A recent article on Salon attempts to hail the "feminvore," a trendy breed of women embracing DIY and artisan food, all the while using Michael Pollan's name and recent publication as a means to gain clicks.
To begin, I haven't read the New York Magazine article cited by Salon in which Pollan apparently attacks feminism as the reason for the nation's rising obesity rates. Nor have I read his latest book, although I thoroughly enjoyed The Omnivore's Dilemma (which actually inspired this) and In Defense of Food. I think Pollan is at his best when he is explaining the history and rationale behind the modern food industry, and less so when he attempts to become some sort of diet guru in books like Food Rules.
Many arguments have come out criticizing Pollan's nostalgia for women in the kitchen, emphasizing that for a greater part of history, cooking was work, and that not everyone found it pleasurable. My reaction was that, maybe someone should explain that feminism isn't done yet.
There is no one way to be a feminist. Although the feminist discussions that I grew up around centered on the idea that women and men could be anything, from doctors to stay at home parents (mostly stemming from things like this). But it was a discussion that focused on what sort of career a child would grow up to have. I don't remember the same enlightenment around discussions of household chores, of which cooking was one.
That idea seems to be one of my generation of feminists - incorporating partners who identify as male into the work/home equation. But most heteronormative women I know who are in relationships that share a domicile, do most of the household chores, still.
I wonder if the deeper issue is that food is still gendered, and maybe getting even more so. Women are supposed to eat dainty little salads, (while laughing alone?), men are supposed eat meat. Men are chefs in restaurants, women are cooks in the home kitchen (I'm generalizing and know this is not universal). I certainly have my share of ex-boyfriends who could throw a temper tantrum worthy of a five-year-old when confronted with the idea of eating their vegetables.
Anecdata aren't facts, and I do know my share of men defy these gender roles and not only eat their vegetables and cook at home, but are vegetarians themselves. Inversely, I know some women who can really carnivore out, as well. But overall, it seems feminism and society are still working on the balance.
And part of the solution may be de-gendering food and cooking, a form of evolution forward, as suggested here. Indeed, apparently Pollan suggests in his new book that "non-gendered home economics class" should be a requirement in high schools, and I think there is something in this idea.
