My English speaking friends always find fascinating the concept of gender applied to day to day items in latin languages. Why is el coche masculine in Spanish? And then la voiture is feminine in French! I must agree with them that it is puzzling and there is no strong rationale for any choice. Actually, although my French is damn good after living one year in Paris and doing business in France for 2 years, I always struggle to remember which words use a different gender than in Spanish. There is no rule!

Given this antecedents, it strikes me the strong gender of chocolate in the UK. While for me it is just one of the four basic groups of food {animals, chocolate, fruits and vegetables}, a day-to-day item, in the UK has strong gender connotations.

Do you need proof? See how it is marketed. I am shocked at Yorkshire chocolate bars motto: Not for girls! and the logos they carry on the wrapping (see image). Even they declare that their chocolate is “not for hanbags!”.. Ok, if these statements make Yorkshire consumers feel more macho, so be it. When I saw that, I found it quite surprising, a very strange approach to marketing chocolate.

But then, I started to spot a trend. One of the school bars sells the delicious chocolate Divine (Any relationship with the Divine Miss N?). The chocolate quality is far superior to any other “candy chocolate bars” widespread available in the UK. This is actual chocolate, and within their range I favour the dark chocolate bar. But look at the image: The wrapping is clearly “girly”, with the heart replacing the V and the golden tones à la Louis Vuitton with a modern twist, and in the previous package it was even more obvious, with the heart painted in red.

I find this chocolate gender positioning surprising. Is this normal? Am I missing something about chocolate in the UK?

In any case, I am so pleased of not having doubts on my masculinity: I can walk around campus enjoying a bar of Divine and focusing on the intense pleasure of good dark chocolate. Thanks to life for not having to eat Yorkshire to keep up a “chocolate eating macho façade“; because, frankly, the taste of the “chocolate-candy bars” is plain disgusting.