Friday, 21 October 2011: 8:50 AM
I examine the slow-food movement in the U.S., its relationship to the division of labor in the household, and the impact on women. According to www.slowfoodusa.org, slow food “is a global, grassroots movement…that links the pleasure of food with a commitment to community and the environment”. However, although the movement attempts to romanticize the return to meals made from scratch as a method to promote a political, environmental, and social principle, preferably using ingredients grown or raised by the families themselves, I hypothesize that a disproportionate share of the work continues to fall on women, who also tend to be more skeptical of the idealistic claims than men. Using primary data collected from a summer 2011 survey of a sample of an 1800-member Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) organization in the Midwest, I use chi-square analysis to test for relationships between the amount of time spent by members in the household on meal preparation, including time spent growing and raising food, and views on the slow-food movement. Information on household member income, gender, and education level will be included in the analysis. The goal of the research is to augment the anecdotal evidence surrounding this movement with systematic research on its effects on the division of labor in the household.
KEYWORDS: Division of household labor; gender equity