Can't I be a feminist who bakes a mean apple pie, too?
One of my dearest friends - a groomsman at our wedding and a voice of reason when I lose my mind - shared a link on Facebook the other day from the Washington Post entitled:
"The new domesticity: Fun, empowering or a step back for American women?"
I clicked on that link, unsure of what I'd find. As a young woman who identifies as a feminist, I was feeling prickly just reading the title of Emily Matchar's op-ed piece. Was she going to tell us that women were finally back in the kitchens where they belong or was she going to go 180 degrees from that and chide women who happily work to make their houses into homes?
I was happy to find that Ms. Matchar is just as prickly about the cult of domesticity as I am.
Ms. Matchar likes to make and can her own jam. Her mother, a product of feminist culture, is actively unenthusiastic about her daughter's new-found love of domestic culture. Ms. Matchar argues that she does not really view her love of canning her own jam as an endorsement of traditional gender roles. Rather, she sees the return to making you own food and creating happy space in your home as an act of self-preservation during uncertain times in our economy and society.
I stand behind Ms. Matchar's reasoning. I love to cook and I love to spend time in my house making it a home. It is not a "woman" thing that drives me to cook and make my home nice. It is a human thing. I want our home to be a place that is peaceful and happy and full of delicious food.
Through my journey this past year towards being a healthier me, my love of cooking has meant that I can control what is in everything I put in my mouth. Ms. Matchar says women are starting to embrace what our feminist mothers may have eschewed because we are more concerned with "sustainability, good food and conscious living."
Luckily for me, my mother did cook almost every night and did teach me how to cook a whole chicken and bake a mean apple pie. Now that food costs are increasing and the collective waistband of America is expanding, having cooking skills bred into me is so pricelessly valuable that I'm contemplating starting weekend cooking classes for the poor unskilled people out there who want to cook but were not borne unto a mother like mine who taught them how.
It's worth mentioning that men are not excluded from the role of homemaker. I freely admit that I am happy to cook dinner while my husband is taking the trash out and cutting the grass. Is that a gender thing or is that me simply thinking cutting grass is the LEAST appealing chore on earth?
It's a hard to say.
Ms. Matchar and I may be naive to think that putting on an apron isn't undermining our rights. But at the moment, I'm going to put down my feminist theory textbooks and pick up this FABULOUS cookbook my mom bought me recently called "Cutie Pies."
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twoday magazine wants to know: Can women enjoy "home life" and still fight for equal rights? Share your thoughts on Facebook!
erikdolnack
While there is nothing at all demeaning about making one’s home “homier”, I do feel there is a sad trend towards putting women back into the kitchen “where they belong” today. There’s still a glass ceiling on womens’ wages and opportunities in the workplace. Count the number of woman CEOs in the world today. The US still hasn’t had a female president. Few, if any, religious organizations today are led by women.
In fact, I see a very disturbing trend against Feminism today: too many wealthy executive’s wives aren’t working, but are staying at home and demoting their role to that of baby-making machine and trophy Stepford Wife. It’s actually become a negative social stigma for a married woman to work today. It means that her husband doesn’t earn enough money for her NOT to work. That’s a terrible tragedy.
But, as a male, I do blame you women yourselves for that. Instead of praising brilliant Feminist leaders such as Gloria Steinem and reading books by great Feminist thinkers like Camille Paglia, and teaching them to your daughters, you obsess over Lindsay Lohan and Kim Kardashian and care more about what some celebrity bride wore to her wedding than a great stride forward for Feminist causes today. You’d rather get back in touch with reactionary religion and play catching up with the Joneses in your spoiled yuppie neighborhoods more than you do writing articles, protesting socially, attending classes, reading intelligent discouses, and keeping your minds active and alert. Too many women care about how the other women will judge them (based on such banal values) today, rather than truly being a leader and daring to stand apart from the crowd and leading the way towards true gender equality.
We’ve come a long way from the 1960s: in a very regressive, repressive, de-evoled direction. :-(