Gender Roles: The First

So this will probably the first in a long installment of blog rants regarding gender roles, or at least it will be if I can remember to write about them by the time I'm at my computer.

To begin: Yesterday, I watched an infomercial for some sort of kitchen gadget clearly marketed for women. "Tired of your children... (watch them make a mess in the kitchen), your husband... (watch him use a blender without the lid), etc. Then you need 'x'!" Blah.

I would like to say, for once and for all (not that anybody reads this, and not that I am any authority anyone would listen to), that men are not naturally and permanently unable to cook. I am not aware of any biological cooking gene that is passed only from woman to woman. There isn't "just something about women" that makes them good cooks, and there isn't something "inherent in men" that makes them useless in the kitchen. That women are just "meant" for the kitchen is a strange and stupid social assumption, as no person comes out of the womb ready to cook. Sure, some people seem to have talents in certain things, but those talents, again, are not gender exclusive. To paraphrase Ratatouille, anyone can learn to cook.

Ironically, top chefs in our society (as with top anythings in our society) are predominately male. How any woman could joke with her husband about his predisposed inability to cook, or take verbal or other sorts of abuse about her identity as a cook, while watching any of the popular top chef television shows without noticing some sort of cultural clash is beyond me. I mean, come on! This doesn't make sense.

I have this picture in my head of a bi-weekly cooking day wherever I live with whatever children I have. For simplicity's sake I usually only picture two children, one of each sex. One day is girl's turn to cook with mommy, the other is boy's. We will make fun things, complicated things, very hands-on things. When they are older they will each know how to cook. Maybe they will enjoy cooking, maybe they won't, but the important thing is that each tried, and each made their decision because of (personal preference?) and not ridiculous social gender stereotypes.