All the Women Who Have Cooked Before

During our pre-Thanksgiving dinner prep, I had a flashback to an unnamed angry woman of the past, yelling at her partner or children about how she had "slaved over a hot stove" all day for them. To be clear - I didn't feel I was slaving at all, which was precisely the point. My appreciation for cooking has a direct relationship with the amount I cook, and these days each are tangibly ascending. For better or worse, the fact that cooking was stereotypically "woman's work" is never far from my mind, however.

At some unknowable point in the past, I - and many young, education women like me and around me - decided that victorian 1950s-era notions of "traditional" femininity were not for us. We would not be the chained to the kitchen ball-and-chain, a passive No. 2 in the relationship and family hierarchy, a glorified maid with a Mrs. to denote our status. These narrow female roles had perhaps already lapsed enough by our mothers' generation to make them seem implausible in their extreme forms; society had evolved at least a bit beyond the laughable "women's brains are half the size of men's" concept of a woman's role. 

But still, a New York Times article from 1988 entitled "Women: Out of the House But Not Out of the Kitchen"  sheds light on one remnant of the past many young women today grew up with -- seeing Mom in the kitchen and tagging along with her to the grocery store. According to the Times 90 percent of married women surveyed for the piece did all the shopping and cooking in their households.  A marketing consultant quoted in the story said that cooking ''is still considered a woman's role, and women are accepting it more.'' 

"Hell no! Not me!" most independent, strong women in their twenties or thirties would say, and I'd be among them. However, recently I have been reflecting on my own time in the kitchen and relationship with cooking. 

In our apartment, the three of us cook together pretty much all the time. Two of us are women, all of us are from Vassar, and as such, even the odd man out has an overcharged sensibility for the heteronormative. We are hypersensitive to gender roles--seriously, but also with a sense of humor and often deserved self-derision. When Sam took the lead on ordering the Turkey, I asked him if he was going to be in charge of it. "Only if we're going to go by prescribed gender roles," he replied with characteristic dry sarcasm. When for a moment all the women at the party were chopping and sauteeing in the kitchen while the men flipped from "Mythbusters" to football, we called out "Well isn't this typical?" and "My heteronormative alarm is going off." 

It wouldn't be funny at all, except for the fact that it is not at all typical for us anymore - or if it were typical, it would not be considered in any way acceptable. We wouldn't be able to brush it off by saying "I did it because that was what my generation did," like a housewife in the Times story, now 20-years ago. 

Of course, we're talking about a setting now where all of us are single, close, friends. I'm not entirely sure what married couples my age and older are experiencing in terms of the division of household duties and kitchen responsibilities, but I'm hoping it's something Betty Friedan wouldn't recognize. My gut reaction to the question "Will I be the one doing all the cooking?" is "Absolutely not." But... 

There's a but. But I love to cook. Nothing is more satisfying than making a meal to share with loved ones, or trying something new with interesting ingredients to great success. While sometimes I'm happy to make a sandwich, most times cooking provides a mindless respite from the data, reading, and rapid-fire communication obligations of the work day. It's sensory in a way that the work day seldom is: touch, see, smell, taste.

Then again, cooking is, in my experience so far, best done when 1. you're doing it with another person to help or talk to and 2. you aren't being forced to the stove by obligation. The latter circumstantial advisory keys into the beauty of changing roles: freedom to choose. 

We battle daily with a feeling of wariness about tradition and dated concepts of feminity. Tasks such as cooking, cleaning and organization are always tinged by the "woman's work" concept for me, and if I'm doing them and someone else is not, it is cause for introspection. The same thing is true of other stereotypically "female" things that we have long sought to shrug off and forever evade. The fear of being considered emotional or hysterical pre-feminist females gives way to a reticence to have any sort of "Defining the Relationship" talk, or openly expressing strong feelings at work.  Caution is a good thing, though, and sure beats the alternative-- blind oblivious obligation. 

The words "because I should," hold no currency anymore. Taking their place are the words "because I want to."

Dear Self: Stop twittering and blog

I keep coming across these really interesting articles and pieces of information about publishing, books and gender issues. So instead of collecting them or commenting, I take the lazy way out and Reader-add them or tweet about them. I'm working on a couple longer pieces, but just some things to think about:

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Today in The Huffington Post Erica Heller, daughter of Catch-22 author Joseph Heller lamented the whoring out of the publishing industry, which has been a-buzz in the past week about million-dollar advances for Sarah Palin, Joe the Plumber, Nate Silver, the Bushes, Tina Fey and Sarah Silverman, among others. Heller vents:

"And now, onto that illustrious stage of authors, along with Kurt Vonnegut, James Jones and the rest of the best of the best, strut authoress and author, Palin and Mr. Plumber, with their books certain to be ghosted by some unsung schnooks, manuscripts that will be comprised mostly, I'm betting, of little more than bragging, lying and recycling some very stale air. For their efforts, they will be awarded gargantuan advances, piles of money that could feed several Third World nations for some time."

I understand the ire and this issues - commercialization versus contribution - is what gives me the most pause about publishing. This came up at the Future of the Book lecture I attended at the Newseum last month as well: namely the fact that publishers rely on big-name sells and gamble on advances for celebrities memoirs which are as intellectually void as Heller intimates. I get the impression that too often, when a work comes to the table, the first question isn't "Is it good?" they are "Is it marketable?" and "Will it sell?" 

I know this varies depending on the house, imprint and editor, but the culture of books that reflect our lives today is floudering beneath the surface, obscured by thick, glossy celeb hardcovers. What is the solution? 

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In the world of Book innovation, two new media tools are getting attention:

BookSwim which is being called the NetFlix of books is meeting mixed reviews. CSM's Chapter & Verse had it today. The timing is interesting, as our organization, publishers and booksellers are all  getting out a big "Buy books!" holiday media push (I'll refrain from pimping for now...). 

I'm in the camp noted eventually in the Chapter & Verse story: “How lazy can people be not to be able to go to the library?” Seriously. And what serious reader (serious enough to read 3 books a month) is concerned with "having their house cluttered up by books"?

Then there is DailyLit  something I've known about since attending the AAP intro to pub seminar in September. It got pimped by the WaPo yesterday. DailyLit is awesome - it sends a snippet of a book to your inbox/RSS feed/phone every day. I subscribed Anna Karenina, which I'm reading in actual paperback as well, so I can do double time when I don't have it on-hand. Out-of-copyright books are free, and you can subcribe to new books for around $5-$7. And you can send it to friends. Nothing tells a nerd you care like a snippet of a book via e-mail, right? I know that's the way to my heart... 

Dear Barack Obama

Dear Senator Obama, 

This letter is the vocalization of an on-going internal monologue I've been having with you for several months now. In just a few hours, there is a liklihood that you will become the next president of the United States. As much as the thought of this possibility enthralls me - typing it in messages to friends sends a shiver up my spine - I am also worried. Worried for you, Senator Obama, worried for us, worried for the future of Hope. 

You have brought something special to this country during the presidential campaign. At the beginning of your campaign for the democratic nomination, you electrified young voters like myself who saw much of our own idealism, enthusiasm, tenacity and honesty in you. You used the words "we" and "us" instead of "me" and "I"-- we liked that. 

You corralled the hopes of voters across the country by speaking to us, saying "look- I know what you're going through." We were and are, highly cynical - unwilling to saddle our trust on the back of politicians who don't know us, or stand impotent when it comes to creating policies that help our lives, rather than harming them. 

But something in your voice, surprisingly deep and even, assured us; something in your smile, accessible and normal, put us at ease. Millions of us have heard you speak, and our hearts lifted a bit when you included us all - blacks, whites, latinos, asians, native americans, straight, gay - in your references to a united america. Your promises haven't felt empty, they felt credible, tangibly so. 

And now, as I write this, people across the nation are standing in long lines to cast their ballots. Some for you, some for your rival John McCain. Your supporters awoke to the realization this morning that this could happen. But we can't believe it yet. 

I cannot fathom how exhausted you are, or how much more burdened you will soon become if you are indeed elected president. I wonder how long ago you realized what you must take on as president. I know you must see that in asking people to Hope like they haven't before, to believe that change is possible - and we believe it in part because we can tell you believe it  - they are also trusting you to lead them to that change, and fulfill that Hope. 

We're a nation in economic trouble - people drowning in their bills, their mortgages, their health insurance fees. We're a nation with an international identity problem - countries abroad think we're a bully, an elephant in a china shop. We're a nation of health issues, education issues, financial issues, foreign policy issues - all clamoring for attention and funding and resolution, all equally important. Americans want solutions to these issues, or steps in the right direction at the very least, and if you are elected, they will all look to you. 

As much as I hope, as much as I believe, I also fear that hope, because I still wonder how much change can be affected. How much can be done - how long will it take? You sagely warned us all in the closing of this campaign that it won't happen overnight. Clearly you realize our expectations are high and the times increasingly desperate. 

So how are you holding up? I always say, that we shouldn't want a candidate or president who is "just like me" because I am in no way prepared to be president. If I were in your position, looking out at faces of hundreds of thousands of Americans with all their dreams of change reflecting back at you, I'd be terrified. 

If you are elected, won't everything change? No longer Barack Obama, or Senator Obama - you'll be President Barack Obama, a man for the history books. I can't imagine how strange that transition would be. You must miss your daughters, miss your alone time, miss the time before you had an entourage of reporters (and bloggers, sorry about this) following your every step, watching every twitch of your facial muscles, weighing every word. Everyone talks about how much ego it takes to run for president - and probably yes, initially, a lot of ego goes into campaigning. But it is clearer to me now as never before, what amount of sacrifice it requires to actually be a public servant, especially to be a good one, an honorable one. Clearly there are perks - but there are also unfathomable responsibilities.

Despite all this, I believe firmly that all our hope is real. It is real and useful and must be redirected to take steps to heal the problems we now face. You said you believe this last night at your rally in Manassas - we need to maintain our fervor for change, no matter what happens tonight and tomorrow. Change, you say, is in all of our hands. I agree, and that is scary too. We believe in change, many of us believe in You - We also must believe in Us. 

Your call has brought many many people together this year; God-willing it will bind us together over the coming weeks as we switch over from one single goal - election - to many hundreds of goals aimed at improving our great nation.

Barack-or-Treat

My dad sent me this story in an e-mail from trick-or-treaters on Friday night in Lyncourt:

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I was giving out candy on Halloween.  Anyone who could ID my Barack-O-Lantern got extra candy.  Most kids did pretty well. 

 

I had four sibs that come to the door.  They all held out their bags. 

 

I asked them "What do you say?"

 

"Trick or Treat," they all said.

 

I gave them candy and offered them the chance for addition sweets.

 

"That's that, you know, President dude," said the eldest boy.

 

"Almost!" I replied

 

"Yeah dummy, you mean Barack Obama!" said his sister, who was year or so older.

 

 "Yeah, Barack Obama, Barack Obama!!" chimed in the two little ones.

 

"Very good," I said and lavished extra goodies on them.

 

They went away very proud of themselves, telling their mother that they got extra candy because the knew who Barack Obama was.

 

There was a little girl, maybe 7 or 8 years old, patiently waiting her turn.  She walked up the steps and silently held out her bag.

 

Again I asked "Well, what do you say?"

 

She stuck out her chest, confidently looked me in eye and said "Barack Obama!"