PARADIGM OF FEMININITY IN COOKBOOKS OF THE 20TH CENTURY: LINGVO-SOCIAL MIRROR

Abstract

The paper considers specifics of feminine gender identity in cookbooks of the previous century published in English, Russian, and Ukrainian. The problems of gender research within the analysed period are stated as those claiming a woman as a subject of social and cultural life of a community with a special status. The so-called women-studies are influenced by the second wave of feminism aiming at liberating a woman from the limited space of a household enabling her to socialize as equal with a man. The culinary sphere appeared to stay away from these progressive movements and served an example of patriarchal perception of a woman in the sex-gender hierarchy. Traditionally, cookbooks represent and visualize cooking components and processes, generate the culture of preparing and serving meals, share the information about physical, chemical, gustatory, and aesthetic components of food. In the present study, the texts of cookbooks are described from the point of view of their contents, structure, and lingual peculiarities. Feminine colouring of the text material in question is provided by the relevant nominative and prescriptive units. The feminine paradigm is investigated via such aspects as address, nominations of gender identity, feminine functions according to the text pragmatic implication. A woman is viewed as socially, culturally, stereotypically subordinated, as a representative of a definite sex dependent on deep-rooted principles and morals. A woman’s personal likes, talents, wishes are ignored and there is no alternative for her work in the kitchen. A woman is described as a subordinated gendered individual of a social and biological species whose natural sex makes her fulfill functions of food provision, cooking and serving a table in her own family and the society in general. The English, Ukrainian, and Russian cookbook texts published in the United States and the Soviet Union in the 20th century possess slight differences in depicting the attitude towards a woman and her social image.