Manhood Incorporated Diet and the Embodiment of “Civilized” Masculinity

• Published in: Men and masculinities Vol. 11; no. 5; pp. 578 - 601
• Main Author: Forth, Christopher E.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.12.2009; SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
• Subjects: Body; Civilization; Collective representation; Consumption; Cultural history; Diet; Elites; Embodiment; Human Body; Males; Masculinity; Modernity; National culture; Social construction; Social norms; Transnationalism; masculinity; diet; civilization; body; modernity
• ISSN: 1097-184X; 1552-6828
• DOI: 10.1177/1097184X07304810

Employing an interdisciplinary framework, this article attempts to “think” the history of men and masculinities in a transnational way by connecting the distinctive experiences of specific national cultures to the broader anxieties about modern civilization that exercised Westerners generally. As a contribution to a more comprehensive analysis of the male body, it argues that the consumption of food and other ingesta was thought to have considerable consequences for the masculinity of Western elites, whether aristocratic or bourgeois, in a manner that promoted the cultural construction (literally, the “incorporation”) of certain forms of manhood both as social representations and embodied experiences. It thus encourages a deeper understanding of how the male body is materially as well as symbolically constructed, and how this construction relates to various masculine norms.