by Divya Natarajan
[box]Do women love to cook and excel at it simply by virtue of, well, being born women? Divya Natarajan shares her thoughts.[/box]One of my most vivid memories of being at home since childhood has been the sound and aroma of tadka as it sizzles into the rasam, signalling mealtime and a sense of absolute joy.
I will unashamedly admit I’m a foodie. Nothing can perk me up better than a good meal that hits the spot (I wouldn’t say no to a book instead, though!) irrespective of time, space or location. I revel in the very act of savouring and also creating the food. I can go into raptures about the flavour of cumin, the beauty of a fresh sprig of basil and the heat of chilli and want to share both my opinions and experiments with all the people close to me.
Yet ever so often, the statement that “cooking is a woman’s job, ‘cos they just do it better” is something that never fails to rile me up. Well Mr. I’m-paying-your-race-a-compliment, why don’t you also rule that all those celebrity highly-paid male chefs and critics just give up their jobs and not expect anything other than food from women!
The idea that cooking in the personal sphere is a job to be handled by the woman and on a commercial scale by the man is absurd. No, it’s not her job – it is a heteronormative role that is a holdover from feudal times. The symbolism of cooking for femininity goes back to ancient times when the ability to cook and keep house solely determined the woman’s suitability for marriage.
We are long past such “traditional roles” – today, when women are expected to know to change their car’s oil, balance their cheque books and move their own furniture, men can definitely be expected to cut, chop and whittle to cook their own food.
The problem is that the act of cooking has been characterised by a false dichotomy – cooking for love and cooking for money. The idea that cooking for your loved ones (be it yourself) is not for men is silly, as silly as saying love and sustenance are not for men, or money is not for women. Unfortunately today, we tend to paint what we do for money as worth pride and what we do for our family as necessity. By moving away from these preconceived notions of how cooking is a gendered activity, we can step into the pleasure of enjoying our food and wanting to recreate the experience over and over again, by imagining that sound of tadka and smell of sizzling food. We can redefine the act of cooking as a shared joy in which men and women can take part, keeping in mind that there is definitely a learning curve; assuming women can magically start whipping up five course meals as soon as they step into the kitchen is as crazy as imagining batsmen walk onto the pitch for the first time and start scoring centuries – what effort you put in is what you get.
Imagine you woke up sleep-deprived, worrying about a morning presentation meeting, needing to rush to make the bus, would you rather that someone gets you breakfast or would you enjoy slaving over making breakfast, lunch and dinner – naha, not happening, right? Then, why such unrealistic expectations of women alone? A good number of us admittedly privileged, educated women in today’s generation did not grow up thinking we should put our individual interests secondary to filling the expected role of ‘feudal femininity’ which demands that we are skilled in the housewifely arts. Do you see girls learning to embroider and play the harp today to prove that they’re feminine? It’s the same with cooking – the only difference is we need food for everyday sustenance, and by we, I mean all of us, irrespective of gender. Trust me when I say there is nothing more a girl would like than to wake up to the knowledge that she is in a partnership – where responsibilities and pleasures are shared alike, not just the occasional breakfast in bed photo you can share on Facebook – she will appreciate her man much more for being caring and considerate, rather than subscribing to some misguided notions of being ‘macho’.
So stop dreaming, wake up and make me the coffee darling!
Pic : http://nevergrowingold.blogspot.in
Divya is a dreamer, bookworm and perennial student. After moving from Science to Design, she is currently pursuing her Masters in Sustainability in Cornell University. Words, be it set to music or in prose, never fail to reel her in.
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