present during that meal. For example, the gizzard and the chicken breasts were preserved specifically for the men while the rest could be eaten by others.
Sami Zubaida, in his book Culinary Cultures of the Middle East, he compares females to butchers because in as much as people from all quarters may despise them and take them for granted, they give the society a service whose place cannot be held by anybody else. They have their own niche and both hold some level of control. Food is, therefore, the source of a woman’s power simply because it is prepared by them. It is quite awkward to visualize a man’s place in the kitchen and also quite unthinkable for a doctor to be in the slaughter.
This power of the woman in the food can either be used for the uplifting of the entire house by always knowing when and how to cook for the family and what is good for everybody to have at what time and in what way. By this, the woman can ensure that the house is healthy and they have very little or no cases of illnesses by cooking a balanced diet and feeding the family with fruits and plenty of water. On the other hand, this power may be used to the detriment of everyone, since they may just poison the food and the whole family or the targeted person would die. This is depicted also in one of the proverbs by the early Moroccans’. That women are evil and very demonic “a woman is a snake and gird by the devil,” one of the proverbs states with the aim of making women seem so lethal and dangerous even though they may look so inferior but inside that inferiority is a monster waiting to manifest on provocation.
Sami Zubaida goes ahead to explain that the only difference between these two individuals the butcher and the woman) is that the butcher does his/her job and on return gets an economic ...