"Food and Gender: Identity and Power examines the significance of food-centered activities to gender relations and the construction of gendered identities across cultures. Food and Gender investigates how men's and women's relationships to food may influence or determine both gender complementarity and hierarchy." "Two central questions about food and gender are emphasized in this book. First, how does the control of food production, distribution and consumption contribute to power and social position? Second, how does food symbolically connote "maleness" or "femaleness," and help to establish the social value of men and women? Other issues discussed include the differences in men's and women's attitudes about food and their bodies, and the "legitimacy" of the appetites of men versus women."--BOOK JACKET.