The Patriarchy of Plant-based Food
In late February 2020, James Beard-nominated chef Amanda Cohen took to Instagram to highlight a review of her recently-opened vegan fast-casual restaurant Lekka Burger, writing with some frustration, “Why do women continue to exist only in comparison to men?”
Indeed, food critic Hannah Goldfield had just written in the New Yorker that Lekka Burger offered “a technical marvel: a perfectly puck-shaped patty, made primarily of portobello mushroom, cannellini beans, and a hint of chili […] The flavor is deeply smoky but unmistakably vegetal”—but then devoted a good portion of the rest of the review to a critical comparison of Cohen’s veggie burger to the ones made by chef Brooks Headley at his restaurant, Superiority Burger. Ironically, Headley’s vegetarian burger joint, opened in 2015, is housed in a space that had previously been occupied by Cohen’s own celebrated fine dining plant-based restaurant, Dirt Candy.
Cohen was baffled by the comparison, particularly when Goldfield cited menu items on Superiority Burger’s menu that had no relation to those on the menu at Lekka Burger, like Superiority’s yuba sandwich (there’s nothing similar at all on Lekka’s menu). “If I hadn’t been a woman,” she says, “I don’t think the comparison would have been made. But once a woman steps into this [veggie burger] arena, she is immediately measured next to a man.”
For Carol Adams, author of The Sexual Politics of Meat, this comes as no surprise. “Men are seen as more reliable experts than women are,” she says, “so when you come into the world of plant-based foods, we’re seen as having a skewed perspective, whereas the man is seen as neutral.”
That “skewed perspective” likely relates to the image of American women who passionately supported the concept of a plant-based diet, going back to the first cookbook on the subject, published by Asenath Nicholson in 1835. In those days, vegetarianism was directly related to the temperance movement, primarily championed by women to protect the health and safety of women and children; it was a movement destined to fail without buy-in from a larger male population. (Those men who did support vegetarianism, such as John Harvey Kellogg, were typically members of the Seventh Day Adventist Church, a faith founded by Ellen G. White in 1863 that advocated for a vegetarian diet.)
Instead, women who promoted such a lifestyle were frequently derided. An 1861 song, “Oh! Wasn’t She Fond Of Her Greens!”, even parodied vegetarian suffragettes such as Minta Asha Philips Beach, who famously walked from New York to Chicago on foot in 42 days to highlight a healthy and humane lifestyle. The song mocks: “A vegetarian she’d been for some years/No animal’s food would she eat/How wonderful strange it appears/That she could exist without meat!”
Unsurprisingly, the heroine of the song “takes to meat” after marriage.
Even Frances Moore Lappé’s 1971 bestselling work, “Diet for a Small Planet”, which directly addressed the serious environmental impact of the meat industry by seeking to promote plant-based sources of protein, was part of a counterculture concept still viewed as one promoted by granola-dispensing, barefooted-hippie mamas out of step with the mainstream. In truth, the majority of vegans are still women—but the rise of meat-like analogs has begun to turn the tide.
“The plant-based community is a very creative, responsive, responsible, and radical space,” says Adams, “but that doesn’t mean it’s not sexist.”
Today, plant-based eating is hot—so hot that Millennial men are posting bathroom mirror selfies of their rippling vegan six-packs, while new consumer research shows that men are sampling plant-based foods in larger numbers than women. The trend is no accident. The male leaders of plant-based companies like Impossible Foods, led by former biochemistry professor Patrick Brown, and Beyond Meat, helmed by former clean energy CEO Ethan Brown (no relation), have specifically targeted a male market by using science to figure out how to make vegetables “bleed” in increasingly meat-like veggie burgers. With masculinity perceived in direct correlation to meat-eating, as demonstrated in a 2011 study by researchers at the University of British Columbia, an emphasis on vegan techno-food provides a satisfying blend of sci-fi and environmental responsibility that seems to tempt a male population.
But it’s the story behind the product that may ultimately impact its success, according to Michele Simon, executive director of the Plant Based Food Association.
“Health, environmental concerns, and animal welfare are all factors that drive interest in plant-based foods,” Simon says. “Women have led this movement for a long time, but haven’t always been recognized for it, because the stories behind why a woman might create a plant-based product are more mission-based.” She points to companies like Malk, a dairy-free milk alternative that got its start from mothers seeking food options for their children with severe allergies. “Sometimes women simply have a different orientation that is more about the mission and less driven by money-making, and that’s not always as appealing to investors,” Simon says.
And therein lies the crux of the matter: money, which is primarily controlled by men. Ninety-one percent of venture capitalists are male, with 98 percent of the money at venture capital firms awarded to male-owned companies. It’s hard for women entrepreneurs not to feel the sting when they see their male counterparts being enthusiastically championed by high-profile investors such as Bill Gates, Shaquille O'Neal, and Tom Steyer.
Miyoko Schinner, the founder and CEO of Miyoko’s Creamery, is arguably one of the most successful women in the plant-based industry and has spent decades building her credibility. Even so, she sees the gender bias toward women seeking capital to fund their businesses as a constant struggle.
“Men are judged only by their idea, even if they have no pre-revenue,” Schinner says, “but women are judged by whether they’ve previously been successful in getting a business off the ground. There are men who came out of nowhere to make plant-based meats and dairy, told a better story to connect with male investors, and got the attention of the press.”
“Shouting from the rooftops” is how Christie Lagally describes her own path to grow her company, Rebellyous Foods, which developed an affordable plant-based chicken alternative sold to college cafeterias, sports arenas, and hospitals. Formerly a mechanical engineer in the aerospace industry, Lagally would seem to provide the perfect blend of scientific know-how with plant-based passion, but she still finds it difficult to get her message heard. “My ability to get attention is always going to be a little bit muted by the fact that I’m a woman,” Lagally says, “and everything I say is going to be 50 or 100 times more suspect than what Ethan Brown or Pat Brown say.”
For chef Cohen, the goal post is, as she points out, always moving, forcing women to constantly have to run to catch up with their male counterparts. “People will ask ‘Why would you make a veggie burger when somebody else already is?’ as if there’s only room for one veggie burger in the world. It’s not like there’s a glass ceiling and I’m never going to break it; I actually feel like it’s a steel ceiling and it’s just been shut.”
It’s the same ceiling that shut out women vegetarian activists in the 19th century, but Schinner’s attitude is for women to keep pushing against it. “We’ve always talked about the environment,” she notes. “We were asking people ‘What matters to you, what change do you want to see in the world?’, even when those messages weren’t popular at the time. But if everything starts in a place of love and compassion, then ultimately it benefits our health and the health of the planet. So we’re going to make compassion cool.”
