Kitchen Confidential

Why is the woman who cooks dismissed as downtrodden while the man who cooks is seen as emancipated?

Growing up, I never once saw my father enter the kitchen. He did not know how to cook; in fact, I doubt if he even knew how to make a cup of coffee for himself. The kitchen was always the exclusive preserve of my grandmother, my mother, and the other ladies of the household. The men never ventured inside; no, not even to fetch themselves a glass of water.

It may sound strange now, but this was pretty much the state of affairs in every home. Women did the ‘womanly’ things like cooking, cleaning, serving, fetching; yes, even the ones who held down jobs outside of the home. And men did ‘manly’ things like go out to work and bring back the daily bread (to be toasted and buttered and served up to them with a strong cup of tea). Men were very much the hunter-gatherers. And women remained nurturers and carers.

There were some men of our acquaintance who knew how to make a decent mutton biryani or a chingri malai curry, but their excursions into the kitchen were treated as momentous events that were marked down in the calendar months in advance. And even then, they were assisted by a flock of women who did all the dirty work – peeling, chopping, cleaning – for them. Once the mise en place was set, the men would sweep in to do the frying, sautéing, roasting or whatever else. And then, they would sweep out leaving the kitchen in an absolute shambles, to take their place at the dining table to be served like the kings they were.

I am glad to say that things have changed since then. Men no longer treat the kitchen as alien territory. Nearly all of them know enough cooking to be able to feed themselves in the absence of a mother or a wife. And many of them actually enjoy cooking, and take pride in their achievements behind the stove. But even so, based on purely empirical evidence, the bulk of the cooking in most households is still done by the women (either the lady of the house or the hired help).

What intrigues me, though, is how cooking has become another battleground of sexual politics. New-age feminism seems to think that a working woman who still cooks (or is expected to cook) at home is downtrodden, the victim of an age-old patriarchal system that decrees that the kitchen is a woman’s preserve. She is buying into sexual stereotypes and letting the sisterhood down with every perfect chapatti she rolls out.

On the other hand, a man who works outside the home and comes back to cook for his family is seen as an enlightened being. We even have a name for him. He is called the New Age Man. He is confident of his masculinity and not afraid of being in touch with his feminine side. He does not buy into any kind of sexual stereotyping. He is equally at ease in the boardroom as he is dexterous at the chopping board. We should all be so lucky as to end up with someone like him!

So basically, a woman who loves to cook for her family is a sell-out. But for a man, cooking for his family is a unique selling point. Can you figure this one out? No, me neither.

Why should the same impulse – to nurture and feed your loved ones – be seen through two such different prisms depending on the gender of the person concerned? Why should a woman be mocked for doing something that a man is congratulated for?

Clearly, as we enter into the second decade of the 21^st century, gender stereotyping has come full circle. But while men are admired for stepping out of their gender-defined roles, women are pilloried for staying within them.

I can still hear the jeers that greeted Sunanda Pushkar Tharoor when she admitted on national television that she enjoyed being a housewife and cooking dinner every night for her husband. How could she possibly say something like that, her critics tut-tutted. Didn’t she know that women were expected to be emancipated from housework now? Being a woman of substance meant having a career outside the home. Admitting to being a homebody, and worse, confessing to cooking for your husband (and actually enjoying it!), was a complete no-no.

And yet, I am sure if the tables had been turned, the public reaction would have been quite different. If Shashi Tharoor had said in an interview that he loved going back home after a hard day at the office and rustling up a nice meal for his wife, he would have been hailed as the epitome of the New Man, an ideal that every male should aspire to.

What is going on here? Why is Sunanda’s goshtaba or tabak maas bad while Shashi’s meen moily or avial is good? Why this double standard when it comes to appraising a primal desire: the impulse to cook for those we love?

The truth is that all of us are good at some things and rubbish at others. Some women enjoy the prospect of cooking for their families while others wouldn’t be caught dead before a stove. Similarly, some men love the idea of cooking while others steer well clear of the kitchen.

So, here’s a novel idea. Why not allow each one of them to do as they please – and what pleases them – without any value judgement? That’s not asking for much, is it?

The age divide

Men get away with dating younger women; but older women are laughed at for dating younger men

You’ve probably heard about the incident as well, given that it was splashed all over the entertainment media. At an after-party at the Oscars, Madonna finally came face to face with former husband Sean Penn, one of the victors of the night. The couple – known as the Poison Penns in their heyday – was meeting for the first time since their spectacularly acrimonious break-up. And nobody was laying any bets on it being an amicable meeting.

And of course, it wasn’t. Sean took one look at Madonna’s new boyfriend, the 22-year-old model named Jesus (honestly, you couldn’t make this stuff up), who was accompanying the Material Girl to the event and sniggered, “What Madonna? Another kid already?”

Yes, I know, hilarious, isn’t it? How incredibly funny to see a 50 year old woman cavorting with a man in his 20s, right? I mean doesn’t the woman realize that she shouldn’t be going to bed with someone she could have given birth to?

I mean, really, when you do this kind of thing you’re just asking to be sent up – and not just by bitter ex-husbands, but by the rest of the world.

Ask Demi Moore, who has been the butt of jokes ever since she took up the much-younger Ashton Kutcher. Much mirth was occasioned by the fact that her boyfriend was closer in age to her daughter, Rumer, than he was to Demi herself. And when Kutcher posted a picture of his wife’s bikini-clad bottom on his Twitter feed, everyone duly tut-tutted that this was what a woman got for marrying a child.

In fact, the jokes got so bad at one point that the couple even appeared on Saturday Night Live to mock themselves in a skit. Ashton joked about being married to a much older woman and the camera panned to where Demi was sitting in the audience, kitted out as an old crone in her 90s.

Oh my, how we laughed!

But when you sit back and think about it, what is truly funny is how men with much younger wives are never made the target of such low-brow humour.

Look around you. The world is littered with examples of old (in some cases, very old indeed) men who are cavorting with women young enough to be their daughters, hell, even their granddaughters. But this is somehow seen as proof of their sexual magnetism, their virility that survives even into old age.

Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch has a wife about three decades younger than him. Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood left his 50-something wife for a 20 year old Russian waitress. Donald Trump’s wives get younger with every decade. Hollywood star Tom Cruise’s wife Katie Holmes is much younger than him. And now Mel Gibson has to give away half his billion dollar fortune to his 50-something wife after being caught canoodling with a 30-something called Okasana (honestly, what is it with these Russians?), with whom he now has a child -- his eighth, in case you're wondering.

But these men never become the target of tired old (no pun aimed at) jokes the way that the women do.

Have you ever asked yourself why?

Well, I’ve been thinking about it since I read that the Madonna-Jesus coupling is a thing of the past. Why is it that woman in their 40s and 50s stir up such strong sentiment when they go out with younger men? Why are we so unfazed at the sight of an older man squiring a young woman? And why are we rendered so uncomfortable at the thought of an older woman dating a younger man that we have to seek refuge in humour?

If you ask me, it’s because society demands that women above a certain age – once they’ve got married and had their babies – should become invisible to the predatory eye. Once they’ve served the purpose of procreation and have crossed their early 30s, they should retire gracefully into Mommyland and never be seen again as sexually active creatures with desires and cravings of their own.

And God forbid, that they should ever be seen with younger boyfriends. That is the last taboo, and one which can only be dealt with by a steady dose of humour.

Popular culture mimics this prejudice. You can have a 60-something Amitabh Bachchan romancing the 30-something Tabu in Cheeni Kum, and nobody thinks much about it. In fact, the audience is encouraged to think of her crusty old father, who opposes the matches, as a stupid spoilsport who doesn’t seem to get that true love trumps age.

But there’s shock, horror, all around when the gender roles are reversed in Hindi cinema. When Akshay Khanna falls in love with the much-older Dimple Kapadia in Dil Chahta Hai, everyone from his friends to his mother to the disbelieving viewer is outraged. What can he see in that old wrinkly anyway?

And I find it telling that while Amitabh gets his happy ending with Tabu, Dimple Kapadia is killed off at the end of the movie so that order can be restored to the universe.

Older men can get away with dating younger women. Hell, we probably even admire them for it. But an older woman who lays her eyes on a younger man, must be taught a lesson – and shown her place in the natural order.

Clearly, when it comes to sexual politics, the gender divide is as strong as ever.