This is not a joke.
Loyola University Associate Professor of Marketing Jenna Drenten has noticed a viral trend on social media of people showing off their food panties. She wants Americans to know that a clean home and well-organized pantry are rooted in “racist and sexist.”
Drenten used social media influencers showing off their food pantries to make her point.
“Cleanliness has historically been used as a cultural gatekeeping mechanism to reinforce status distinctions based on a vague understanding of ‘niceness’: nice people, with nice yards, in nice houses, make for nice neighborhoods,” Drenten wrote. “What lies beneath the surface of this anti-messiness, pro-niceness stance is a history of classist, racist and sexist social structures.”
“This small space, tucked between the kitchen and dining room, was a marker of status – an area to hide both the food and the people who prepared it,” Drenten added.
From Fox News:
Drenten, citing her research, claims these viral videos of uniformly labeled and symmetrically placed supply bins, ingredient containers and shelves are created by predominantly White women and act as a “new status symbol” for what it looks like to maintain a “nice” well-kept home.
One of the first problems is that Drenten acts like the people on social media is real life and we know that’s not the case. Secondly, she shames these viral people on social media to make the reader feel bad about storing food and supplies.
She actually took a swipe at those who were able to store up some food during the pandemic.
“Perhaps it’s not surprising that pantry porn found its foothold during the COVID-19 pandemic, when shortages in the supply chain surged. Keeping stuff on hand became a symbol of resilience for those with the money and space to do so. This allure of strategic stockpiling is evident in other collector subcultures like doomsday preppers and extreme couponers,” she wrote.
She forgets one thing about those who could stock up or had already had some spare food in the pantry. Many of them (we did) gave their food away to those who needed it because it was scarce for a bit. After all, supply was dicey those first few weeks in March of 2020 were a little dicey.
Not only that food prices are expensive so if you can get something cheap right now hop on it because like gas prices you don’t what they’ll be next week.
Drenten’s piece is typical of elitist academia.
