Authors: Clara Carlson & Emilia Thor

Title: The man who played with the fire – a study on how gender is framed in the magazine Allt om mat.

Level: BA Thesis in Journalism

Location: Linnaeus University

Language: Swedish

Number of pages: 43 

The media constantly sends out messages about how men and women should be and how they are expected to be. This means that women and men are kept apart and the gender-power order, where women are subordinated to men, is reinforced. In recent years we have seen a major trend of food in media. We think it is important to examine cooking journalism from a gender perspective because people are influenced by what they see in the media and we can assume that they form their identity based on what they are exposed to in the media.

This is a study about how Allt om mat (All about cooking), the largest foodmagazine in Sweden, portrays women and men in their personal portraits. By using theories on gender we investigate what kind of stereotypes media use to portrait women and men. We have used the framing theory, Anthony Giddens theory about gender and identity, Yvonne Hirdmans gender contract and Judith Butlers queer theory.

Using a combined narrative and a semiotic analysis, we found that traditional gender roles are often reproduced in Allt om mat and women and men are portrayed as opposites. Men should hunt their food and cook it over an open fire. They represents the natural cooking and master the “dangerous nature” while women should take care of the household and cooking in an environment that may not be that dangerous.

The findings of the study are relevant and significant because it reinforces the image of men subordinate women, which creating injustice in society. Those who do not fit into the heteronormative gender roles will feel different and not as a part of the community.