Place in the kitchen: Why cooking is not a "women's" business
Modern world often considers the ability to cook as a mandatory female skill and a topic that is interesting for any woman. The information space is replete with convictions that the best gift for the beloved is a slow cooker, sticks with caramel can work wonders with men's hearts, and women are not-no-no and are asked questions from the category "should I prepare my husband if I do not eat?"
What we are taught
Cooking is still being promoted as a woman’s compulsory occupation, and not a hobby for everyone. The problem is not even in the linguistic taste of the editors who publish articles with the headings "Mendelssohn Stuff: Recipes for a Romantic Dinner," it is deeper and more serious in scale. A newspaper that flies across Russia in gigantic circulation seriously investigates whether a woman who does not love and cannot cook can rely on personal happiness. The personal happiness of such a question is equated with marriage and the presence of children, and the authors do not even hint at a different picture of the world for numerous readers (we assume that they themselves may not suspect about its existence).
With popular literature no better. The recent book First Year Married, which psychologist Julia Rubleva and restaurateur Elena Chekalova wrote for all young girls, caused a great resonance to prepare them for adulthood. This adult life, according to the authors, also begins with marriage, the role of the wife in which necessarily includes cooking. In the book, many seemingly touching digressions like Chekalova’s own mother’s memories, but unfortunately they don’t help to establish trusting relationships with the reader, but once again hammer the traditional distribution of gender roles into the subcortex, which was used half a century ago. still holding the majority of Russian families.
Food and kitchen appliances advertising is almost always aimed only at women.
Advertising always helps to understand the mindset of society. Russian, for example, is still full of blatantly sexist methods, advertising of food and kitchen appliances is no exception. Not surprisingly, it’s all aimed at women (except for exceptions in the form of special products, such as yogurt with the "masculine" taste of coffee). Most often, marketers share business advice with women, for example, they offer to hide culinary flaws with mayonnaise or feed the whole family with broth.
When it’s necessary to sell not food, but equipment, the trails that are popular in our culture are used: the husband gives his wife a cool gadget, and she rejoices, because now she can cook better food - mainly for that husband. It would be funny if it were not so sad: from such commercials it follows that, buying kitchen appliances, any man buys the services of a housewife, which his wife provides him for free, and ideally with a joyful smile. On the contrary, men's magazines do not have a separate section with recipes for the whole family. Information about food in them is limited to restaurant news, laconic life hacks about how to make chips and fry steaks (men's food!), And materials like "how to choose a wine for a girl," to which comments are superfluous.
How it all began
The stereotype that a woman’s place in the kitchen has been formed, as you might guess, a long time ago. "Since ancient times, the sexual division of labor has assumed that men act outside the family (they hunt), and women inside it (they prepare the mined). It happened even in the primitive system. Male cooks appeared much later, in a class society, together with the specialization and professionalization of labor on cooking, ”says Natalya Pushkareva, a gender analyst and president of the Russian Association of Women’s History Researchers.
"There is no doubt that in all ages women were mostly fueled in the kitchen. The mistress of a large family (and others often were not in Russia) was long since responsible for her nutrition. And, rising before dawn, the coals that had cooled off during the night , making a fire for breakfast ", - confirms Olga Syutkina, an expert in the field of cooking and the author of books on the history of Russian cuisine.
"Cooking, nourishing, tasty, and then served on time, is a guarantee of successful existence of a society where a man is the head of the family, a protector and a support, and a woman is a reliable rear. In the premodern era, the distribution of social roles, especially outside elites, In this way, adding here the absence of the right to professions that were not considered strictly feminine, we’ll get a woman who fully meets the expectations of the bearer of the stereotype, ”said cultural scientist Oksana Moroz, head of the independent research project CultLook .
In the "equal" USSR, women did homework three times more than men.
Rethinking the role of women in the kitchen begins in the New Time. In 1897, the first edition of August Bebel’s book "Woman and Socialism" was published, in which the author calls private kitchen "an institution that strains women to the utmost, takes up and wastes their time; the place where they lose their health and mood is the subject of constant worries, relic. "
By the beginning of the 19th century, instead of "cooks" and "cooks", women began to call the woman cook the "mistress". “This is fair and logical. After all, she is, in fact, the mistress of the house, the kitchen on which the family keeps,” notes Olga Syutkina. “A gift to a young mistress” was the title of the famous book of the classic of Russian culinary literature Elena Molokhovets. “Thanks to my book - she wrote, - our Russian ladies [of noble birth] stopped being embarrassed to manage their household and show up in their kitchen. "This little known letter from Molokhovets was summed up by the peculiar result of the role of a female culinary specialist in Russia. From serfs, hired AA, working in the manor houses - to the hostess, the notion that even in relation to the modern woman has changed little Regardless of economic status, marital status, living conditions of the modern woman in the view of most -. hostess of his desk, his home. "
In Soviet times, the slogan "liberate a woman from kitchen slavery" was popular. On the shelves of stores began to appear canned food and soups, rolled up in banks, and women came to work with the right to occupy leadership positions. It would seem that breathing became freer, however, according to statistics from 1978, women still did domestic work, including cooking, three times more than men: mothers of minor children, besides their main job, worked at home 35 hours and 45 minutes a week fathers - 13 hours 25 minutes a week.
At the same time, in the West, they tried to convey how disastrous kitchen sexism can be. “The famous work of American artist Martha Rosler, called“ Kitchen Semiotics ”of 1975, will be suitable for the illustration,” cultural scientist Oksana Moroz said. “In the video, the author alphabetically names and shows kitchen utensils, making gestures characteristic of tools. True, her gestures are exaggeratedly exaggerated, she wields a fork, a chopping knife for and even a hamburger press like a desperate housewife. The artist's idea was to show how violent This may be the gender division of labor in family relations. "
“Modern Russian women are often buried under the weight of exorbitant social and biological rigid expectations,” continues Frost. “On the one hand, educational and professional opportunities combined with the demand of modern society to be successful and effective lead to women's attention to career opportunities. On the other On the other hand, the constant questions about the matrimonial status that each of the women after a certain age begins to hear from their surroundings, make them think about the primacy of their own nnyh biological limits.
The presence of the stereotype “a real woman should be able to cook” to some extent seems like a litmus test of such a “transit” existence of a woman. If you burn at work, you will hardly be able to devote a proper amount of time to household chores, including cooking. But do the household members put up with this state of affairs? If you are a good housewife, able to bake wonderful pies, is it enough for high self-esteem, when all the friends brag about completely different and, by the way, monetized achievements? What to do if you are a housewife, but do not cook at all? Or are you the best SMM boxer and borscht at your office? ”
Women and the profession of cook
The exception to the "woman-kitchen" connection is the world of professional cooking art, where men have always been in the lead. "A professional chef who worked for the owner or for hire has always been a man, starting with Domostroi (1550s). And only from the end of the 18th century did Russian women have opportunities for culinary specialists. Or rather, the time begins becoming equal with their male colleagues in public opinion as professionals. Already one of the first Russian cook books is called: “The Old Russian Mistress, Key Holder and Cooker.” Written in 1790 by Russian writer Nikolai Osipov, she is dedicated to a woman: “ Her nobleness ilostivoy my Empress Anna Grigorievna nibs "", - says Olga Cyutkina.
Today, on the professional cook scene, most parties are performed by men. They walk in the woods, eat bugs, cross molecules, set trends and get Michelin stars. There are vivid examples in the world that a woman can succeed in this field: American favorite Julia Child, Ann-Sofie Peak, Michelin-star three-star chef, feminist, journalist and cook Nigel Lawson, Nadia Santini, best-chef chef in the world.
However, successful male chefs are still incomparably greater. “So, if you look at the problem of cooking not as an element of the“ domestic slavery ”of women, but as a profession, then no benefits for women over men will be noticed. Equal opportunities, competition, and an understanding that any work can become a profession which does not have sex is the key to saving stereotypes, ”says Moroz.
For professional recognition, female cooks have to work both on the stove and on sexism.
Is it difficult for women who choose to be cooks? Yes. Exceptions only prove the rule. "The kitchen is a serious, big process, it's your own world, your own terms, jokes, jokes. To integrate into this, you need to be flexible, but at the same time not lose your individuality and understand why you are in the kitchen. I can not say that I encountered with discrimination or mistrust in the kitchen, I know what I want to get from the guys, and they respect me. In the end, I myself make decisions, "says Christina Chernyakhovskaya, chef of the cafe" ISKRA ", founder of the project Meet & Greet.
In practice, for the recognition in the professional world, female cooks have to work twice as much: on the stove and on sexism. “I don’t come across discrimination and stereotypes, perhaps due to my character,” says Alena Solodovichen, brand-chef of the Varenichnaya No. 1 cafe and Kompot cafe. “Yes, you can break, give up, head down, wilt and say : “I was told that a woman cannot be a brand chef.” When I was a cook and wanted to become a senior cook, they said to me: “Forget and calm down, work as a cook and that's it.” There were barbs from male chefs and there were tears when I was hurt at meetings. " It is clear that under the normal structure of the society of conversations, the order “a woman cannot be a boss” would not exist, and women would have to spend time directly on work, rather than defending their right to a career.
What to expect?
"Today, the world is smoothly moving towards a convergence of gender roles. In this regard, Russian women are no different from European and American women. In everyday life, young people no longer have a stereotype that a real woman should be able to cook. Nevertheless, often men prefer not to cook, but do it in such a way that washing dishes and even general preparation (sometimes buying and delivering food to home, cleaning and cutting) was done by women. That is, men leave routine and boring operations to women to enjoy the process of culinary creativity. va ", says Natalya Pushkareva.
"The view that cooking is an exclusively female duty is among sexist judgments. His explanation is depressingly primitive and sounds something like this: from the distant times of our cave ancestors, men acted as procurers and protectors of the family, and there were raising children and providing family life. ”So why now and not they reproduce the same functions that are laid down by nature itself? For a long time, popular culture nurtured this stereotype. Everywhere - in advertising, films, TV shows, cartoons, you could find images of beautiful housewives who cook, cook and cook again, ”confirms Oksana Moroz.
Cooking can unite people and not become another frontier in the gender struggle.
"However, times are changing, and now the explanation of the difference in social roles by biological features looks just as adequate as the explanation of any human behavior by appealing to instincts." The persistence of the traditional way of life is explained simply: in a world where the ability to be "different" and the intention to defend your choice look like a violation of order, hiding behind stereotypes is the easiest way not to be "punished." Already more than one generation of scientists insists: belonging to the animal world does not determine human behavior. Moreover, in a society, people have the opportunity to define themselves, their identity, not in biological terms, but in social terms that are quite amenable to adjustment.
Woman and cooking - a difficult and ambiguous question. On the one hand, the big crazy world calls to live to the fullest: build a career, relationships, learn endlessly and travel. And who said that in this rhythm of life there is no place for borscht and meatballs, only to fit into your schedule, they must voluntarily, but not necessarily. On the other hand, cooking is a skill that would be nice to own everything, regardless of gender. The problems begin when the husband is surprised that the spouse who returned from work ten minutes ago did not set the table, and the mother-in-law is outraged that you do not have a mash to eat in your house. Cooking is an activity that should unite people, men and women, and not become another frontier in the gender struggle.
Photo: 1, 2, 3, 4 via Shutterstock
