For years we associated cooking as feminine even though star chefs were often men, amirite?

Cooking (servile) = stereotypically women Cooking (professionally) = stereotypically men Talk about double standards

by Mother_Lychee 1 year ago

i also feel like this double standard has caused a lot of guys be unable to feed themselves well. Cooking should just be something people learn in general

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Right? "Alpha males" care about resilience and survival when it's about fighting an alligator or building a shack in a frozen tundra or something, but not if it involves regularly feeding yourself. I wonder which of those things comes up more.

by Alternative-Ask 1 year ago

Well, I live in the famous frozen alligator tundra of north america surviving off raw gators, so 🐊

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Frozen gators?

by Anonymous 1 year ago

you just pop them in the microwave

by Anonymous 1 year ago

I've been watching a lot of Outdoor Boys channel lately, and my favorite part of each video is always the moment when he starts cooking after finishing building the shelter. Man, having a well-deserved nutritious meal after all the hard work has to be the most enjoyable part of all the outdoor activities.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

"Alpha males" should obviously having women cook for them. Duh

by Impossible_Cow_4566 1 year ago

Ya but an alligator fight counts for at least a half-dozen home cooked meals

by Anonymous 1 year ago

What, there's tons of gym bros that are obsessed with cooking.

by Kalebhowe 1 year ago

Good for them! I guess those aren't the guys I'm talking about.

by Alternative-Ask 1 year ago

The disparity between genders is really non existent for younger generations, unfortunately, young women can barely cook either.

by Kalebhowe 1 year ago

Patriarchy hurts men

by Due_Owl 1 year ago

Double standards around basic life skills have pushed a bunch of people into bad relationships and kept them there because they need a man/woman to take care of them.

by EquivalentPea 1 year ago

Yes, this. And it makes women feel like less of a woman if they dont cook

by Odd-Height7187 1 year ago

Yeah while they should be feeling less of a human.

by blandarobb 1 year ago

It seems today that women cook far less than they used to.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

To be fair if you choose not to learn how to cook because of your fragile masculinity, you probably deserve to starve.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

imagine being such a man-child that you can't even feed yourself

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Same sexist double standard in couture/fashion.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Interestingly, the stereotype of a man in fashion is a gay man, while men in cuisine are stereotyped as pretty dominant, heteronormative.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

The stereotype of female chefs isn't very feminine/heteronormative either.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

wait you are right lol, never noticed

by Hammesara 1 year ago

My wife's uncle is gay, and he worked as a chef for a few years before moving overseas with his partner after retiring. The kitchen was in the weeds when my wife and I went to have lunch there, and we could hear him back there trying to help them catch up and directing the chaos. Only thing was, instead of being a Gordon Ramsey style tirade, it was just 100% sass. And it was glorious.

by glen55 1 year ago

And in teaching and in healthcare and in the office… In fact it's hard to think of something women are better at outside the home. Porn? /s —— Old fart here, this is what blows my mind about the current gender culture war. There are all these old sexist gender roles, and I think it's easy to agree that they are bad. Saying, "girls have to do this, boys have to do this" is bad. 25 years ago I would have predicted androgyny would be the thing we strive for. But the current trend is to obsess about labels and boxes.

by Uptonvance 1 year ago

I don't think you are fighting against their point, they're mocking the idea of having gendered jobs as seen with the "/s". The one different point is that they think we should blur the lines more (the androgyny they mentioned) and not divide ourselves in more boxes. At least that's what I understood.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Yea like ages ago it made sense due to labor division but now we don't need to do that.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Domestic free labor = women Professional paid labor outside of the home = men

by Jenkinsivory 1 year ago

That's because on average most professional chefs are men and in most families the woman cooks.

by Equivalent_Copy_624 1 year ago

servile?

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Traditionally, that would be accurate. Thank god times are changing

by Early_Childhood 1 year ago

It is to some. I don't agree, but there's also plenty that disagree with me.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

There's a whole book about this and it's a great read. Something from the Oven by Laura Shapiro.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Cooking family dinner = sterotypicall men

by Organic_Still_5837 1 year ago

Yup. It's funny how artistic things are considered feminine yet for years women were not allowed to be professional painters/ writers/ poets and in some parts of the world, still aren't.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Well that explains the feminimity in younger japanese men.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Ah, but it's a woman's job until it gets you money and recognition, then it becomes a man's job.

by HelpfulEntertainer 1 year ago

Just like computing.

by polly76 1 year ago

No, "computing" just became a different job.

by Kalebhowe 1 year ago

Computing was seen as clerical work. The first "computers" were women doing math by hand.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

It's a completely different job with different skill sets. It's not "low level computing is a woman's job and then upper levels are all men" which is what the original person implied. The entire scope of the job changed to the point where it's not comparable

by Clementinakrajc 1 year ago

I think you took it a little too literally. It happened over time.

by PlantainKey9537 1 year ago

I took what they said as what they meant, which was "it's a woman's job until you get money and recognition then it becomes a man's job". It's just nonsense generalising that suggests men dont do jobs with zero money or recognition. I mentioned a bin man elsewhere and someone tried to pipe in that they get 70k a year. It's just making things up to justify a bias.

by Clementinakrajc 1 year ago

Now you're just being deliberately obtuse.

by PlantainKey9537 1 year ago

Yeah that was also over 40 years ago. Are we not talking about current events?

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Up until the 1960s, before people really completely grasped the usefulness of computers, programming was predominantly seen as women's work. Then it shifted to be seen as men's work, and the (men's) pay and recognition also increased

by Anonymous 1 year ago

I was going to touch on your last bit that in general professional catering/chef just sounds like an awful experience for everyone not named head chef. I'm sure there are favourites and I can't imagine it's easy for women in that environment, but that entire industry just needs pulling down and rebuilding

by Clementinakrajc 1 year ago

While I appreciate your struggles and those of your coworkers, surely, if a man was paid more for the same level of rank and expertise who would hire men, as from a commerce perspective hiring cheaper women would make more profit?

by Gennaro64 1 year ago

A lot of people still do. And it's largely still true. Globally, women prepare, on average, more than twice as many meals as men. Nearly 9 a week versus the 4 that men do. So while there might be more high profile celebrity chefs who are men, it's certainly not because men cook more than women. If anything, it says more about the inequality of opportunity for advancement for women in the culinary world.

by Lucky-Rub-6351 1 year ago

Its really because no one wants to actually pay for food that's been doused in those girly tears women are always shedding for one reason or another /s

by Straight_Plum 1 year ago

You smell like eye boogers and low t

by Anonymous 1 year ago

I don't understand how anybody can only prepare 9 meals a week, let alone 4. I don't eat breakfast but with lunch and dinner I still prepare 14 meals a week. Are large numbers of people only eating one meal a day

by cordie38 1 year ago

There are a lot of people that only eat 1-2 real meals a day, then snack. But also, the key word is prepare. It doesn't count reheating leftovers, ordering out or meals prepared for you by someone else. There are loads of adults out there who never cook at all and just eat out every meal or eat premade stuff.

by Lucky-Rub-6351 1 year ago

that's a perfect representation of misogyny. anything having status, power or is considered valuable is associated with men, all the menial, not so well regarded things? yeah that's a women's job.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

This doesn't apply equally though does it. low paid armed forces grunts are typically men, manual labour jobs are typically men - I don't think many in society grow up admiring the power and status of a bricklayer or a garbage collector.

by Clementinakrajc 1 year ago

I mean it says "anything with power and status....is seen as mans work". It didn't offer any restrictions.

by Clementinakrajc 1 year ago

Yes, but that's different from saying that "all (typically) men's work is seen as work with power and status", which you were (rightfully so) arguing against. A different example would be to say that "any animal with a spine that flies in the air is a bird". This is (as far as I know) a correct statement. You then said "not all birds are animals with spines that fly, though" which is also correct (there are birds that cannot fly). But it also doesn't contradict the first statement.

by luisapurdy 1 year ago

you have to ask yourself why these jobs dont have many women in them, and it mostly comes down to society deeming it "not a woman's job" (and by society, i mean the higher ups, typically men, who are responsible for hiring these people)

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Except for countries which have the greatest level of social equity the opposite is true. In Scandinavia the level of women in "women's jobs" increased despite much greater opportunities to enter into "male" careers. Society in the UK needs to do a better job of encouraging more people into more diverse fields, but at a point there ARE gender differences between who works what job that go beyond "man keeps woman down".

by Clementinakrajc 1 year ago

I mean, there's the physical aspect of brick laying. Most women won't want/can't do that all day

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Regardless of gender in all of this. I'd argue fairly strongly that while associated, home cooking and restaurant cooking are very different tasks.

by Critical-Ad-473 1 year ago

This Cooking for a family of 4 at home in no way prepares you to be a chef in a restaurant.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Because men who cook deserve to be paid and women who cook should shut up and cook more. /s

by Anonymous 1 year ago

It's the sexism guys

by Jazzlike_Can 1 year ago

Idk why people ignore it. Same reason men acted as women in plays a long time ago.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

I think it depends on the country, in mine fathers and men usually are good cooks at home, not even in a professional environment.

by Slow-Savings-7512 1 year ago

Exactly

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Never understood that: "Women belong in the kitchen. Unless it's a professional kitchen at which point no girls allowed."

by whitecatherine 1 year ago

patriarchy is dumb and i'm a patriarch

by mark36 1 year ago

Basic cooking is important for anyone, unless you are happy with eating out every day. Intermediate cooking is the ability to follow a recipe. Advanced cooking is the ability to play with recipes, changing the tastes and looks. ---- The more people you are cooking for, the more reason you have to make something fancy. If you are cooking for 4 and it takes you 20 minutes of time, that is 5 minutes per person. If you are just cooking for yourself, usually something simpler is better.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

"But I do think the idea that basic cooking skills are a virtue, that the ability to feed yourself and a few others with proficiency should be taught to every young man and woman as a fundamental skill, should become as vital to growing up as learning to wipe one's own ass, cross the street by oneself, or be trusted with money." -Bourdain (may he rest in peace)

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Meh, plenty people do fine without doing any cooking beyond warming up some things or making a sandwich. Depends a bit on the culture if it should be necessary I think. Lots of countries eating out is only for more fancy things and every house comes equipped with a kitchen. There are also places where cooking is tough (no kitchen) but eating out is very cheap and plenty healthy options. It's like driving, doing household chores, computer privacy proficiency, swimming and a bunch of other skills. 'should' everyone be able to do that?

by Proof-General 1 year ago

A lot of people survive without properly wiping their asses and never using their turn signals. It doesn't mean that it's a generally ok thing.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Where does "cooking while keeping your cooking area fairly clean" fall in? When I cook at home, I keep the kitchen counter fairly clean while doing it. When my wife cooks at home, it looks like a bomb went off in the kitchen.

by sabinahammes 1 year ago

Dude I blew my college roommates mind when I showed him you could clean dishes during the occasional few minutes of downtime

by edwin33 1 year ago

Lmao At the very least, put stuff in the sink, stack things up, put spices away, and throw bags, inedible stuff, and other trash away. Like I don't fully clean, but the counters are at least clear. Sometimes I might fill up the dishwasher. It's not hard.

by sabinahammes 1 year ago

I would argue that following a recipe is basic cooking. There's no thinking, and the only knowledge necessary are the various basic cooking methods (boiling water, frying on a pan, deep frying, baking in an oven, etc). Intermediate cooking would be the ability to play with recipes and change them. At that point, you have the knowledge necessary to understand some of the relationships between different ingredients. At advanced cooking, you have a full understanding of one type of cuisine, and how its ingredients interact with each other and how each cooking method affects them. Thus at an advanced level, you don't need recipes at all.

by Significant-Race 1 year ago

Oh, you see, the thing is that cooking IS feminine. But if someone does ir for a living and actually earns money, respect, and status from it, then it's masculine, because only men can earn money, respect, and status with their jobs (I mean this sarcastically)

by Complete_Rabbit_6614 1 year ago

Wonder why !! (Hint: starts with p, ends with y, rhymes with patriarchy)

by Key_Extension7903 1 year ago

Pastryarchy

by leilaniraynor 1 year ago

Ahh, but see, there's the twist: women are, more often than not, professional bakers. Men just do the chef-ing. Also, great joke. I lol'd.

by ChampionshipFar4437 1 year ago

Cooking is also transforming from a necessity with a few artistic liberties occasionally sprinkled in to a performance art.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

ANd all girls are horse crazy but all jokeys are tiny men...

by Available-Smoke 1 year ago

I don't think anyone thinks that all girls are horse crazy. I do think that all horse crazy girls be crazy though…

by Creepy-Lychee655 1 year ago

Same goes for computer scientists. They used to think programming was feminine because it was a desk job. Now they want more women in engineering.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

same here brother

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Cooking and cheffing is incredibly different.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

I don't care who you are basic to intermediate cooking is one of the most important life skills. My teenager loves cooking, very happy he loves to cook. The amount of younger people who don't know how to make a basic meal is disturbing.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Cooking at home is feminist. Cooking professionally is masculine. Cooking while out ( eg at a BBQ ) is masculine. Cooking on a BBQ at home is masculine. Jeez, this is getting confusing. Can we not just say anybody can and should cook and forget about stereotypes?

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Because, domestically, it was, for obvious reasons. But as a profession the "greater male variability" hypothesis kicks in. Can't quite remember all the details, but basically means you'll see more men at the extremes. More geniuses, but also more dumbasses.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

I think it more lies in that women were expected to cook alongside a wide variety of other things, so almost all women learned to cook, but none had enough time to become experts at it, even if they wanted to. Whilst men could focus on a single job, so if they chose to go into cooking, they could spend all their time doing it and perfecting their craft.

by Gloomy-Score-6403 1 year ago

The funny thing is that men are considered more "genius" often for simply being men For example, in classical music if you do a blind skill demonstration but tell the examiners that the person playing the instrument is male, they will often rank them as a "more skilled player" than if you tell them that the musician is female, even if the gender is actually the opposite. So if you're hiring a chef, you might have an inherent assumption when you're tasting food from two chefs, that the male chef is going to be better, and therefore your brain tricks you into believing it must be better, so you end up hiring the male chef. This is especially true if the actual skils are closer together. Same goes for careers, sociologists have noticed that as more women enter a lucrative respected profession, such as being a doctor, people's respect for doctors and their perception of the difficulty of the job goes down instead of them seeing women as more competent. Meaning women are automatically judged as less impressive, even when they out-perform men. This is called inherent bias and it exists in our society because of patriarchal norms.

by Mrippin 1 year ago

It's not hard to prove that there's more men at the extremes of bell curves than women, it's has been proven.

by Kalebhowe 1 year ago

I'm pretty sure that hypothesis still doesn't have any empirical evidence backing it up.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

There's plenty of studies on it. Just like there is practically anything. You should say convincing evidence

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Look around. Do you see equal numbers of men and women geniuses?

by Anonymous 1 year ago

That's because chef is a job and cooking is a task. Jobs are always associated with men

by Anonymous 1 year ago

There are so many things that have a very fine line in our society between the femine and masculine. Even for cooking there are more levels. Baking = feminine Smoking/grilling = mascline Tying knots = masculine Crochet/knitting =feminine Painting/crafting = feminine Unless it's on the house then it's masculine. I have noticed when I break things down like this, the more technical or detailed a thing becomes, the more feminine it seems to appear. For example, most knots are also used in crochet/knitting/braiding but the latter is a feminine thing.

by Due_Distribution1180 1 year ago

Even self servicing seem like the femine version is a more technical then the masculine.

by Due_Distribution1180 1 year ago

Star chefs are usually grandmothers!! :)

by Anonymous 1 year ago

It's almost like centuries of living under a patriarchy might have some influence in who we call experts and elevation of men's work over women's...

by DeliciousMirror6137 1 year ago

Household cooking was feminine.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

I mean on that note daily reminder a lot of feminine clothing actually started out as guy clothing.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Funny. I never have. Also funny, I have met very few women or men who can cook outside of the habits taught by their parents.

by Kshlerinbryana 1 year ago

It's the same for hairdressers for some reason

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Boys make the best girls, as always

by Mialabadie 1 year ago

Who is "We"? Woman love a man that can cook is what I've been told all my life.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Same with designing dresses

by quintenturner 1 year ago

I've found that when it's "free" (cooking at home), it's considered "women's work", and when it's paid (chef) then it's a "boys club". (For the most part. I'm not saying "all")

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Our family had the women in the control of the house, and the men in control of the outside. The men were literally not allowed to cook if there was a woman there to object to it or to at least watch over their shoulder and tell them they were doing it WRONG. I did learn to cook once I left home. It's not hard. Just follow the recipe if it's something you've not tried before. ...though pre-pack stir-fry was a staple dinner for a while.

by Super-Phrase-1815 1 year ago

Almost the same thing with dancing actually And singing as well

by Anonymous 1 year ago

In Ratatouille, that characater (forgot her name) was ranting about how the gastronomic space was dominated by men and such, felt ironic

by ImportanceFew 1 year ago

Colette! She's the goat!

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Because women are seen as servants.

by Mountain_Scene_2778 1 year ago

I guess men are better at everything, even if it's a womans job.

by Fresh-Ad 1 year ago

I love cooking and I'm a man.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Unpaid cooking is feminine.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

In the Seychelles islands it's common for men to cook in the family

by Anonymous 1 year ago

as it should be, everyone should know how to cook

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Dating a chef. She's a baker and baking and cooking are very much about understanding the chemical processes. Where all the men wanted to do was char meat which is just about applying heat till it's done.

by SuccessfulHope 1 year ago

Different levels of intensity in being a home-cook and a professional chef. One cooks for one table, the other cooks for many tables.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Also there is a lot of pressure on women who don't know how to cook. To me it is an activity everyone should be able to do, just like brushing your teeth or putting away laundry, eating -therefore cooking, should be the same.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Wait…y'all…did we just discover misogyny?!?

by Bstroman 1 year ago

Yep, gotta love that societal flavor of gender seasoning sprinkled on everything

by AgitatedMud 1 year ago

It's a historically recent phenomenon.

by Sweet-Bee1331 1 year ago

It's not. Roman empire had celebrity chefs.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Maybe i didn't explain myself correctly. I was agreeing with OP's statement. The notion that women belong in the kitchen or that they cook better is historically recent.

by Sweet-Bee1331 1 year ago

What do you mean be we?

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Because women can't even.get that right

by GreedyAd 1 year ago

Star everything are often men. Women are mid in every field that exists today.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Wonder why (hint: starts with p ends with y, rhymes with patriarchy)

by Key_Extension7903 1 year ago

Being a genius has nothing to do with patriarchy or any other excuse you are gonna make. Men from very adverse backgrounds excelling at things prove that.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Yeah not true and of course a dumb ass statement to make.

by DeliciousMirror6137 1 year ago

Look around maybe you'll see the truth.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

There is a reason for that but its taboo now so we cant speak about it

by Connect_Egg 1 year ago

How about looking at the way society and patriarchy in general for hundreds of years has given men's talents, voices and opinions priority over women. How women weren't even allowed education or the right to work or have a profession. How their talents were seen as less worthy or ignored? Why is it "no surprise" the best are men? What absurdly ignorant and misogynistic statemebt

by DeliciousMirror6137 1 year ago

"The way to a man's heart is through his stomach"

by Prosaccotheron 1 year ago