Having your Cake & Baking it Too

I had an interesting conversation this weekend (and by interesting I mean exasperating) with a friend of a friend. Having recently had a baby, she’s been at home for the past few months, settling into motherhood. She was talking about the meals she had been cooking up for her little one, now that he is able to manage solid foods. The conversation moved on to general cookery and I enthusiastically imparted a tip on the perfect mashed potatoes I’d been given. Her eyebrows instantly merged with her hairline. “You cook?” she asked, eyes widening to the approximate size of a baking potato. Apparently, I found out, this was a real revelation – “But you have a career, and you do all that writing stuff. Isn’t cooking a bit…anti-feminist?” The word feminist was whispered, the way one might say “sex” at a tupperware party. It was my turn to stare, agog. I tried to explain that having a career and being a feminist weren’t necessarily related; I gave her the speech (albeit ineloquently as I was rather irked) on how feminism, at its heart, is just equality and that it wasn’t all bra burning and man hating. All this resulted in was a protective arm over her bosom and a fearful glance at the Yankee candles.

After that we were at something of an impasse – our opinions were so dramatically different that the conversation faltered; I didn’t want to shove my opinions down her throat, it would hardly help if I started lecturing her on modern feminism. I feared that my earlier speech had already alienated her and that further attempts would just compound her already negative image of myself and “the sisterhood”. So I changed the subject to something safer; the weather.

But I’ve kept thinking about it – I can’t help it, women’s roles are always in the news. I’ve decided that I can understand the confusion – it seems like we feminists (I do wish there was a different word) want it all. And we want it now. Let’s just run through the options: there’s university, a well-paid career, the perfect man, children who grow up to be well-adjusted, decent adults and great, loyal friends. Oh, and a soufflé that doesn’t sink. So what did you choose? I’m guessing it wasn’t just one item. It’s this idea of wanting it all that is, I think, alarming for many people. We bang on about how feminism is about sharing, about equality, but in the next breath we talk about having it all, doing it all, being it all. Forgive me, but I’m pretty sure that a basic premise of Sharing 101 is that if someone has all of anything, they ain’t sharing.

So what do we do? Do we accept that we can’t have everything on our wishlist, no matter if we think we deserve it? Maybe we need to realise that for centuries, it’s been those with the XY chromosome who have been running the countries, marching to war and cashing the paychecks; so they’re used to it and they like it. For us to suddenly the storm the field with cries of “Unfair!” and “Gimme!” must be a little startling. It’ll take a while to get used to it and both sexes need to compromise – we can’t just take the bits we like and put men on nappy duty for all eternity.

Another step in the right direction might be admitting that each of us has our own talents, and these talents may or may not “match” those traditionally ascribed to someone with our reproductive systems. We live in a society where equality has the potential to take over in a negative way, where we give someone a job, a bursary, or a salary that they don’t merit, just so our equal opportunities stats stack up. Equally we run the risk of blasting each other for our jobs, hobbies or actions because they’re not deemed appropriate for either our beliefs or our sex.

I guess what I’m saying is that we are complex creatures; women can like to cook without being branded traitors to the cause, and men can too without being “girly” Perhaps it’s time for us to play to our strengths, whatever they may be and realise that nobody should be defined by what resides in their underwear.