“I take food prep a little too seriously, curtly brushing others out of the way when I step up to the kitchen counter,” Jacob Brogan writes in a piece for Slate. “Am I shoving others out of the way because it makes me feel like a man? Have I become some sort of monster?”Men, check your privilege. hat tip Rush Limbaugh show.
Yes — he’s worried his enthusiasm for grilling may make him a “monster.”
Lest you think Brogan is overreacting, he offers a lot of reasons for why he’s so concerned about liking to do something so totally normal. One of them: Advertisers portray grilling as a form of male bonding, or, as he puts it, “enable what scholars call homosocial contact, a kind of same-sex intimacy that deflects the supposed danger of sexual contact between men but allows them to confirm their masculinity by excluding women.”
“Grilling, in other words, allows these characters to cozy up to one another while still maintaining their understanding of themselves as truly manly men,” he continues.
Brogan also worries that since grilling happens outside, and other forms of cooking happen inside, the fact that grilling is seen as a “man” thing perpetuates the idea that women should stay inside or something: “Unlike most other traditionally ‘feminine’ forms of domestic cooking, grilling typically happens outside, and hence in the public sphere,” Brogan writes.
“The putatively masculine quality of grilling may derive in part from the old public-private gender split,” he writes. “In that sense, it shares a common cause with the belief that women belong in the home.”
Tuesday, July 28, 2015
"Male Feminist: ‘I Hate That I Love to Grill’ Because It’s ‘So Conventionally Masculine’"
"A self-identified male “feminist” wrote a more than 1,000-word piece about how much he hates that he loves to grill because he is “uncomfortable with the pleasure [he takes] in something so conventionally masculine.”"
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
17 comments:
I spent 100,000 on my education and all I got was this guilt!
I suppose I'm required to feel guilty that as a woman I like to grill and bbq? Does this mean that I'm not feminine? When we bbq I am mostly in charge of the chicken, fish, roasts most of the pork and all the side dishes on the grill. Hubby does the steaks, burgers and lights the briquettes when we aren't using the gas grill. He can do the chicken etc. He just doesn't want to, which is his prerogative. Generally, it is a joint venture to cook on the grill.
Last night I made Char Sui. Tonight we are having slices of Char Sui with velveted prawns, stir fried with veggies over rice stick noodles in a spicy soy/peanut/sesame oil type of sauce....kind of like Pad Thai but not exactly :-) In a few days I'm doing a tri tip roast Santa Maria style.
What a bunch of baloney. Do what you feel good doing and what you can do well. You are a man, for God's sake.....act like it.
I might add that my husband is also in charge of cleaning the grill, removing the ashes etc.
It is the MANLY thing to do...plus...I hate it.
We take turns pouring drinks. I guess there isn't any gender issue there.
I wonder if he ever gets on top without getting written permission?
I always feel a twinge of guilt when I throw meet away. I think - poor animal - died for nothing.
Dinner at DBQs!
Lem keeps putting up posts about people who are agonizing about bupkis. In other words they haven't had any real trouble in their lives yet. When they do all this "torment" will evaporate.
Is this the same guy who purportedly is fine with his wife banging Pedro?
The guy who is uncomfortable with taking pleasure in conventionally masculine activities? 'Cause it kind of sounds like the same guy.
Basically, the analysis boils down to he is uncomfortable with activities in which he takes pleasure that even impliedly exclude women because that would signal privilege. And it's not a plot to get the wife to mow the lawn and go to war in his place because chores and wars are not pleasureable activities. No, if the fun is traditionally, conventionally male then he's uncomfortable. Mommy hit!
Here comes mom
Time to stop having fun
[to the tune of the Darth Vader theme from Star Wars]
[which is funny when you're a teenager and probably ought to stop having fun and do your homework, but not when "mom" is actually your wife. That's just sad.]
I lurv to grill.
Here's how to grill.
Get it hot, scrape it off with ball of tin foil, lightly oil the grill, and lightly oil the thing that you're cooking. Slap the food item on the hot grill and imagine it's your own hand, scream in agony as your hand fries on the hot grill. Hop up and down with your hand stuck on an imaginary hot grill. When you have everyone's attention and alarm and the children are frightened and you cant take the overly dramatized pain anymore then remove your hand and hold it sorely and agonizingly and flip the steak and scream for your hand burning again. That's how long to cook the steak. It's an excellent timing method if a bit melodramatic. Imaginary self-inflicted pain. And you'll have perfectly cooked steaks every time.
Then salt.
Don't salt steaks before grilling even with a dry rub because salt draws moisture to the surface to burn off. Salt away after the steaks are cooked.
After a long hot day on a roof the Mexicans would sometimes get together next door and do some grilling. The big quiet roofer across the alley from me would take charge of the grill. Although he was quiet he radiated some power, and stood in front of that frying meat as if it could calm whatever kind of volcano was simmering inside him. His kids were friendly and well behaved and his wife always seemed at peace among the gringos with her illegal family. The roofers weren't a boisterous bunch and would chat softly in Spanish until the steaks and burgers were ready.
I don't begrudge Brogan his thrill with the grill; I've enjoyed my share of it. It's like Ricpic said, "... they haven't had any real trouble in their lives yet. When they do all this "torment" will evaporate."
Salt after? Thanks for the tip
Odds are that Sparky has never been required by life's circumstances to other conventionally masculine things like weld, use tools, shovel stone or earth, drive a truck, use a manual transmission, be seen in public with non-waxed legs, describe the difference between a rip and a crosscut handsaw, install tile, frame a building, fix the leaking flapper valve in a toilet, start a campfire, or strip and clean his own handgun.
Pathetic.
The NFL hired a woman coach.
That's how long to cook the steak. It's an excellent timing method if a bit melodramatic. Imaginary self-inflicted pain. And you'll have perfectly cooked steaks every time.
That method worked for seared ahi. Here's a photo of the result: link. The same meat was cut into sashimi, but the seared fish was even better.
Maui Brewing company. Nice touch.
These articles should just be labeled "Slate Bait". There like the old letters to Penthouse only without sex but apologetically so.
OMG.
I grill because everyone else burns. Burning is not grilling. I never once thought... wow, how transgressive I am, yay me, I'm doing a man-thing!
At some point I will also get a smoker, but for now I bend the weber kettle to my will. Thou art a smoker, Weber Kettle! Hah!
Post a Comment