URCAD Sneak Peek: Zaira Girala Munoz

Fri, 09 Apr 2021 09:11:13 -0400

Zaira is a McNair Scholar and Editor of the UMBC Review: Journal of Undergraduate Research, and her research, "Invisible Playbook: Analyzing The Evolution Of Gender And Class Perscription In Cookbooks" examines the performance of gender and class in cookbooks from the 1950s to today. Don't miss her URCAD presentation!

URCAD.umbc.edu

April 19-25, 2021

Abstract

Mentor: Elizabeth Patton, Media and Communication Studies

This research examines gender and class performativity as prescribed by print cookbooks from 1950-2020. This work attempts to question contemporary assumptions that texts and technologies can be inherently post-feminist, or that there has been such an evolution in the construction of these texts that they situate themselves as post-feminist- void of binary gendered roles and regressive socio-economic assumptions of class performance and the position of women in society. A sampling of three to four cookbooks was selected from the 1950s, 1970s, 1990s, and 2010s, loosely in alignment with pre-second wave feminism, second-wave feminism, third-wave feminism, and post-feminism, respectively. Utilizing discourse and textual analysis, recipes and their anecdotal accompaniment were reviewed, as well as how the texts constructed domestic spaces and encoded class and gender within their instructions. The expected findings are that old gender norms and class performance scripts have been appropriated by contemporary texts, but with different verbiage. This research will provide support for existing literature tracing the pervasiveness of class performance, toxic masculinities, and gender binaries within cookbooks and other technical documents. This is critical in order to understand how sexism and classism are reinforced even in texts often viewed as apolitical as instruction manuals.