Mother Nurture

Women grow most of the world's food and are responsible for putting meals on the table. Yet they may not get enough to eat. Rising prices, cash crops, taboos and processed foods all play a part in undersustaining women consumers.

The family sits round, fingers, forks or chopsticks at the ready; mouths watering in anticipation; all eyes on mother as she brings in the delicious-smelling dish. It's the favourite theme with food advertisers the world over, the image of women as nurturers, the providers of food and family well-being. But behind the glossy images, putting the food on the table is a daily struggle for many women today.

Cooking time

Not that cooking is unpleasant. Many women, and some men — who can afford the time and the money — enjoy an occasional recreational dabble in the kitchen, coming up trumps with a tasty meal that is appreciated by those who eat it and is washed up by somebody else. Yet for most women any pleasure they may once have taken in acquiring and preparing food has turned into drudgery, a service taken for granted. A study in India found women in Harijan (low caste) households spending up to five hours a day cooking. In the higher castes, the hours are longer since they can afford more elaborate meals. The women complained that the work was 'unavoidable but tiring' and that it was not shared out equally within the family.1

Sustainer

Throughout the world growing or buying, storing and preparing food for the family is largely a female activity. Their connection with sustenance starts when their body nourishes the unborn child inside them; it continues as their body bears milk for the baby at the breast and it ends with them being expected to provide food for everyone else, nearly all of the time.

The question however that women still face today but are afraid to ask aloud is: will there be enough food? The paradox is that women's labour produces half the world's food.2 In Africa, women do three-quarters of the agricultural work3 and contribute substantially to farming in Latin America and the Middle East. And they make up half of the agricultural labour force in Asia.4 Their work is mainly in the 'subsistence', non-cash sector: growing staple cereals and vegetables for the family.

Supplanted

The introduction of the money economy through colonialism and the imposition of taxes on households drew men into growing crops for sale to the authorities. So cocoa and cotton replaced staple foods sorghum and millet, rice land was replanted with sugar. For women this has brought three major changes:

  • More of their fields are taken over by men for cash crops.
  • More of their time is demanded in helping their men care for the cash crops, leaving less time to cultivate their own food-growing plots.
  • Less money is available for family necessities since men usually spend the money earned from selling the cash crop for their own purchases.

Less food

The overall result has been that less food is grown. At the level of the family it means less food on the table; at the level of the nation it could mean famine. The displacement of women from their land has now been recognised as a contributing factor to the present-day famine in Africa.5

And even when there is sufficient food, women do not get enough to eat. In many cases this has to do with the role of motherhood, the institution which keeps women walking a tightrope of guilt between being 'a good mother' — which can mean going without food to ensure that others have enough — and having the liberty to think of themselves.

Eat last

In some societies, particularly in the Indian subcontinent, women's low status is the cause. It is expected that they will eat last, after men and children have had their fill. In parts of Africa, if protein is scarce men get the lion's share. Food taboos are more commonly imposed on women; in Uganda for instance pregnant women may not eat eggs.6 Women's self-denial is often held up as a sign of virtue — as author Kim Chernin notes in reference to the death of a Russian immigrant woman at the beginning of this century whose mourning neighbours paid her their highest compliment: 'Never did she allow herself a bit to eat but left-overs.'7

The effects of inadequate food are marked. The World Health Organization estimates that in the developing world half of non-pregnant women and two-thirds of pregnant women suffer from nutritional anaemia, making them weak and debilitated.8

And so, for Third World women who produce food on their land, growing enough food is becoming harder. What about the women who do not grow family food, who buy it in markets, shops and supermarkets?

Rising prices

This is not always easy. In many countries, there is a daily queue for basic cereals and frequent shortages of meat and vegetables. Consumers have to wrestle with rising prices as well, which means that poor families — who spend up to 80 per cent of their income on food9 — go without, or buy cheaper food which may not be nutritious. For instance, in a study of food choices between poor and rich households in the UK, the poor households were found to consume more white bread than brown, more processed meat than fresh meat simply because these were cheaper.10

Taking action

High prices trigger high emotions. When inflation in Brazil pushed up the cost of living, women responded quickly and imaginatively to the government's wishes for inspection and control of prices. Armed with pricelists the women checked streetstalls, shops and markets to see if traders were complying. By taking such action, the women became more assured and critical consumers.11

Food shortages mean useless hours of queuing. In Peru and other Latin American countries, women have organised collectives for obtaining and distributing food. These comedores populares — eating houses — and comites del vaso de leche — committees of the glass of milk — reach about 100,000 women with survival food. 'This is their own system to defend their first right as consumers,' comments Celeste Cambria of the Centro Flora Tristan in Peru, 'and that is their right to consumption."12

And even when food is available and affordable, women consumers are confronted with questions about its safety and nutritional quality.

Most food contamination is microbiological in origin — through unhygienic handling or faulty storage — and is responsible for a high proportion of diarrhoeal and other infectious diseases, particularly in the developing world. Contamination is also caused, deliberately, when harmful adulterants are added to stretch the food further.

Deception

In seventeenth century Europe, merchants often mixed gravel, twigs or leaves into the pepper (then an important meat preservative). Things haven't changed. In 1978, India's Hindustan Times reported that rice was 'cunningly adulterated with small stones of the right size, shape and colour,' and that there were even shops selling such stones to add weight to the sacks of rice.13 Many everyday foods are tampered with: flour bulked with chalk; milk watered down; tea mixed with used tea leaves and sawdust. In Malaysia a consumer survey of ground coffee found one brand contained only 50 per cent coffee. Other items contain harmful colourings and flavourings to cover up the food's shortcomings. Consumer groups have tried to combat this in various ways, including developing special kits to detect foreign ingredients, and publicising their findings.

Other dangers lurk. Some traders will try to pass off contaminated and spoilt food, and here the culprits are not necessarily local small merchants; foreign companies have a stake in the game too.

Shipping out

For instance, when disaster struck at Chernobyl and Europe's fields were soaked with irradiated rain, farmers and governments had problem on their hands. How could they sell off the contaminated plant and animal products? Some was sold at home backed by continual government assurances of safety. But reports from the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Malaysia show that quantities of unacceptably high radioactive powdered milk were shipped there. Some of these countries either destroyed or promptly sent the contaminated consignments straight back to where they had come from.14

But radiation on the Chernobyl scale is surrounded by publicity: few consumers can be unaware of the dangers, although they may not know precisely which foods are affected or how badly. Other forms of contamination may not hog the headlines but they do damage just the same. Highly toxic chemicals, particularly pesticides, for instance, are found in the harvested grain or fruit.

Consumer activists find their work cut out for them in tackling these issues. But they have been strengthened by informal international groupings such as the Pesticide Action Network (PAN) which campaigns on pesticide-induced problems. Food is also 'contaminated' by artificial colours, flavours and preservatives, several of which are harmful and most of which are not necessary.15 Using chemicals in food isn't new, of course. And there can be advantages to the consumer: meat doesn't go bad, and bread stays fresh. But it is the processed food manufacturers who have most to gain. Chemical additives have helped to preserve, colour, flavour the soups, snacks and soft drinks that have flooded the world's markets.

The big sell of value-added processed food, particularly those high in sugar or fats or salt, is creating a revolution in eating habits, and knocking nutrition on the head in many parts of the world. In Brazil, the world's biggest exporter of oranges, one survey found most city children drinking a bottle of Fanta orange or other soft drinks every day in place of proper food.16

Coke culture

'Coke and Pepsi have virtually wiped out all traces of nutritious indigenous beverages like kalamansi (local lime juice), buko (coconut water) and gulaman (a drink based on seaweed)', says a report on transnational food and drink corporation produced by the University of the Philippines' Third World Studies Centre.17 'Traditional drinks only surface now on special occasions or in tourist restaurants as local exotica, while Coke and Pepsi have become standard fare.' Worldwide, Coca-Cola sold nearly five billion dollars' worth of soft drinks in 1981. The Mexicans alone gulped down 26 gallons per person a year — that's about five bottles a week for every woman, man and child.18

But it can be expensive: in Indonesia for example, a 1974 study showed that even the poorest families were spending a fifth of their food budget on nutritionally-poor processed food.19

A family eating out obviously spends less time preparing food. In the USA, one meal in three is eaten away from home, often fast food, and this figure is soon likely to rise to one in two.20 Supermarkets and the kitchen appliance industry have tried to counter this trend through advertising which implies that it is cheaper to eat at home — but of course they do not count the woman's time in buying, preparing and cooking the food.

Convenience

No, for many women convenience or fast foods appear to be a blessing. They may even be seen as a role-equalizer, since theoretically men are able to buy and heat up a ready-made snack as easily as a woman. But this role reversal has not always taken place, and there are other drawbacks.

Unfortunately convenience foods, whether eaten at home or outside, are not as wholesome as fresh food. 'The chief dietary mass-murderers — fat, salt and refined carbohydrates like sugar — are among the main constituents of much processed food,' notes the New Internationalist magazine. And 'mass-murder' is not an exaggeration: an estimated 40-50 per cent of cancers are thought to be due to our diet. Heart disease too, is caused largely by the food we eat. These 'diseases of affluence' — affecting people in the rich world — are beginning to make their mark on people in the developing countries, according to former Minister of Health of Malaysia, Chong Hon Nyan.21

Baby foods

One of the most disastrous convenience foods invented must be infant formula. It was widely promoted to mothers in the Third World, discouraging them from breastfeeding and putting their babies' lives at risk as they lacked the clean water and hygienic conditions necessary to prepare the food safely. Although baby food marketing is now controlled, thanks to the work of IBFAN, the International Baby Food Action Network, women are going to need good support if they are to breastfeed.

Breastmilk is the right food for a baby, and very few women are physically unable to feed in this way. However, obstacles may prevent them. Breastfeeding is a dilemma for some, struggling to break free from total bondage to the domestic role, as 'it reinforces the idea of the main role of women being to reproduce and nourish at the cost of self,' as health writer, C. Sathyamala puts it.22

A further group simply cannot afford to miss work. Maternity leave, creches at work — where they exist — give mothers and babies the chance to benefit from each other without financial penalty. But most women do not have this option.

On the food front, then, the sizzle has gone. The change in emphasis from women growing food for family use to men growing cash crops has meant less food and more malnutrition in some places, especially Africa. The rapid spread in Third World countries of processed food and drinks of little nutritional value might have released women from some of their food preparation duties, but the food itself is less nutritious than customary dishes, and can be a cause of ill-health.

Change

How can this change? Helping female farmers — through technical advice, credit and men sharing the workload — will mean more food for the family. Women are good farmers. In Kenya, for instance, despite men's greater access to loans, advice, seeds and fertilisers, women farmers harvested the same yield per hectare as men.23

Help of a different kind is needed by those who do not grow food for the family but who are still expected to provide the meals. They and their families need hard information about the ill-effects of seemingly innocuous processed foods, so that they can counter the onslaughts of slick advertising that tells them they are doing the best for their family by serving up Big Boy hamburgers or dowsing the chop suey with the empty flavour of monosodium glutamate (MSG). This is the kind of information which consumer groups are already gathering and publicising.24 Maybe fast food would lose some of its appeal if women had more time to enjoy meal preparation, if their work was appreciated and rewarded. It would probably lose all its appeal if the household work were shared so that women were not forced constantly to look for ways to cut corners.

Confused messages

Their relationship with food is complicated. They are the providers, and the nurturers — for others. They are beamed an ambivalent message: prepare food but do not eat it yourself (or at least not until others have taken their pick); and make food as delicious as possible, but stay slim; buy processed or convenience food even though they make you unhealthy.

As consumers and as producers of food, women are heavily burdened. That load can be lightened, or even lifted off their shoulders. It is high time for a little shaking and stirring, of more than the cooking pot.

 

Notes

  1. Khare, R. S.'Women's Role in Domestic Food Acquisition and Use in India: A Case Study of Low-Income Urban Households', in Food and Nutrition Bulletin, vol.6, no.1, March 1984.
  2. Aronoff, J. and Crano, W. D. 'A Re-Examination of the Cross-Cultural Principles of Task Segregation and Sex Role Differentiation in the Family', in American Sociological Review, vol.40, 1975.
  3. 'The Data Base for Discussion of the Inter-Relations Between the Integration of Women in Development, Their Situation, and Population Factors in Africa', UN Economic Commission for Africa, 1974. Quoted in Taylor, D. et. al. Women: A World Report, Methuen/New Internationalist, London, 1985, p.92.
  4. 'World Survey: Women in Agriculture', paper presented to the World Conference to Review and Appraise the Achievements of the United Nations Decade for Women: Equality, Development and Peace. Nairobi, 1985.
  5. Taylor, D. et. al. Women: A World Report, Methuen/New Internationalist, London, 1985, p.28.
  6. Sivard, R. L. Women... A World Survey. World Priorities, Washington D. C., 1985, p.25.
  7. Chernin, K. 'The Obsession: Reflections on the Tyranny of Slenderness', quoted in New Internationalist, no. 135, May 1984, p.21
  8. 'Health and the Status of Women', WHO, Geneva, 1980. Document FHE/80.1
  9. Grose, D. H. The Role of Consumer Groups in Food Safety. Unpublished paper, December 1982.
  10. Rivers, J. 'Hard to Swallow', in New Internationalist, no.135, May 1984, p.26.
  11. Gonzales, G. The Cruzado Plan: Restoration of Citizenship and Supply — Women's Participation. Unpublished paper prepared by PROCON, 1986.
  12. Cambria, C. and Madelegortia, S. Women and Consumption: the Peruvian Experience. Unpublished paper, 1985.
  13. The Hindustan Times, 15 October 1978.
  14. Various documents, IOCU Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, Penang.
  15. New Internationalist, no. 135, May 1984, p.27.
  16. ibid.
  17. ibid. p.19.
  18. ibid. p.20.
  19. ibid. p.7.
  20. Vaugh, C. 'Growth and Future of the Fast Food Industry', in Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly, November 1976, p.18.
  21. New Internationalist, op. cit.
  22. Sathyamala, C. 'Is Medicine Inherently Sexist?', in Socialist Health Review, September 1984, p.56.
  23. 'World Survey: Women in Agriculture', op. cit.
  24. Various documents, IOCU Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, Penang.