This isn't sexist at all.

[PiperIsTerrysChoclateOrange]

In my DH works on night shifts each of the wives/partners cook for all the men on shift.

I'm happy with it and so are all the other women, we have been doing this for years. It means they all get a hot home made meal.

The 1 partner of a new man who has started has pulled a strop and said it sexiest and very 1950.

The reason we all enjoy cooking them as we can step away from cooking 'kids' meals and kick up the heat on curries and jerk chicken ect.
While I accept that children do eat these kind of meals within our friendship group all these are always done mild.

IABU to think it is not sexiest.

In able to do this many years ago with the Christmas bonus they brought a George foreman, slow cooker, pressure cooker and a rice cooker. Due to H&S the only thing they haven't got is a deep fat fryer. But all the others have been PACT tested.

Can we find a nice girl for the single guy so he can contribute a decent meal?

Sorry bumbleymummy cross-posted with your clarification.

Its a nice thing to do though.
My dh would do that me and i would for him.

Are you okay Piper?

The people who actually work there should have a rota to sort food out, if that's what they want. If some of those people then agree with their wives/partners for them to do the cooking instead, that's fine - the workers have the responsibility.

But organising it through people who don't even work there, setting up a rota themselves, just seems a bit weird to me. It shouldn't be up to the wives to sort out how their husbands get fed - they are grown adults!

All IMO, of course.

I also woke up thinking about this one and how OP is getting - unfairly in my opinion - a hard time on this thread.

As TP says, working nights is a hard job - the team have found a way to make it work better.

I wonder how many of the posters that are critical of the arrangements have ever worked night shift? Or had a family member work night shift?

The cooking arrangements are also family decisions. Yes, they benefit the men more than the women within the group as the women cook and the men eat, but by the group cooking system, each family is saving family money. OP has told us that she doesn't mind the cooking, it happens once in 3 months.

To those who are still not clear about the arrangements and the equipment, OP has already explained that They cook the rice themselves (presumably using the communally bought equipment at the workplace) whilst the one-pot wonder is done at home (by the woman) and then transported in by the men. I sometimes participate in a similar group, although it is a social occasion where everyone gets to eat and DH usually makes our contribution.

Yes, there is a gender dimension to the arrangements, but in my opinion that is more about who gets to do the heavy shift work rather than the catering arrangements, about which everyone is happy.

seriouslypeedoff I agree with you completely - that is exactly what I was trying to express in my post at 19:00.: the only thing that is sexist is the assumption (which was there in OPs text message) that the new man's partner would be the one to cook when it is his turn.

OP, you have been very gracious in taking on the comments. You also that the new man is in any case catered for, which is very kind of everyone. No doubt he will come up with a way to contribute to the catering, hopefully not a second fry-up.

Whenever there is a situation where "it just so happens" that women's unpaid labour is used to serve men's convenience, you can be pretty sure it is sexist.

It's almost the definition of sexism.

And the fact that some women get a little buzz in their nether regions from being subjugated doesn't change that.

the fact that some women get a little buzz in their nether regions from being subjugated

Who needs men to put women down, eh?

Yes, Bathtime, I agree in general, but it is part of a much wider problem of who does what in paid and unpaid work.

I don't see why OP has to get such a hard time about catering arrangements that very good from a culinary perspective and are advantageous to her family in several ways. It is quite normal to do some unpaid work to save family money.

But a pp called the arrangements "bizarre", which is quite unfair. Perhaps if the men had different facilities at work, they could take it in turns to produce the "one-pot-wonder" right there, as they do with the rice now that they have the equipment.

"Like fuck am I doing that, what a bunch of sexiest 1950 twats you all sound."

The new wife has to be a Mumsnetter. Perhaps she just forgot herself for a minute and thought she was posting on here rather than texting a stranger.

The idea of communal cooking, in principle, is brilliant. A relative of mine has a similar arrangement for dinners at home with her inlaws. Granted it only involves the mothers, who are all SAHM, but 3 or 4 of them cook once or twice a week each and all the families just eat together each night at the home of whoever has cooked (all live within 2/3 streets of each other).

They will save a fortune and eat much better than microwave meals etc, which are impractical if you have a lot of people wanting to heat them up at the same time.

However, the assumption that the wives will do the cooking for the men is ludicrous for all manner of reasons, and I find it hard to believe that it is always the wives that cook for the men when there appears to be 20 men in the working group.

The OP has said that one of them is single, but even in the most manly jobs in manly workplaces, there is usually going to be at least one or two women in a group that size, and there will be divorced men, or those in homosexual relationships, or men with wives/female partners but the men cook at home.

MrsDeVere of course you should never be expected to cook for each others colleagues.

But what OP has is a long-standing arrangement, voluntarily entered into by a group of 20 families. It works for them and sounds great to me on the food front.

The arrangements are unusual (what is unusual is that it is rare to have this kind of cooperation between quite a large group of unrelated people for such a long time) and I can understand that they may come as a surprise to a new-comer.

However, it seems that New Man has been happily enjoying the home-cooked hot meal provided by this arrangement. What is surprising to me is that he has been observing this without (yet) working out how he can contribute, other than having OP text his partner.

I wonder about the situation of the new worker, with a "stroppy" wife, unwilling to go along with the sexist catering arrangements.

I think he could legitimately argue that he is at a disadvantage in his workplace, because he is now an outsider to a sexist arrangement that predates his employment, but that he was expected to submit his wife to.

Basically this is a workplace that presumes a willing, and probably non-working, wife as a part of normal work arrangements.

That's pretty sexist.

at least in your scenario OnIleyMoor, the women get to sit down and eat too!! It's sociable at the very least.

There is something much worse imo about cooking a lot of food and then just handing it over and going home.

Amongst extended family dos I do a bit of cooking but it's to 'support my mother' as there is no way my dad is going to start generating dishes worthy of consumption. I object to that less because that's family. But to be told to hand over the food to strangers and then go home! that's just fucking hilarious

Piper, hope you are ok. I'm a stay at home mother. My husband bakes scones on Saturday morning and freezes them because he likes to have one at work. It's loving of you to cook for your partner. If you have traditional roles that's fine. But, not everyone does. I bet some of the other wives resent cooking or the assumption that they should cook but don't have the balls to say it. It needs to be a bit more live and let live. Even jazz it up a bit yourself. give your husband a gift of a cookery course. He might love it - could become Mr Bar-B-Que man _

Do you have daughters? or worse sons expecting to get the same treatment? remember, they're watching.

I've just read the whole thread. My DH works occasional night shifts and on the whole, I have no idea what he eats. Just like he has no idea what he eats for my lunches at work. Usually we eat together before he goes, sometimes I make suggestions of things he could take.

Once he mentioned that some wives send in cakes. I said how nice for them. I pointed out that when any baking gets done in this house, it doesn't last long enough to make it past the front door. He agreed.

Once my work colleagues heard of an amazing new cheesecake recipe he had perfected and liked to show off. I reported this back and he made me one as a gift to take in for the team.

All nice things to do for each other, but no regular system or sense of obligation. Plus for me, it is essential for these things to work both ways.

I think I am the only one that immediately thought "bloody hell, I don't have any pans big enough to cook for 30". It's quite an expensive thing to offer to do isn't it, regardless of sexist issues?

Cross-post with OnIlkleyMoorBahTwat - your relative's communal cooking arrangements sound brilliant.

Pleeeeeease update and explain how you share all the cooking equipment

Buzzard I think it is for 20, and it is going to be cheaper than buying the same number of individual microwave meals to last for 20 days.

It's not expensive at all Buzzard if they all take turns. They only need to provide ingredients once every 3 months but get to eat a home cooked meal on every shift.

I think it's a genius arrangement, except the assumption that only the wives cook of course, and am impressed if they've come up with a selection of meals that they will all eat, but maybe they've agreed a rota and will always be happy with 'Bob's chilli' or 'Steve's pulled pork for example.

Doing it that way, the cost per portion will be a small fraction of the cost of them all buying separate ready meals, takeaways or pre-made sandwiches, if that if what they would do instead.

Maybe they share pans too - the one whose turn it is next takes home the big pan and brings it back the next day full of food. I bought a giant pan from either Ikea or TK Maxx that could easily do stew for at least 10, so maybe you would need two of them, but were £20 or £30 each -again maybe this was something that got bought with the bonuses.

Rice cookers are brilliant for producing a lot of rice without much effort - I got one from Aldi for not much and use it at family parties where I might serve chilli and rice to 20 or 30 guests.

Having giggled my way through the entire thread the winning comment has to be

Vaginas don't cook stew any better than a pair of balls.

I don't get how it can be only every 3 months. Do they work 5 days a week? If so then it's once every 4 weeks assuming everyone (or their partner ) takes a turn. If they work more than 5 days a week it'll be more like every 3 weeks - did you mean weeks rather than months, OP

Still means it's an arrangement that is, yes, sexist in all its assumptions. I can see the benefits of everyone getting a big home cooked meal, but the way it's currently done is quite old school in its assumptions about wives cooking. The reply text was certainly blunt and arguably she could have put it more diplomatically, but she's got a point.

What would happen if someone's partner wasn't able to take a turn, eg had a big work commitment herself that week, or was ill or something? Would the man step up and do it, or would he be allowed to miss a turn?

It's definitely a sexist set up and I don't really get the practicalities but it sounds like everyone is happy and whilst Piper"s text was misguided I don't think it really merited such an aggressive response, though I sympathise with the sentiment of it!

There are just so many questions that the OP isn't going to clarify though, which is so tantalising! Why must the single man contribute a fry up? Why would anyone particularly enjoy cooking a spicy meal that they're not going to eat themselves? It's so weird! But also harmless, I suppose.

Well I'm glad that there are some more posters that find OP's catering arrangements genius.

Are you still there, Piper?