Is Meat Male?
This study investigated the symbolic link between meat and masculinity in western cultures. The results indicated that meat (in particular, the muscle meat of mammals, such as steak) tends to be associated with masculinity. This study demonstrates that is important for animal advocates to consider the symbolic meat-male link in advocating vegetarianism, especially when advocating a meat-free diet to males.
This study used multiple psychological methods to investigate whether there is a symbolic link between meat and masculinity in western cultures. The results demonstrated that people made implicit associations between meat words and male words, that more male words were freely produced when people reported words associated with meat, and in other languages words for meat tend to be gendered as male. Males tended to eat more meat than females, and people who ate meat were judged as more masculine than people who ate fish or vegetables. Meat was rated as more masculine than other foods, but only when it was specifically mammal muscle meat (e.g. steak). The authors concluded that there is evidence for a link between muscle meat and masculinity. It was suggested that this link may be explained by the perception that mammal muscle meat provides strength and power.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/info/10.1086/664970