In my Thought Control in Contemporary Society class we recently read a chapter called Working up an Appetite by Naomi Aronson from a book entitled A Woman's Conflict: The Special Relationship Between Women and Food.
Aronson points out that Betty Crocker was an image created by General Mills in the 1920's to appeal to women.
Betty Crocker represents the highest development of the feminine principle that social engineering has to offer. The name "Betty" was chosen because "this is one of the most familiar and somehow the most companionable of family nicknames." Her personality was designed by consulting psychologists. Betty Crocker was to represent the giving impulse, the source of sustenance, 'the mother figure to whom normal men and women turn all their lives to find the springs of confidence."
A well-known commercial artist was hired to giver her a face. The portrait was designed to appeal to all European ethnic groups: her brow and skull were Nordic, her eyes Irish, her nose classic Roman. As General Mills exclaimed, "the perfect composite of the twentieth-century woman."
(Reminds me of Mad Men!)
The overall message of the article was that it was the time in American history that women became consumers rather than producers. Up until that point, women were relatively self-sufficient when it came to providing for their families and they had a position in the household that was complementary to their husbands work on the farm. After this point they became consumerized and more dependent on their husbands for money.
I've been meaning to start making my own bread for about a year, but this article motivated me to become a bread maker. (Aronson explains further about the bread connection.) I hope that it will become something that I do regularly, but for now I'm just pleased that I created one semi-successful loaf of honey wheat.
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