Women Can't Cook

[Milagai]

to JGM: your experiences reflect a particular era and society.

when I grew up (60's and 70's, middle class India) all our moms

cooked, dads mostly wouldn't dream of stepping into the kitchen.

BUT all our moms had household help to do most of the cooking.

Most Indian middle class moms learnt to cook because they

*had* to when the help dried up....

My mother didn't enter the kitchen until after her marriage

and there was no-one else to cook....

Then it became her job (she was home while my dad worked)

and she's the best cook I know....

Milagai

[Carrot Top]

Ethos

Pathos

Logos

......................................

These three principles drive any piece of rhetoric and by them we can define its validity and truth.

*The clear ethical and moral base of the person presenting the argument.

*The sense of emotional connection or importance that resides within the argument.

*The logic of the argument.

..............................................

Do these three things reside within this piece of rhetoric? (Ramsay's).

Edited October 28, 2005 by Carrot Top (log)

[Ling]

Ling, you should take a study away semester at Duke.  We can cook together and educate the Subway and McDonalds eating masses.  Seriously though, people like us are few and far in between.  I think it says something that we hardly know anyone our age who has an notable interest in food. 

There seems to be a general lack of interest and prevalence of laziness, but, as you mentioned, educating people is half the fun.  I took a group of my friends to Jean Georges (a personal favorite of mine) in for lunch in NYC and cooked for them pretty extensively over Columbus Day Weekend, and they began to truly understand my passion.  It's especially cool to see friends, girls especially, who previously had no interest in cooking suddenly come alive when confronted with good and challenging food. 

If I may cite another anecdote (which, if you've been following this thread over the past couple pages, is what got me into this whole mess in the first place), I would like to recall the story of one of my closet friends from Miami.  Up until our trip to Jean Georges, she had been accustomed to eating the traditional Cuban food of her housekeeper.  She had never tried any kind of raw seafood, didn't even know what kind of seafood she liked (remarking that "my housekeeper knows, not me"), and was afraid to try many different types of ethnic food.  At our extended luncheon, she tried, and enjoyed, raw hamachi and foie gras, two items that were well-entrenched in the "gross" category.  I honestly believe that experiences like this are what motivate people to get into food.  She plainly states that even in the short time she's known me, she has learned more about food than any other time in her life.

It is not my belief (nor is it Ramsay's) that women cannot cook by their nature; they simply choose not to and do not suffer for this decision because of the availability of convenience food and the breakdown of traditional gender roles.  Outside of communities like eG, cooking still has an oppressive connotation associated with it, and for that reason young women are not motivated to become involved.  Only through education, from a mother/grandmother/father/good friend who respects food, will the oppressive conotations of cooking be lessened.

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I probably can't afford the airfare or the tuition at Duke, especially if your idea of education involves Jean-Georges. I have my hands full paying for my own education, car, clothing, living expenses, etc. Furthermore, I'm not sure we share the same philosophy on food and friends. Besides, I'm a horrible driver. You shouldn't let a simpleton like me within 10 ft. of your super expensive car.

I mentioned in my earlier post that I do take joy when a friend can tell the difference between my cakes and a Safeway cake, but I don't judge a friend who doesn't appreciate food the way I do. Is a friend to be looked down upon simply because he likes Kraft dinner? Should he look down on me simply because I don't understand hockey? I should hope true friendship is not based on something superficial.

It's lamentable that cooking has somewhat of an oppressive connotation for women. Not every woman feels that way, though. I think being in the kitchen is one of the most liberating places to be, both creatively and artistically.

[Megan Blocker]

Is a friend to be looked down upon simply because he likes Kraft dinner? Should he look down on me simply because I don't understand hockey? I should hope true friendship is not based on something superficial.

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Amen to that...

I think being in the kitchen is one of the most liberating places to be, both creatively and artistically.

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...and that.

[BryanZ]

Is a friend to be looked down upon simply because he likes Kraft dinner? Should he look down on me simply because I don't understand hockey? I should hope true friendship is not based on something superficial.

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I'm a judgemental person. There's not a much more I can say there that pertains to this topic, so I'll leave it at that.

I think being in the kitchen is one of the most liberating places to be, both creatively and artistically.

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I wholeheartedly agree with this.

I refuse to eat Safeway cakes.

Edited October 28, 2005 by BryanZ (log)

[laurenmilan]

I think there's a big difference between not choosing to cook every single day and night, and not being able to cook. To state that women can't cook is patently ridiculous.

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I actually have seen a lot of women my age (& some baby boomers) who view my cooking skills, amateur though they may be, as a sort of sorcery. They are completely flabbergasted as to how food gets from shopping cart to serving platter, as if my hair should go white from my "life force" being drained out of me by the magic of cooking.

I know that over a century ago, critics were lamenting that young women were getting their recipes from Fanny Farmer instead of their own mothers & grandmothers. So the disconnect from family tradition ain't exactly a new phenomenon. And it seems like with a lot of baby boomers, including my mother, there's a sort of defiance against time in the kitchen, like it's a form of slavery, or something they don't have time to "waste" on. And with my generation... a lot of us did not see our mothers cooking, and so for some, I can only guess that it appears to be a skill well beyond the scope of mere mortals!

Because of this, I really can't be offended in the least by GR's accusation, it seems quite spot-on with what I see around me... namely, folks watching TV Food Network like it's the Discovery Channel: "Oooh, lookit that, how the hell did they do that?" as they just watched it BEING DONE for the past 20 minutes.

[BryanZ]

I think there's a big difference between not choosing to cook every single day and night, and not being able to cook. To state that women can't cook is patently ridiculous.

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I actually have seen a lot of women my age (& some baby boomers) who view my cooking skills, amateur though they may be, as a sort of sorcery. They are completely flabbergasted as to how food gets from shopping cart to serving platter, as if my hair should go white from my "life force" being drained out of me by the magic of cooking.

I know that over a century ago, critics were lamenting that young women were getting their recipes from Fanny Farmer instead of their own mothers & grandmothers. So the disconnect from family tradition ain't exactly a new phenomenon. And it seems like with a lot of baby boomers, including my mother, there's a sort of defiance against time in the kitchen, like it's a form of slavery, or something they don't have time to "waste" on. And with my generation... a lot of us did not see our mothers cooking, and so for some, I can only guess that it appears to be a skill well beyond the scope of mere mortals!

Because of this, I really can't be offended in the least by GR's accusation, it seems quite spot-on with what I see around me... namely, folks watching TV Food Network like it's the Discovery Channel: "Oooh, lookit that, how the hell did they do that?" as they just watched it BEING DONE for the past 20 minutes.

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Yay! Another rational and objective post I can appreciate.

[*Deborah*]

I think there's a big difference between not choosing to cook every single day and night, and not being able to cook. To state that women can't cook is patently ridiculous.

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I actually have seen a lot of women my age (& some baby boomers) who view my cooking skills, amateur though they may be, as a sort of sorcery. They are completely flabbergasted as to how food gets from shopping cart to serving platter, as if my hair should go white from my "life force" being drained out of me by the magic of cooking.

I know that over a century ago, critics were lamenting that young women were getting their recipes from Fanny Farmer instead of their own mothers & grandmothers. So the disconnect from family tradition ain't exactly a new phenomenon. And it seems like with a lot of baby boomers, including my mother, there's a sort of defiance against time in the kitchen, like it's a form of slavery, or something they don't have time to "waste" on. And with my generation... a lot of us did not see our mothers cooking, and so for some, I can only guess that it appears to be a skill well beyond the scope of mere mortals!

Because of this, I really can't be offended in the least by GR's accusation, it seems quite spot-on with what I see around me... namely, folks watching TV Food Network like it's the Discovery Channel: "Oooh, lookit that, how the hell did they do that?" as they just watched it BEING DONE for the past 20 minutes.

←

Yay! Another rational and objective post I can appreciate.

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At the least, it is a learned skill.

At the greatest, it is a talent more akin to creative genius, producing art.

It is, nonetheless, not defined by gender or age.

Whether or not it is considered a quotidian task, a fashionable skill, wizardry or a torturous chore has nothing to do with the fact that women are as capable of doing it (although judging from empirical evidence, perhaps less likely to toot their own horns about it) as men.

[Irishgirl]

^ah but Deborah, these men are upset that women are doing it less. They are upset because of the stereotype. Women are supposed to stay home and learn how to cook....so they can be useful to their men.

And being judgemental is one thing, but hating people is another.

I am annoyed by people that don't use their brain. It doesn't mean i hate them.

[Carrot Top]

Let's try it on this way for size, shall we?

"Recent headlines proclaim that WOMEN CAN COOK!!! Studies and evidence show that contrary to a growing belief that women can not cook, that indeed they can - and that astonishingly, they have been doing so since the beginning of recorded time.

The lack of knowledge surrounding this fact has conclusively been linked to the grumblings of hungry men who don't like the fact that they can no longer count on finding the little lady waiting for them in the kitchen with her apron on after their long hard day at the office, offering up a beer, a cookie, and a smile.

These men say they want their Tasty Cakes, and they want them FRESH and NOW and JUST THE WAY THEY LIKE THEM MADE! not from the damn grocery store that they might have to drive the car to in order to get them.

The newest wave of information also includes data that suggests these men will next be claiming that women can not raise the children, either.

Further studies to follow."

Pah.

[Megan Blocker]

Yay!  Another rational and objective post I can appreciate.

←

Because she agrees with you?

I, too, find Lauren's post to be well-considered and thought out, but so are many of the posts here that are going the other way...like mine.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

Continue with the much higher level of discourse...

[BryanZ]

Honestly, the underhanded personal attacks need to stop. They add nothing to the topic. I think a little common courtesy goes a long way in a debate.

If I may flatly state my beliefs for those who enjoy bashing them:

1) The average American or W. European woman now cook less than her forebearers.

2) The above-named group likely cares less about cooking than their forebearers for numerous personal and sociological reasons

3) Ramsay is correct in making the above observations.

4) It upsets me that women are choosing to cook less because I like people who cook

5) In my experience I have less respect for people who can't cook (yes this includes, but is not limited to, young women) because I am a judgemental individual and like to cook

These are not sexist beliefs. Anyone is more than welcome to refute those, but to nitpick on the semantics of the word "hate" or to take quotes out of context is both immature and unproductive. Again, the majority of posters, who also happen to see the truth in Ramsay's statement, reinforce the fact that my beliefs, except for possibly the last one, are not that outlandish.

Unless deborah, or Irishgirl, or carrottop, or anyone else can bring in pertinent information (perhaps a figure that dictate more women are cooking recreationally now than ever before, or something to that effect), I'm done here. I feel I've outlined my point sensibly and have backed up my beliefs with pertinent anecdotal evidence.

[Carrot Top]

Three things stand out in my mind from the previous discussion above - one is where someone stated that perhaps women are *not* learning to cook out of a sense of self-preservation. The other is where it was mentioned that women have a wonderful opportunity to pass the culture of cookery on to their children (as they always have) as it is their "way" or their place to do so. The third is the mention that it traditionally *has* been the women that do the home cooking.

It is now different.

It used to be traditional that men were the sole breadwinners and the woman had the "job" of running the household. Now the women are the breadwinners too. They log in as many hours as men in general. Therefore "tradition" must need to change somehow, or one of the sexes will be handling more than a decent share of the work of providing a decent life. *Has* it changed?

Women do have a wonderful opportunity as the *traditional* ones in the kitchen to pass these things on to their children. But. How much time do the women have to do this? It is important here, to hear from the women who *do* work, who *do* try to cook - for accurate information on their own situations. It is vital not to generalize about the possibilities and potential that another persons life *should* have. (i.e. "Let us not speak till we have walked a mile in someone elses shoes.")

Lastly the idea of self-preservation. It could be that when, in this confused society that we live in, the time comes that men show equal interest in caring for the family in the ways of "cookery" and its close sister in home-making, "cleanery", and that they prove competent and willing to be equal partners, that the idea of self-preservation will no longer need be in anyone's minds.

God willing that we should be brought to such a place, and as soon as possible.

Everyone, clearly, would benefit.

(Except perhaps the tired man at the end of the work day who will be entering the kitchen alongside his wife and children. Then of course, the question asks begging: What will they cook? A fine dinner a la fancy restaurant? Or more likely a burger and fries? What will the answer be, when the children are yammering and hungry after their own long day. . .)

[*Deborah*]

My dear boy (I use this term in reference to your youth), I defy you to find anything resembling a personal attack on you in my posts.

It's Ramsay I called a supercilious twit.

I merely called you on your condescending attitude and backpedal on the "simpleton" wife comment.

[Megan Blocker]

Honestly, the underhanded personal attacks need to stop.  They add nothing to the topic.  I think a little common courtesy goes a long way in a debate.

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Bryan, I apologize if my comment seemed underhanded or personal. I definitely thought it was snarky (hence my disclaimer), but I was really just highlighting the fact that I agreed with your assessment of Lauren's comments as rational, even though they are not what I myself have experienced.

To sum up, I meant to illustrate that I can accept that Lauren's experience - and therefore her opinion - in this matter differs (just like yours and mine), and that, perhaps, this is ultimately an issue unresolvable based on personal anecdote or experience, and is all the more interesting for it.

Edited October 28, 2005 by Megan Blocker (log)

[Megan Blocker]

It is important here, to hear from the women who *do* work, who *do* try to cook - for accurate information on their own situations. It is vital not to generalize about the possibilities and potential that another persons life *should* have. (i.e. "Let us not speak till we have walked a mile in someone elses shoes.")

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I do work, and do cook - though I don't have children or a husband. However, I do have many friends who cook, but who didn't have the kind of hands-on experience I sought from my teachers (mother, father, nanny, grandmother). Therefore, I am frequently inviting people over to teach them how to make pie crust, or roast a chicken, and so on. It takes a lot of time, but it's fun, and I love doing it. I can't imagine doing it with children hanging off of each arm, though. And I really can't imagine doing it on a weeknight. It's strictly a weekend afternoon kind of activity for me.

I can picture cooking for a family on weeknights (simpler meals rather than more complicated ones), but wonder when I would have the time to really impart the knowledge I received. Maybe it's an osmosis/observation thing? I honestly can't remember learning to salt water for pasta, or how to blanch green beans - I just know that I did.

Edited October 28, 2005 by Megan Blocker (log)

[Carrot Top]

When someone opens the door to talk using these words "hate" in such a simple and childish manner, the tone of the discussion does change. It is not "mere" semantics. The way in which a person describes themselves through their language describes their world and way of thought. It has nothing to do with being "PC". It has to do with being clearly understood and then even more, to be understood as being intelligent and without rancor or demand.

This is not a football game with teams where someone will win and someone will lose. This is life - and there are women in this world trying with all their wits to get a footing on "how to do it". To minimize their lives into a simpified packet of "do they cook? or do they not cook?" is so demeaning as to leave one with the impression that anyone who asks that question must either be (to use the words of someone better with them than I ever will be) "a fool or a knave".

Edited October 28, 2005 by Carrot Top (log)

[Pontormo]

Having read through these posts for the first time only last evening, I have to say I find this the most fascinating thread that members are contributing to this week.

I was about to contribute until I came upon Rinsewind's observations concerning the young men and women she teaches. I can vouch for the same. In any moment of cultural transformation, we are bound to witness extremes. As boys grow up with the expectation that they may play multiple roles in their adult lives, some of them are going to want to learn how to cook for reasons beyond seducing the man or woman they fancy. We already are fully aware that the aggressive masculine antics of Iron John--and let's hope, the kinder, gentler presence of a Jacques Pepin or Christopher Kimball--have influenced children who see these as role models for themselves or their future mates. (Come on, no smirking, please. Some of us do develop pangs for wiry guys in glasses.)

In turn, now women are studying a broader range of disciplines and preparing for professions their grandmothers would not or could not pursue. Some will associate cooking with domesticity and recall that even though their mothers never changed their last name or stopped working when they married, they were the ones who cooked. Hence, no matter how creative and fulfilling cooking may be, it is a gender-specific role that they are going to avoid. When they marry lawyers, become presidents and have a fax machine as well as two little children playing on the third floor of their Brooklyn brownstones, they're not going to go all the way down to the kitchen in the basement to pull things out of the fridge at 7:30 when they get home. They're going to reach into the drawer with all the take-out menus. If they do not marry or are not legally able to in most of the United States, they still may prefer to devote their time to other pursuits. I think I have used this example in a thread Busboy initiated elsewhere, but, I still am haunted by the advice a successful female professor offered one of her female doctoral students: don't learn to cook and don't learn to drive. That way, when you're a young faculty member no one's going to ask you to host dinners or pick up guests of your department at the airport, so you can work on your publications instead.

We may be far sufficiently far away from the notion of "barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen" or even more sobering, this reminder of the German past: CLICK

for some of the youngest members of egullet to fail to recognize just how much cooking retains a complicated, emotionally fraught role in gender politics. (I find it interesting that in the German phrase, the kitchen takes preeminence over children and church.)

Now, by using the word "complicated" I am referring to the fact that things are not all one-sided. One of the ground-breaking articles in feminist scholarship that I have taught is "Quilts: The Great American Art," which Patricia Mainardi published in The Feminist Art Journal (Winter 1973) before it became widely anthologized. The author argued against the inherent bias of a question Germaine Greer had raised before her: "Why are there no great female artists?" Mainardi claimed that our culture has long placed greatest value on the artistic production of men such as Michelangelo or even Jean Broc in establishing the categories of "Fine Arts" and "minor arts." No matter how stunning, intricate or expertly crafted, quilts were deemed minor arts because they were made by women, often collectively, for the private versus public sphere, neither for profit nor prestige, hence, largely anonymously. Now all of these terms are important: gender, private space, economics and individual fame. I am going to return to economics shortly. First, I would like to say I find the article useful for understanding why the domestic achievements of women in kitchens have been so under-valued. It took someone like James Beard, a rather large male authority figure, to draw to our attention the value of nineteenth-century women such as Mrs. Elizabeth H. Putnam in first recording and publishing the recipes of home cooks in the United States. Laura Shapiro, among others, are now researching and writing about women in their kitchens to add a new perspective on American history, and not just culinary history. Of course, we all are very familiar with the fact that cooking to please her beloved husband was the way that Julia Child became Julia Child, and paved the way for female cooks to become celebrity chefs as well as pioneers in transforming the ways men and women eat in the United States. So, the relationship between women and cooking in this country, at least, is rather complicated. See Carole Counihane, Around the Tuscan Table, for one perspective of this issue in a different part of the world.

I had no intention of writing this much. There is a lot I left out, really, in the paragraphs above. This is by no means a neatly prepared rhetorical argument; I am writing down what occurs to me as I write. However, I would like to summarize (honest) what I thought would be my principal point concerning economics. Go back and look at that compelling image of Mr. Ramsay with a rhinestone-encrusted "F" on his tongue and see what Carrot Top and others have had to say about it. This thread is so fascinating because it is about cultural transformations that go beyond gender. We gripe about and yammer on and on about celebrity chefs here at egullet, men and women alike. What I would like to point out is that Mr. Ramsay and his proudly non-Oxbridge accent have been propelled into the world of the powerful by the good graces of his PROFESSIONAL culinary skills, i.e. what he does for money. Now here is where I have not worked out the argument fully, so pick it apart or fill in the gaps if you have the patience to read this far. Yet Patricia Mainardi's article seems relevant to me here too. Michelangelo was a major force in transferring the status of painters and sculptors and architects from the base level of mere craftsmen or manual laborers to the elevated realm of the intellectual that led to the modern notion of "artistic genius." He was able to do so because he was a man hired by powerful men who admired and recognized his skill and he moved in their circles where he got paid a decent amount of money. Maybe Ramsay had diamond-encrusted diaper pins; I don't know. However, the lout is well compensated for his hard work and talents and may have moved up the social ladder as he gained professional stature and a publicist. Capitalism rewards the professional cook and media celebrity in new ways these days and we don't quite have a handle on what this means yet. When he criticizes women who do not make the effort in their kitchens that he does in his, he is speaking about women who do not gain what he gains from cooking.

Basta. Enough.

Edited to correct just about everything. I will add that this was being written before reading the latest exchanges of this afternoon.

Edited October 28, 2005 by Pontormo (log)

[jamiemaw]

Check out the article here: Women Can't Cook

Good ole' Gordo - making new friends wherever he goes. 

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It's a widely known fact that Englishmen can't play soccer either.

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He is Scottish and its football !

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TFA,

Only by the narrowest of definitions and the strictest of interpretations: he was born there.

But clearly his upbringing in Stratford had a profound impact on his ambition to rejoin the wanking classes as soon as possible. Many think that his return visit to Glasgow during his late adolescence (to play intermittently with the Rangers) only confirmed the obvious - that he was a late adolescent.

Perhaps a sporting metaphor applies to this discussion. Bear with me . . .

In our neighbourhood, which is called ForMiCa (Fourth Avenue between Milestone's and Capers), we take great care to distinguish amongst the various gradations of 'football'. In order of ascendancy, with Canadian and American football somewhere in the middle, you have soccer, and then, at the top of the scrum, you have rugby football.

As they say: "Rugby is a beastly game played by gentlemen. Soccer is a gentleman's game played by beasts." But I'd maintain that modern restaurauteuring, at least at Mr. Ramsay's Premiership level, is a beastly game played by beasts.

And for them, because celebrity does not come without tears, especially in jurisdictions where the 'tall poppy syndrome' applies. And as the rocket of Ramsay's career outdistances the gravitas of his skill, things have a nasty habit of falling back to earth, usually with a loud bang and deep crater.

Predictably that crater will be underwritten by the television producers and quavering media (not all rocket scientists) who propelled the rocket on its starward journey. But inevitably it will be littered with the detritus of the staff who launched it.

As for my own daughters, who are of university age, they enjoy about the same level of cooking skill as I did, if not more so. One of them is three inches taller than her mother- who's no shrimp - the other two. During exam times especially, they survive on Kraft Dinners and Ichiban soups, as did I.

You might think that, given their age, they might be more attracted to the bombast of a Ramsay or LaGasse than the quiet but quick erudition of Pepin. Not true--they see it for what it is: trailer park TV, with Ramsay stepping in for Jerry Springer.

More interestingly though, they have been much more exposed to restaurants than I was at their age. They have dined out in many locales, on various budgets, and in the context of many ethnicities. They and their friends are experienced and savvy diners and know of what they speak. A-1, who attends an American university in a major western city, notes a different dining culture compared to here in Canada though; with unhealthy and uninteresting concepts dominating the lower end price-wise, she finds her options significantly limited and homogenized.

If Gordon Ramsay thinks that girls are spending far too much time doing the things they do (maybe even playing soccer) when they should be improving their domestic skills, perhaps the hyperbole of television production - 'simplify, then exagerate' - might best be remedied with a Foundation or P-3 Council that can motivate change rather than merely paying lip service, in this case quite literally.

And loudly.

As for me, I'm off to roast a beast. In a sporting way, of course.

Jamie

Edited October 28, 2005 by jamiemaw (log)

[prasantrin]

Let's try it on this way for size, shall we?

"Recent headlines proclaim that WOMEN CAN COOK!!! Studies and evidence show that contrary to a growing belief that women can not cook, that indeed they can - and that astonishingly, they have been doing so since the beginning of recorded time.

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Or...

"Recent headlines proclaim that MEN CAN COOK!!! And in many cases, their skill and knowledge outweighs that of their friends who are girls! Even the well-educated and wealthy girls! This great feat has proven, yet again, that men really are much better at everything than girls, and that girls have, once again, proven themselves to be inferior."

This is not an attack; it is merely how some of the comments being made can be interpreted, and have been interpreted (at least by me). You've got to admit, they do seem rather ridiculous.

While it's most likely true that young women are less able to cook than their mothers or grandmothers, to say it's because of lack of interest or laziness is simplistic, at best. I'll have to add more later, since I'm in a bit of a rush.

[BryanZ]

My views are clearly stated above. That "headline" is not even remotely close to anything I said or even suggested.

Give me something that actually adds something to this discussion and I will attempt a response.

Edited October 28, 2005 by BryanZ (log)

[ingridsf]

It's mostly perception, in my opinion. I know several women who insist they "can't cook." Actually, they cook very well. Good, home-made stews and soups mostly. But our increasingly sophisticated food media -- which has spawned a newish species, the chef celebrity -- does raise the bar on what even "real simple" means.

I'm baffled though as to why women need to know how to cook any more/less than men. Everybody's working longer hours now, but women still carry a disproportionate burden of childcare and household responsibilities. If Ramsay wants more young women to cook, he'd best do a follow-up interview announcing how men can't do laundry. "That load of whites looks like a dog's dinner, Dewberry! Run it through again! People! Why do you keep forgetting the bleach?! SHUT IT DOWN!!!"

I know there are people, men as well as women, who don't know how to cook. For real. There always have been. Ramen noodles have always come with instructions, folks. Nothing new there.

[ingridsf]

And another thing:

Women are still earning less than men as head cooks/chefs in the US. According to the Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics 2004 numbers, only 18.9 percent of chefs/head cooks were women. (http://www.bls.gov/cps/wlf-table11-2005.pdf) Their pay, moreover, was only 79 cents for every dollar their male counterparts earned. (http://www.bls.gov/cps/wlf-table18-2005.pdf)

(And I think we all know how home cooks are "compensated.")

Anybody who seriously wants women in the kitchen should be getting together with all of us RADICAL FEMINISTS to close the wage gap. "Equality -- it's what's for dinner!"

[kitchenmage]

My, my, my. Are we having fun?

Few quick comments.

Anyone who posts using the terms "men" and "girls" as if they were peers puts any purported lack of gender bias in question and undermines many of their arguments.

I spend a bit of time reading food blogs, which are mostly written by avid amateurs and the vast majority of the non-professional cooking focused blogs are written by women. I am not including blogs of food professionals because it's their job and we're not talking about what people do for money here, but even given those, there are more women doing food writing for the love of it.

GR seems to be specifically trading on the sexist angle for the show, he seems to do arrogant and abrasive naturally. (Does it mean anything that I can identify several GR shows but nary a thing about his cooking experience, style, signature dishes, etc?)

People who repeatedly post to say they are done posting confuse me. Are you done or not?

(edited because the editor ate my linebreaks)

Edited October 29, 2005 by kitchenmage (log)

[mrsadm]

Your points are valid, Corinna - except that I can not believe that his shock tactics will either entice nor charm any woman into wanting to enter a home kitchen.

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I know what you mean, Carrot. If I were going to be helped by a chef in the kitchen, I'd much prefer Tyler Florence who was absolutely delightful in Food 911. He did not use the "F" word and was very gracious to the women wanting to learn how to cook some particular dish.

Then again, some folks seem to want to embarrass themselves on reality television, but that's not me!