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| This is not my baking. This is from last year. The big 3.0. That's Michelin starred chocolate icing you're seeing there. ≈ |
Today my husband turns 31. I’m not sure how he feels about this because I haven’t seen him. You see, the news never stops and he is unlucky enough to cover the graveyard shift. This means our working patterns fall at exactly the opposite times of day. Ships that pass in the night doesn’t even cover it.
He doesn’t appear to care much about the lack of celebration. I, however, feel really bad; like I’m cruelly sending him out to forage in the cold dark night on his birthday while I stay at the homestead luxuriously enjoying the fruits of his labours.
I felt I had to make up for it. So yesterday, after a busy shift at my own particular coal face, I rushed home with two bags full of shopping ready to cook and bake my way into perfect wifedom. If I can’t be there to celebrate with him, then I can leave some yummy treats in my place.
Now, I was pretty happy doing this. I like cooking. I think it’s because you see instant results: the food itself, the greedy gobbling of the people you are cooking for. I like the gratitude it brings too. When you’re a teacher, you don’t get many people being grateful for your efforts. But, you know, it does seem a bit Stepford. Not very radical. Not very feminist.
I wonder if he would do the same? I don’t mean to say that he wouldn’t think of some sort of small gesture on my birthday, because of course he would, he’s a pretty nice guy. But I doubt he’d cook for me. He’d buy me something like… flowers? Chocolate? Or maybe a book. But that’s as imaginative as it gets.
What worries is how easily we slip into gender stereotypes. I really wanted to find a way of doing something cute and what I came up with was slaving in the kitchen (and I even did the washing up – yuk!) Oh, my mum tries to claim that it’s all ok as long as you have the choice. But choice as a concept is problematic. If I’m so conditioned to react in a gendered way to problems then my choices seem limited indeed. But I can’t be sure that it isn’t just a personality quirk and nothing to do with my gender. And if I am drawn to cooking because I’ve been socially programmed that way, I don’t really know how to unpick the hard wiring. Or even if I should let it worry me.
You know mum, come to think of it, there is a possibility I wasn’t really choosing all that pink as a little girl either…
Dhari chooses pink more often than not. He loves it. And I was baking yesterday too, but not for Felix.
ReplyDeleteI believe it all comes down to how we raise our children from day one. If children are exposed to environments with traditional gender role stereotype reinforcement, then that's what the children will integrate into their lives and it will shape them for the rest of their lives. The same goes for the opposite. Television also reinforces gender roles. the only good program I know that it almost absent of gender roles is the Magic School Bus series. But children shouldn't watch tv until they're older anyway.
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