Tanisha Shah discusses the controversy around cooking and modern hesitance to learn typically “female” skills.
“Girls these days just don’t want to cook anymore.”
As a brown Gen-Z woman, I have heard this phrase from pretty much everyone.
But, thankfully for them, my mom “trained” me well to know how to cook. I mean, don’t I get a little credit for all the crying I did on Facetime for not understanding the recipes or accidentally ruining the dishes?
However, to be honest, I did not learn how to cook until I moved to Sydney and had to learn how to cook to feed myself. Cooking was something I hated as a child and I scoffed every time my relatives told me to learn how, because “it would benefit you in the future.” Surely, they were not talking about being self-reliant.
I hated how differently I was treated from my brother for doing the exact same thing, but I hated it even more when people fawned over him for being interested in cooking and baking. It made sense that he felt encouraged to experiment more with cooking because he was adored for even trying. But, it also made sense that I avoided the kitchen out of bitter hatred and offended feelings. I noticed this more and more as I grew up and started talking to other people about this. Apparently, all my friends and I had been living the same lives because each and every one of them felt the same way.
In English Vinglish, a popular Bollywood movie from 2012, Shashi makes one of the most gut-wrenching statements when she says, “A man cooking is art, but a woman cooking is her duty.” The movie strongly emphasises womanhood and loving yourself. It follows the story of a stay-at-home mother who is constantly humiliated by her family and only appreciated for her cooking. It was my first media acquaintance with the concept of patriarchy in the kitchen and what made me more aware of the way cooking duties are treated in society. Her bitterness because of her family’s attitude towards her made me feel more conscious about my own feelings, but I had forgotten all about that phase of my life until a family dinner a while ago.
I heard my aunt talk about her nine-year-old niece and her distaste for cooking: she said, “Oh even [Ashvi] is like that, she says she won’t learn how to cook, instead she will have a career as a professional dancer.” They laughed at it thinking it was child-like innocence that made her say that. It made me wonder if I felt the same way when I was young.
My mom used to be a fashion designer before my brother and I were born. However, she chose to be a stay-at-home mom after, to take care of us and make sure everything went smoothly. She worked hard and rarely got any breaks, but all I saw was how her work was demeaned, shrugged off or used as a punchline. So, I chose to ignore her perseverance and her commitment.
My mom was always very open about her dislike of cooking, yet she happily cooked for us our whole lives. Seeing this as we grew up, many of us (including myself) strove for a career that would not only give us financial independence but one in which we would not be put down to the point where our brains became shrouded with the same prejudice and frankly, inane garbage.
Since realising my own shortcomings and educating myself on my misbeliefs, I have learnt that cooking is really quite satisfying, giving you independence on a whole new level. Hell, cooking is even fun sometimes. But, more importantly, it is a life skill – a necessity. It is something that every single adult requires to survive and it took me being on my own to realise that.
It sucks to be constantly told that your value depends on how well you cook or how fair your skin is, but when have we ever really listened to society? If their opinions really don’t matter, then why are we hell-bent on stopping ourselves from supporting ourselves?
I’m saying, learn to cook because it will help you more instead of simply sticking it to them by not cooking. Give yourself space to fall in love with it and be truly self-reliant. At the end of the day, you have to help yourself grow beyond those outdated thoughts to really protect the next generation from going through the same turmoil as you.
All things considered, cooking rocks and eating is the one true joy of life (at least my life). But I totally agree, doing dishes sucks.
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