Takin' Back Bitch, Gender or Kitchen Notwithstanding

I'll start off with my hands up: I'm not married, don't have kids, and therefore do not have any logged hours with which to provide insight on gender-based roles and balance in a functioning marriage.

Maybe that's why I was so puzzled when I read Hanna Rosin's article, The Rise of the Kitchen Bitch.  (And yet MORE puzzled upon hearing about a new magazine in Germany angled specifically at Man-Foodies, titled: BEEF! EmPHAsis theirs.)

Kitchen gender politics have always been contentious and highly subjective.  A person's place in a kitchen has got zilch to do with gender roles.  It's all about personality.  Whether you're a wizened Punjabi matriarch or a Tennessee pitmaster, if you're a Type-A with any kind of confidence and know-now, you're going to dominate a kitchen.  Period. 

If you're in a long-term relationship/marriage, SOMEone is going to be in the kitchen more than the other.  It's as unkind and counterproductive to call your husband a bitch for ruling the kitchen as it would be if he stormed in and demanded a hot dinner. 

Rosin seems to be saying that home kitchen dominatrix is a pre-established role that women have been robbed of--that if her husband was the kitchen beta and she the alpha, he would have to take her potato-peeling nitpicking into stride, as this is her domain. 

It boggles the mind.  I'm not versed in Freidanese.  I tend to think that effective feminism allows respective genders to do whatever they is they choose (preferably, whatever they do best).  Rosin writes:

...cooking has taken on a distinctly guy-hobby kind of feel. Christopher Kimball’s Cook’s Illustrated treats the kitchen like a garage, endlessly tinkering and perfecting, and his scientific method has triumphed over the lush, dreamy (now defunct) Gourmet. Michael Ruhlman took it one step further with Ratio [12], a baking book written in the voice of a high-school science textbook. [XX]

Yeah...no.  Gourmet is defunct because it couldn't distinguish itself from Bon Appetit and Conde Nast Traveler, and therefore couldn't sustain the exorbitantly priced print ad sales that were its life blood.  Gourmet couldn't be bothered to develop a competitive new media product.  Gourmet is NOT defunct because it was outwardly feminine and "dreamy" (growl).

And why, WHY is she attributing a mechanics and scientific voice to masculinity????  Oh right...it's because she's trying wedge us back into the kitchen.  My bad. 

And it's not even the push back into the kitchen that's really buggering me.  If you look at the article in its entirety, it's impossible to determine what it is Rosin wants. 

She wants her husband to...not offer constructive cooking criticism?  Take care of the kids more, so that she can cook more often...but only until she doesn't feel like cooking any more?

It reads: I want what I want when I want it.  Anticipate my needs, even though I've not established them.  That's not phucking feminism.  That's a bratty, uncommunicative adult, whining about how the big bad world has made her kitchen an unnatural place.

And THEN there's her weak-ass argument that the testosteronization of food and kitchen is a recent thing:

These days, Julia Child and Alice Waters are the cuddly matriarchs of a professional-chef scene that is otherwise manning up. “Imagination” and “daring” has, over time, morphed into “bare-fisted” and “potty-mouthed [8],” as the celebrity chef becomes synonymous with testosterone-fueled asshole...it’s hard to keep up with the itinerant rage-aholics cycling through the Food Network—Gordon Ramsey, Marco Pierre White, David Chang, the Voltaggio brothers [10]. Even something as frou-frou as cake decorating is dominated by a goateed Baltimore thug—Chef Duff from Ace of Cakes—who is at best a lovable jerk. Women, meanwhile, are left holding the cupcakes. [XX]

Ahem.  Men have always, ALWAYS dominated professional kitchens; since the dawn of restaurants and Escoffier, they have ALWAYS been pushy, cussing, toqued idiot-savants.  Though the progress has been slow, there are LOADS of women who hold their own against these assholes every day. 

Rosin points out Top Chef's Voltaggios, but what about Stephanie Izard, Casey Thompson, and Jennifer Carroll?  These are accomplished chefs by any right, and they're NOT holding phucking cupcakes, or crying about their roles in their home kitchens.

This is not a man-woman thing.  This is one woman and her newly publicly castrated husband.

Comments

[Chocolate Bear is F I R S T]

This is the problem with feminism...which variety do you choose?

[from b e h i n d]

I choose the backdoor option.

[from b e h i n d]

Be a dear and fix me a sandwich too.

[from b e h i n d]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lqfQi7146U

You know you can't be l a z y

[The Man]

Does she hate Alton Brown, too? He's a consummate
male, nuts-(nopunintended)-and-bolts garage-style-tinkering food
personality. But he's explaining food, making it more accessible to
people, what's wrong with that?

And, as to the "potty-mouth" change, this is happening all over.
There's a reality-TV-esque coarsification going on almost everywhere,
not just in cooking.