Sexualization of Banana Through Gender Lens
In many countries, the shape of banana makes it the most worrisome fruit to eat, particularly in public spaces. In Vietnam, women are required to break a banana into two halves before eating. This practice has been passing on through generations to last until today and has a strong implications on gender inequality, sexual autonomy, street-harassment and percieved sexual orientations. However, the sexualization of eating banana has placed rules on women than men. When a boy, I started to eat the first banana when I was 3 years old, simply removing the skin to eat, like many other boys. It was not until 10, when sitting with my female cousin to eat bananas, I noticed how she broke her banana into two halves, and ate from the middle part. As she explained, her mother had asked her to do so. “That’s how charming girls eat”. I brought the question to my Mom and was told that boys had no need to be charming. Apart from eating bananas, my cousin also refused all banana shakes, usually served with yogurts and milk, whenever we hanged out. There are more rules applied on her than I have.
Accepting the way society expects women to eat banana means to accept patriarchy, a system of institutionalized male domination against female. Agree to break banana is a way of expressing agreement that women should live and behave differently from men. In Vietnam, women play traditionally submissive gender roles. Doing what a male domination society expects is therefore, a subcription to patriarchy. In addition, the way mothers passing on this knowledge to daughters furthers the problem. “Be a charming girl” is the most popular explanation. However, all girls later understand the sexualization of eating banana as the real reason why they should not eat banana as it is. Their mothers indirectly pass on the implication that women should avoid talking about sex. Women are not expected to discuss their sexual needs with their men. Utretch University studied the linkage between gender inequality, sexual autonomy and HIV infection and concluded that wherever women were not encouraged to talk about sex, they had higher possiblity of HIV infection because they were too shy to ask their men to use safe-sex methods (Lunenburg, 2009).
The moment we eat a banana publicly, we become a sexualized object which is subjected to street harrassment. One can compare their own feeling of eating banana at home, in your own room and eating banana in public spaces, where you are surrounded by people you do not know. How do you feel? Do people look at you? Chances are someone may look at you with an unwelcomed manner. Administrator of the Facebook group WWEOT – Women who eat on tubes call members to collect secretely-taken photos from women eating banana and other phallic shape food in public to share with other members. They now have more 32,000 subcribers.
Interestingly, not only women are affected by eating banana. Banana affects people across different sexual orientation. For straight men and lesbian, who do not like penis, the act of putting banana into mouth make them uncomfortable. They are afraid of being seen of putting penis-like object into their mouth. They tend to think think: “whoever’s looking at me right now knows what I would look like with a penis in my mouth and that’s disgusting” (Jemenez, 2010). On the other hand, the same act makes gay men and women uncomfortable too. The act of putting banana into their mouth bring their mind an intimate sexual activity with a partner. And this is not something that should be in the eye of the public. They think, “whoever’s looking at me right now knows what I would look like with a penis in my mouth and that’s a violation of my privacy”. (Jemenez, 2010)
In conclusion, the sexualization of eating banana affects people of different sexual orientations. Subcribing to the practice of breaking banana into half may put women at risk of losing sexual autonomy and further patriarchy. There is no specific answer to explain the original intention of asking Vietnamese women to break banana before eating. However, personally, I believe that it is related to gender inequality. Men do not want women their women to have sexually atractive behaviours in public spaces. Men may risk losing their women to other men.
References
Jimenez, A. (2010, Aug 11). Eating bananas public. Retrieved from: https://incidentii.wordpress.com/2010/08/11/eating-bananas-in-public/
Lunenburg, M. (2009). ‘You cannot eat a sweet with a paper on it”. Sexual autonomy, gender inequality and HIV Case study at four HIV clinics in the North-West province in South Africa. Master thesis, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
