Cultural Tensions between Taste Refinement and Middle-Class Masculinity: a Case Study of Craft Beer Aficionados (original) (raw)
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Omnivorous Masculinity: gender capital and cultural legitimacy in craft beer culture
Peterson’s “omnivore-univore” hypothesis has stimulated a lively debate among cultural sociologists, but the effect of omnivorousness upon gender inequality remains underexplored. By analyzing the gendered valuation of beer types in craft beer blogs and in open-ended surveys with 93 craft beer bar patrons, this article demonstrates that a shift toward omnivorousness does not necessarily reflect a shift toward progressive gender ideology. These findings indicate that the same ideological conflation between femininity and illegitimacy that dominates the univorous American mainstream beer culture has been reproduced—albeit repackaged— within the American craft beer culture. Men are free to consume a range of beer types without consequence within the confines of the omnivorous craft beer culture, but women remain subjected to gendered judgment depending upon their beer preference. This imbalance signifies the emergence of a “hybrid masculinity” within the omnivorous craft beer scene that superficially signifies gender-blindness while ultimately maintaining the patriarchal status quo. These findings contribute towards the sociology of gender and the sociology of consumption by demonstrating the gender contingencies of cultural capital accrual that reinforce women’s subordination.
2020
Over the last few decades, the production and consumption of craft beer in the United States has witnessed a spectacular increase. According to the Brewer’s Association (2020), there were approximately 89 breweries operating in the United States in 1978 compared to 8,386 in 2019. Along with this rapid market expansion, the cultural status of beer also underwent significant changes. Despite the exponential rise in the number of craft breweries as well as the emergence of a craft beer culture, little empirical scholarship on the field of craft beer exists. In this study, I analyze the rapid status shift of craft beer by exploring its social history of changes that occurred both exogenously to the cultural field of craft beer as well as endogenous developments within the field. Further, I examine in detail the emergence and role of a critical discourse surrounding craft beer culture in relation to its involvement in the elevation of status as well as the construction of symbolic and so...
Peterson’s “omnivore-univore” hypothesis has stimulated a lively debate among cultural sociologists, but the effect of omnivorousness upon gender inequality remains underexplored. By analyzing the gendered valuation of beer types in craft beer blogs and in open-ended surveys with 93 craft beer bar patrons, this article demonstrates that a shift toward omnivorousness does not necessarily reflect a shift toward progressive gender ideology. These findings indicate that the same ideological conflation between femininity and illegitimacy that dominates the univorous American mainstream beer culture has been reproduced—albeit repackaged— within the American craft beer culture. Men are free to consume a range of beer types without consequence within the confines of the omnivorous craft beer culture, but women remain subjected to gendered judgment depending upon their beer preference. This imbalance signifies the emergence of a “hybrid masculinity” within the omnivorous craft beer scene tha...
Gendered Expectations, Gatekeeping, and Consumption in Craft Beer Spaces
Humanity & Society, 2020
While women are drinking more craft beer in the United States, the association between masculinity and beer remains intact. Yet sparse research has considered how involvement in craft beer culture may differ across public and elite beer spaces. Public spaces are open settings such as bars or breweries, and elite settings are more closed settings such as bottle shares and beer clubs. In this article, we analyze a questionnaire of 1,102 craft beer drinkers to compare the ways that men and women gain and enact cultural legitimacy within different craft beer spaces. Our focus on public and elite consumption spaces generates two interconnected insights. First, in public spaces, men are assumed to have a natural basic beer knowledge. Women, however, are dismissed as “not real beer drinkers” through men’s gatekeeping. Second, within elite spaces, both men and women must prove their belonging as elite drinkers and ultimately navigate gatekeeping mechanisms. As a result, our work extends con...
Man-of-Action Heroes: How the American Ideology of Manhood Structures Men's Consumption
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2003
The compensatory consumption thesis states that men who experience anxieties in living up to American ideals of manhood in their everyday lives as workers and husbands use consumption as a means to escape these pressures. Masculine consumption, in this view, is a form of rebellion against society's expectations. This thesis of compensatory rebellious consumption has become conventional wisdom in the men's studies literature as a well as in popular culture. We question the basic premises of the thesis by asking: What masculine ideals do men strive for? And how do they use consumption to forge identifications with these ideals? First, we use textual analysis and a synthesis of historical studies to develop a discourse model of what we call American Manhood-the ideology of manhood in the United States. We demonstrate that rebellion is not an escape from ideology, but, rather, an essential component.
Bottling Gender: Accomplishing Gender Through Craft Beer Consumption
Food, Culture and Society, 2018
According to recent industry reports, sales of craft beer have doubled over the last six years, and are set to triple by 2017 (Klonoski 2013). In addition to increasing popularity, there have been significant changes in the consumption patterns of craft beer. While beer has maintained a position as the most popular alcoholic beverage among men age 21-34, a recent Gallup poll (2012) indicates that craft beer has surpassed wine as the most popular beverage for women of the same age group (Klonoski 2013). In light of this trend, there has been little research done to explore gender dynamics in craft beer consumption and the craft beer industry. This paper seeks to understand the increasing popularity of craft beer among women by: 1) exploring beer as a gendered object, 2) illuminating the experiences of women in the craft beer culture and industry, and 3) examining how gender is done, redone, and undone in craft beer spaces. Drawing from a discursive content analysis of an online beer community, we seek to consider the gendered nature of beer and how gender is both reconfigured and upheld, allowing for the possibility for new consumption patterns.
The multiplicity of highbrow culture: Taste boundaries among the new upper middle class
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The goal of this chapter is to question this observed eclecticism - or "omnivorousness" in the expression popularized by R.A. Peterson - in light of the results of a study conducted in Quebec (Canada) on art lovers and cultural consumers among the upper middle class. One of the principal objectives of this inquiry was to study the relation between professional and cultural worlds: In what ways does professional status determine one's cultural sphere? And up to what point do these two worlds cohere? Another equally important objective was to establish for this population the criteria considered relevant in matters of taste: Is the long-standing high/low distinction the most determining factor in the expression of taste, or do other classificatory schemes play a more significant role? This led to an exploration of a double complexity: that of the cultural uni verse of the elite, which is actually far more heterogeneous than one may assume a priori; and that of the multiplicity of symbolic markers that underlie the process of taste legitimization.
Constructing Lumbersexuality: Marketing an Emergent Masculine Taste Regime
Journal of Communication Inquiry, 2018
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