So Dan's off on a Navy cruise, his crew is another officer (male), 6 male midshipmen and 1 female mid, who he describes as a dynamo. When they were divvying up responisibilities - which midshipman is going to be the navigator, who wants to be the engineer - the young woman said she likes to cook. Dan said she's very very good, treating the crew to meals like ceviched fish, pasta alfredo, stir fry. Quite a welcome change from the usual midshipmen fare, which often seems to consist of pop-tarts and canned stew. So if she likes to do it, and she's good at it, why does it bug me that the *only* woman on the crew is the cook? The Naval Academy is not a liberal arts college, no doubt her major is something like political science or engineering, maybe I'm reading too much into this. Is this generation so truly gender-neutral that she's oblivious to the symbolism and its just a coincidence?
Or am I stuck in the sixties, when I'd sabotage any attempt to get me to do kitchen chores just to rebel against the assumption that that was the girl job? I willingly took out the trash and shoveled snow, I just didn't want to be cast as the automatic choice for housework just because I was the girl.
2 comments:
Sounds to me, as though it bothers you because of the idea of the role and the association behind it. If she likes it (and it can be very relaxing and enjoyable), I think it's great.
That's exactly right. We worked so hard in the 60s and 70s to break those stereotypes. In this instance, I can't tell whether we failed, thus she's cooking for the crew; or succeeded so spectacularly that the idea that cooking is a gender-specific role never crossed her mind.
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