Girl Dinner: Femininity at the Cusp of Consumption
By Elida Silvey
Content warning: The following essay contains topics surrounding eating disorders.
For as long as I can remember women have had food pressed against their lips, at the cusp of consumption, but never entirely welcomed in without some form of guilt. Some of my favorite memories of my mother and grandmothers were in the kitchen, laughing over a stove, taste-testing plantains as they sizzled in the kitchenette, or passing quesillo over a water bath to get the custard just right. Yet, they’d always be the last to the dinner table, waiting to plate everyone else before ever taking a seat, and they’d always be the ones with the smallest plates.
I remember my mother drinking flaxseed water as her dinner for weeks straight because she was trying to shed those few extra pounds that no one noticed but her. I distinctly remember doing the same in my freshman year of high school when puberty hit me from all angles and I couldn’t contend with the fact that I didn’t look like I did a few months before.
I’m not the only one either — many women in the Western world are bombarded with images and rhetoric that recommend more restrictions around food than should be considered normal. Bella Hadid is one of the world's hottest models at the minute, on the cover of magazines, and the proud owner of the closing spot for many runway shows. Her iconic painted dress moment left women across the internet gasping for that level of chic sophistication and yet her body proportions are not that of a standard woman. I am not one to criticize other women, as I believe it does us no good, so I won’t presume to know Bella’s eating habits.
However, I find this body goal to be unrealistic and those of us whose body doesn’t naturally contort to this standard, cannot dream of attaining it without the aid of food restrictions. Perhaps for this reason I find the joyful autonomy of the Girl Dinner trend to be refreshing. This trend has women around the world celebrating food in a way that isn’t tied to labor and has the possibility of reconnecting women with the enjoyment of eating outside of destructive eating habits.
If you haven’t seen the hashtag girldinner alongside a picture of a charcuterie board or a massive bowl of olives yet then you probably haven’t been on Instagram as of late. Girl Dinner is a trend that sees people post pictures of food, or women consuming food, that is usually made up of something easy to prep and enjoy, from baguettes with a glass of wine to the unbridled joy of an entire block of cheese straight out of the plastic. The overtones of Girl Dinner lay playfully in the enjoyment of food outside of the expectations inextricably linked with femininity.
Research conducted by the UN’s global campaign towards the support of women and girls shows that “women carry out at least two and a half times more unpaid household and care work than men.” While this statistic is dependent on which country you reside in and your socio-economic status, the fact remains that women and unpaid labor are connected by several factors, one of those being the labor performed over the stovetop. As cooking and, in turn, cleaning the kitchen, become daily chores, the act of consuming food becomes a taxing one. The space between enjoyment and labor shrinks even more whenever a partner is involved, as the expectations to perform social standards remain unknowingly in the minds and relationships of heterosexual women.
This is where the simplicity of a Girl Dinner finds the traction from which to grow in popularity. Women are foraging for food from cupboards, straight out of grocery store condiment isles and from the fromageries of their fridges. They’re leaving the stovetop behind and uncorking a bottle of wine to enjoy alongside their newfound leisure time, after a long hard day at work. Women across the internet can be seen enjoying the consumption of food, whether on their own or with their group of girlies as a joyful expression of desire and food autonomy. However innocent this trend may appear at first glance, it could easily become a victim of diet culture as women also #girldinner their way into restrictive eating habits in a bid for the most body control. Girl dinners consisting of vape pens and condensation-slicked iced coffees also find themselves in the midst of this trend’s popularity.
I worry the negative side of this trend could sideline the call for food autonomy by twisting what once was a celebration of food into a competition of self-restriction. In her book “Fed Up: Women and Food in America”, Catherine Manton presents anthropological research into the meaning behind restrictive diets which suggests that “individuals really believe self-control is measured by one’s ability to control, manage and discipline one’s body. From this perspective, every act of eating is a test of will” (p. 82) and they exercise that will with their next to nothing dinners that are being depicted under the trend. From the “chic” mid-century cigarette and coffee combo to the non-existent consumption of a Virginia Woolf novel, sans the snacks.
While diet culture isn’t a new experience for women, the subversion of an otherwise positive trend is especially nuanced and insidious. The turn of the century saw diet culture proliferate young women's minds and control their sense of self-worth, as popular diet centers such as Overeaters Anonymous and Weight Watchers became household names. The social media age finds these diet centers metamorphosing from brick-and-mortar into the feeds of influencers, models and other celebrities. Women can now stretch those same self-deprecating muscles wherever, whenever — as the vessel from where to measure yourself constantly lies within reach.
Recently I’ve started re-watching Ugly Betty starring America Ferrera and found myself sympathizing with Becki Newton’s character Amanda; who leans on the taste of cashews, bagels, cheese puffs and even Betty’s family flan to offer herself some comfort during times of heightened stress. Our capabilities to compartmentalize ourselves go out the window in times of stress and with it goes our inhibitions relating to what and how much we should be consuming. As someone who has restricted her own diet and found herself fawning over the pick-and-mix bowl at a work function, I recognize my worst moments of unhealthy eating happen when I’ve been the most restrictive.
Girl Dinner might just be another flimsy social media trend that will come and go in a season but I believe it has the potential to alleviate these restrictions. By providing women with a pathway to enjoying food outside of the expectations of labor or as a precarious recipe for shapeshifting into the body standards of the day, we can enjoy what we desire with a little less guilt. Girl Dinner gives us the space to celebrate food in a way that restructures the negative associations we’ve formed with food. I believe Girl Dinner has the power to reconnect women with their love of food, whether that’s a block of cheese or a nice home-cooked meal for one and allows us the space to eat, not undereat or overeat, as an act of self-love. The enjoyment of food is right on the precipice, all we need to do is reach out and take a bite. ♦