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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

This isn't sexist at all.

999 replies

PiperIsTerrysChoclateOrange · 20/03/2015 17:55

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.

OP posts:
bumbleymummy · 21/03/2015 17:38

It isn't necessary to be rude to make a point.

SilverBirch2015 · 21/03/2015 17:53

Bumbley, I think we may have to agree to disagree on this one.

For me the comment about the one single bloke in the group doing a fry-up (an acceptable masculine cooking activity like a BBQ!) made it clear that the group's expectation is men don't normally cook, that's women's work. This was clearly reinforced by the expectation that the partner of the new guy needed to be contacted.

keepsmiling2015 · 21/03/2015 17:55

Well, you are being sexist because you expect her to do this- because she's a woman. Can't you see that?

FirstWeTakeManhattan · 21/03/2015 17:56

Why are so many people punching the air over this woman who doesn't fancy doing the cooking?

Why is she being hero-worshipped? What's with the 'give her a trophy'? She just said what pretty much most people would have said (with or without the swearing). I know it's lighthearted, but there is repeated 'wow, she's amazing, must be a Mumsnetter etc.'

It's just getting a little grating.

SilverBirch 'Normalising pretty sexist behaviour'. To be clearer, what is the specific sexist behaviour? Is the preparation of food by a woman or the fact that it is done for men? Both? Have they been 'told' to do it or is it something that they came up with between them? Do you simply not believe that they are content with the arrangement and the only way you can comprehend it is to maintain that they just 'don't get it' somehow?

And also the other thread about subjugating behaviour, what is that? Would probably be relevant to mine and others points of view.

This thread continues to bug me.

AlternativeTentacles · 21/03/2015 17:57

It isn't necessary to be rude to make a point.

Sometimes - when you receive a message saying you can be slotted into a routine that takes up your time and resources for the sake of people you do not know - it really is. I think they thought the Suffragettes were rude interrupting those bloody races you know. How dare they.

keepsmiling2015 · 21/03/2015 17:57

Ok, why don't one of the men cook the meal at home before work and bring it in for everyone. Why is the the wife/partner cooks?

bumbleymummy · 21/03/2015 18:00

It's the fact that you were calling the entire arrangement - ie women cooking for their partners/husbands - sexist that I objected to. I've already posted that I think it's wrong to assume other people will want to join in but if the existing wives/partners are happy with the arrangement and have decided it amongst themselves then I don't think it's automatically sexist. Nor do I think it's ok for people to criticise/be rude about the arrangement just because they don't want to join in.

We can agree to disagree if you like though :)

BertieBotts · 21/03/2015 18:05

The whole setup is sexist, because it does not exist in a vacuum. It exists within a society where women's "role" is within the kitchen and to take care of men, where men do this kind of heavy physical work, where men are more likely to work night shifts than women because women are more likely to take care of children during the day.

An individual instance of a wife cooking for her husband, or, indeed, several wives cooking for a group of their collective husbands is not sexist in itself. It's all about the context.

AlternativeTentacles · 21/03/2015 18:06

but if the existing wives/partners are happy with the arrangement and have decided it amongst themselves then I don't think it's automatically sexist.

It is. No really. Any situation that is 'co-incidentally' women doing all the work for the men is sexist. And to say that the man who is not married does not have to do the same, makes it even more obvious that it is sexist.

bumbleymummy · 21/03/2015 18:06

Alternative - she could have said No, I don't think I want to join in with that arrangement. (Newcomer) will be happy to cook something himself for the team though.

No need to be rude and insult them.

Would MNers applaud and give out trophies to women who criticised SAHMs for their decision to stay at home and look after kids/cook and clean? Would they be compared to 1950s housewives?

I think it's very sad that women judge other women so harshly for making a decision to do something that they enjoy because it's considered stereotypical 'women's work'.

bumbleymummy · 21/03/2015 18:08

Alternative, so a woman can't decide to cook a meal for her husband and his colleagues because she enjoys it without it being called sexist?

No, I don't agree with you at all on that.

AlternativeTentacles · 21/03/2015 18:08

I think it's very sad that women judge other women so harshly for making a decision to do something that they enjoy because it's considered stereotypical 'women's work'.

Do you honestly, at the heart of your being, think that all the women 'enjoy' cooking their husbands and his colleagues their meals, seeing it as a welcome/exciting break from fish fingers?

BertieBotts · 21/03/2015 18:08

Being happy about a situation doesn't remove all sexism from it.

And no this is not about criticising somebody who does want to do it.

weeblueberry · 21/03/2015 18:09

She just said what pretty much most people would have said (with or without the swearing). I know it's lighthearted, but there is repeated 'wow, she's amazing, must be a Mumsnetter etc.'

I totally disagree. It's what most people would think but not actually come out and say. Especially to a stranger.

bumbleymummy · 21/03/2015 18:13

"It's what most people would think but not actually come out and say. Especially to a stranger."

Maybe because they aren't rude? :)

Original poster
PiperIsTerrysChoclateOrange · 21/03/2015 18:14

On a day shift DH does his own packed lunch. All by himself as well as doing mine for work.

I haven't text back, the reason I texted her via the husband phone is because I don't have phone number

OP posts:
CustardLover · 21/03/2015 18:14

Unintended consequence of reading this thread; am well I n the mood for a big bowl of stew now.

bumbleymummy · 21/03/2015 18:18

Alternative, I don't automatically assume that they don't. That they are somehow oppressed and downtrodden because there is no possible way that any woman might actually want to cook a meal for her partner and colleagues.

Bertie, DH has just spent the last couple of hours out in the garden digging and planting. Is that sexist?

hiccupgirl · 21/03/2015 18:21

it's kind of arrangement sounds an awful like the one at my FIL bowls club where the men bowl and their wives make the tea and cakes for afterwards. Considering they are all in the their 70s and 80s, it is a very 1950s arrangement that most of them seem happy with.

To expect a younger woman to automatically want to join with a similar kind of arrangement is just odd tbh. Lots of women don't enjoy cooking and for me, the thought of being expected to cook a big dish for DH to take and share with his colleagues would bring me out in a cold sweat, sexist or not.

ilovesooty · 21/03/2015 18:21

Yes but you didn't need to text her at all.
Your husband could have simply asked her husband what he would like to do about being involved in the communal catering.

Enormouse · 21/03/2015 18:27

Exactly sooty, leave it to the men to sort out their own food arrangements and for the new bloke to decide whether he wants in on this set up.

TracyBarlow · 21/03/2015 18:28

This reminds me of 3 weeks after I moved in with my husband and the cricket captain's wife emailed me to tell me she'd put me on the bloody rota for cricket teas for two weeks' time.

These are the teas that are made up in the morning (sandwiches etc, cake) and taken to the ground by the players to be eaten at half time.

I told her that my husband (he was my boyfriend then) would be making the teas himself as he was an adult and she told me it wasn't really acceptable as he 'wouldn't know what to do and the teas might not be good enough'.

So I told her to do the fucking teas herself. She did!

Stealthpolarbear · 21/03/2015 18:30

you texted from her dh's phones
were you still holding it when she replied
or did she find out your no and send the reply direct

ilovesooty · 21/03/2015 18:42

Exactly Tracy although to be fair the OP didn't simply put this woman on the rota.
To me this arrangement sounds weird, sexist and old fashioned but that's not the main issue. For me it's the OP using her husband's phone to text this woman's husband to try to involve this wife and the implication that she's falling short of expected standards by not complying.

GallicGarlic · 21/03/2015 18:54

I just love that some posters obdurately refuse to see sexism in anything at all :) It gives me something to feel exasperated about. Bumbley, I can always depend on you for a hefty dose of sexism denial. Cheers!