Women as Gatekeepers

Sorry for the lack of posting, school has officially started and the way my classes are structured means a lot of work now, but a lot less after Nov 1.  

In class a couple of weekends ago, one of my fellow students brought up a study that indicates that men in committed relationships live longer than their single counterparts.  She "proved" this to be true by telling us what her boyfriend wants to eat vs. what she makes him eat.  

We have seen this a lot before:  Hillary Clinton was blamed for Bill Clinton's weight gain during his presidency and charged with getting him to lose weight and eat "better."  Michelle Obama not only puts her children on very public diets but also has to control the President's eating as well.  Even in my own family, my in-laws make comments such as "she feeds you well" while looking at Mr. Sprat's protruding belly, etc.  

Let's take a step back and remember that these are grown men we are talking about.  Grown men do not need women to "feed them."  Plain and simple.  Men are just as capable at making food choices as women are.  Granted, because of the diet culture in this country, neither are really fully equipped, but that still proves my point.  A man who eats nothing but pizza is no worse off than a man who's wife makes him eat nothing but salads.  

But this is not new ground, we've discussed this before.  Women are seen as gatekeepers.  As with sexuality (delaying intercourse), women are socialized to believe that they have to take care of a man and make sure that he doesn't do anything reckless, in addition to taking care of herself.  

What really got me angry though, was the assumption that it was dietary choices that led the married men to live longer.  Again, we see the conflation of eating and health.  A person who eats certain foods will not live as long as those who abstain, and since it is the wife's job to control these eating habits, she is charged with his life.  

Maybe the reason the partnered men lived longer is because of the effects of love on brain chemistry.  Maybe it is because routine is comforting or somehow safer.  Maybe (though I personally find this dubious as well) it is because they are less likely to contract an STD.  Maybe the study was poorly conducted and all the partnered people in it also shared similar socioeconomic backgrounds or other factors.  Or maybe, men who live longer are more likely to get married and not the other way around.  Any way you look at it, diet is just one possibility in why the study turned out the way it did. 

I don't know.  I haven't read the study, though I've heard it mentioned a number of times, always to prove a different point.  I only know what I heard, which was more conflating weight and food choices with health and more affirming of women as gatekeepers, who must protect men from everything from sex to food, while simultaneously protecting themselves.  Those roles are not good for men and they certainly aren't very good for women either.  Couples need to support each other in however they choose to eat and single people should not be shamed into relationships to prevent death.  If everyone were more confident on how to feed themselves, the diet industry would have much less of a hold on people and that would be a wonderful thing.