Eating, looking, and living clean: Techniques of white femininity in contemporary neoliberal food culture

Karen Wilkes

Gender, Work and Organization, 2024, vol. 31, issue 3, 916-936

Abstract: This article contributes to Gender Work and Organization's Special Themed Section on Foodwork, by addressing the intersections of race, gender, and class in representations of labor, whiteness, and neoliberalism in popular and digital food cultures. The discussion responds to the journal's call for papers by examining the clean eating trend as a vehicle for the ideals of white femininity, and the techniques of femininity that are employed to convey messages of normalcy and exceptionalism in this contemporary popular food culture. In the analysis of an article in the high‐end home interiors magazine, Elle Decoration, the visual authoritativeness of clean eating advocates is considered to highlight the strategies and devices used to deploy ideals of white femininity and to create boundaries around a remodeled white female neoliberal self. The article aims to advance current debates regarding digital foodwork, by examining the esthetics of whiteness that are contained within the message of relatability communicated by social media food influencers. Thus, in keeping with the broader concerns of the journal, the article addresses developments in the fields of gender and digital labor, with respect to the overwhelming dominance of privileged white women in this sphere and the esthetics of their labor, which has thus far received limited attention within existing debates.

Date: 2024
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12620

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:gender:v:31:y:2024:i:3:p:916-936

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0968-6673

Access Statistics for this article

Gender, Work and Organization is currently edited by David Knights, Deborah Kerfoot and Ida Sabelis

More articles in Gender, Work and Organization from Wiley Blackwell
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().