Cleanliness, tidiness shown by 'pantry porn' trend is racist claims white Loyola professor

"What lies beneath the surface of this anti-messiness, pro-niceness stance is a history of classist, racist, and sexist social structures."

ADVERTISEMENT
Image
Hannah Nightingale Washington DC
ADVERTISEMENT

A Loyola University professor has claimed that cleanliness and tidiness, tied to the latest "pantry porn" trend on social media is connected to racism, as well as classism and sexism.

Loyola associate professor of marketing Dr. Jenna Drenten made the claims in a Tuesday piece for The Conversation, titled "'Pantry porn' on TikTok and Instagram makes obsessively organized kitchens a new status symbol."

The so-called "pantry porn" trend sees users post to social media their kitchens neatly organized, many times in various glass containers complete with labels.

Drenten wrote that this "new minimalism" movement "means more is more," an excuse to buy more products, from containers, to labels and more storage space.

"Storing spices in coordinated glass jars and color-coordinating dozens of sprinkles containers may seem trivial. But tidiness is tangled up with status, and messiness is loaded with assumptions about personal responsibility and respectability," she wrote

"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," she went on.

"What lies beneath the surface of this anti-messiness, pro-niceness stance is a history of classist, racist, and sexist social structures," she added.

Denten stated that pantries as a status symbol emerged in the late 1800s, noting that 85 percent of newly built homes in America over 3,500 square feet feature a walk-in pantry, and credited celebrities like the Kardashian-Jenner family for its prominence.

Drenten wrote that most of the influencers she saw posting such pantry productions were white women "who demonstrate what it looks like to maintain a 'nice' home by creating a new status symbol: the perfectly organized, fully stocked pantry."

The professor also tied the rise of pantry porn to the Covid-19 pandemic, writing that "Keeping stuff on hand became a symbol of resilience for those with the money and space to do so."

The work of upkeeping a stocked pantry "often falls to women in the household," she wrote, later concluding, "Pantry porn, as a status symbol, relies on the promise of making daily domestic work easier. But if women are largely responsible for the work required to maintain the perfectly organized pantry, it’s critical to ask: easier for whom?"

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Sign in to comment

Comments

Powered by StructureCMS™ Comments

Join and support independent free thinkers!

We’re independent and can’t be cancelled. The establishment media is increasingly dedicated to divisive cancel culture, corporate wokeism, and political correctness, all while covering up corruption from the corridors of power. The need for fact-based journalism and thoughtful analysis has never been greater. When you support The Post Millennial, you support freedom of the press at a time when it's under direct attack. Join the ranks of independent, free thinkers by supporting us today for as little as $1.

Support The Post Millennial

Remind me next month

To find out what personal data we collect and how we use it, please visit our Privacy Policy

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
By signing up you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy
ADVERTISEMENT
© 2024 The Post Millennial, Privacy Policy