Gendered ecologies—gendered eponyms: absence, presence, and representation of women within living memorials

Abstract Eponyms serve as one of our most common and banal forms of commemoration, naming things through references to people. While place names, such as streets or towns, can be eponyms, so too can everyday things, like birds or plants. Our work focuses on one specific form of commemorative eponym: the naming of fruit, vegetable, and grain varieties after women. We ask whether eponyms follow similar gender norms, at least in the United States, as our broader memorial landscapes. Despite global pressures toward more equality within memorial landscapes, women continue to be far underrepresented. Given the pervasiveness of eponyms, we also further isolate our questions to the curious case of eponymic commemoration within our food. How do eponymic varieties of plant-based food perpetuate and/or break from structural patterns of gendered commemoration? To do this we worked with an existing (and living) list of memorials. The list of living memorials consisted of fruits, vegetables, and grains named after people unassociated with their development. Out of a database of 310 varieties, we analyzed the development, commercialization, and representation of the eighty women commemorated. Using online archival methods and content analysis, we compare representations of varieties and open further discussion into the processes and impacts of gendered living memorials. Overall, while women may make up a slightly larger percentage of living memorials than statuary or other eponyms, many similar patterns of silencing exist. The representation of the women on this list mirrors trends of absent narratives alongside narrow windows of potential for more fully realized reparative memorialization.