Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
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:
QueenBean · 22/03/2015 13:29

Gallic the kitchen equipment mystery has still not been solved! The OP is messing with our minds!!

BitOutOfPractice · 22/03/2015 13:39

I think the machinery was purchased so that they could do rice / warm up naan breads etc to go with their big man stews and interesting curries

GallicGarlic · 22/03/2015 13:50

She is, Bean Shock Shock

bumbleymummy · 22/03/2015 13:58

Why isn't it possible that a group of women actually want to cook? Why does the OP have to be lying or they're all doing it under duress? You're criticising the OP for assuming that the new wife would join in but here you are making assumptions of your own.

Thymeout · 22/03/2015 14:04

Well, new wife did throw a strop - by sending an unnecessarily offensive text. That's what Op is posting about.

All she had to do was say 'No, my husband will be doing it' or opt out, using the time-honoured Mumsnet 'Sorry it doesn't work for us.' And then he could sit there with his sandwiches while the others enjoyed the hot, homemade food. This is a night-shift of heavy manual labour, not an office job.

Ime, the wife does cook the main meal on a regular basis, more often than not. For all sorts of logistical reasons, preferences. It doesn't seem such an outlandish assumption to me. And the whole phone thing is beyond me. I had no idea it was such a breach of etiquette to use someone else's phone.

ilovesooty · 22/03/2015 14:07

The use of the husband's phone to contact this woman is all about the message it conveys.

MrsDeVere · 22/03/2015 14:12

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Thymeout · 22/03/2015 14:16

And are the 19? other women who OP has bent to her will also representative of the Mumsnet demographic?

Op must be one hell of a woman.

BuzzardBird · 22/03/2015 14:18

Wonder what they do with their George Formby thingy?

CaptainHolt · 22/03/2015 14:26

I think it's for cleaning windows

Anniegetyourgun · 22/03/2015 14:28

George Foreman thingy, BuzzardBird. The George Formby thing was a ukulele and very unlikely to be useful in the cooking of food. But maybe you knew that Grin

I guess the gentleman who prefers to do the Full English uses it to grill the bacon and tomatoes, which sounds very nice.

bumbleymummy · 22/03/2015 14:28

It is possible MrsDV but when someone comes on and says that this group of women enjoy it why assume that she must be lying?

Thymeout - completely agree with your second paragraph

OrlandoWoolf · 22/03/2015 14:31

What's not to enjoy about cooking a meal for 20 men so they get fed?

BuzzardBird · 22/03/2015 14:33

I did know Grin I have always called it a George Formby and I imagine when you cook with it you open it up and say "turned out nice again!" Grin

BitOutOfPractice · 22/03/2015 14:37

I would bet my mortgage that most of the 19 women on this rota have a heavy heart when they see it's coming up to their turn and wish they had been able to say "Fuck That" as well when they were approached.

Because anyone saying that all 19 of them agreed to it / organised it must know that this is not how group dynamics work. Usually it's one or two leaders and I suspect the OP who hatch the plan and drag the rest behind with a combination of guilt, forced jollity ("It'll be FUN!") and a dose of "we're all doing it, why can't you" persausion

OrlandoWoolf · 22/03/2015 14:45

I wonder if the OP is on the PTA as well? Similar skills needed.

Anniegetyourgun · 22/03/2015 14:49

Why isn't it possible that a group of women actually want to cook? Why does the OP have to be lying or they're all doing it under duress? You're criticising the OP for assuming that the new wife would join in but here you are making assumptions of your own.

I don't recall anyone saying it wasn't possible that they wanted to. What some posters have been saying is that it is possible that they don't all want to. I would agree it's not likely that the OP is the only one who is happy to batch cook for her husband's workplace. However I also feel that it's very likely indeed that at least one or two of them would really rather not but don't feel they can say so.

There's only one woman in the world who I can definitely claim to represent - myself, spookily enough - and I have to say the thought of cooking two huge potfuls of food for a bunch of random workers even once a quarter would not appeal one tiny little bit. I'm not always good at saying no when put on the spot, but I have to say "fuck that" sounds like a perfectly reasonable response in context and is probably milder than what I'd be thinking - once I stopped panicking and got indignant instead.

One thing people aren't right to assume is that New Wife is awesome. For all anyone knows she might be a horrible cow. Nevertheless on this occasion she is in the right of it IMO. (I do agree with those who suggested she may not have meant her text to be forwarded verbatim to the OP, at least you have to hope not.)

ps Men can't work a shift of manual labour without a hot meal in the middle of it? Eh what? No nutritionist worth their salt (ahahaha) would back up that assertion.

Anniegetyourgun · 22/03/2015 14:50

What's not to enjoy about cooking a meal for 20 men so they get fed?

The bit where I cook it Confused

MrsDeVere · 22/03/2015 15:07

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

BuzzardBird · 22/03/2015 15:40

I said that MrsDV and got offered my arse on a plate at how stoopid I am and how easy it is.

Anniegetyourgun · 22/03/2015 15:42

And yet somehow only easy for women. Funny, that.

OrlandoWoolf · 22/03/2015 15:46

I bet the men have a menu and each wife cooks the same thing everytime. I bet they also must have some big pots.

Do the men help at all?

DocHollywood · 22/03/2015 15:54

But what a PITA for the men as well having to wash up everything afterwards? 20 plates, cutlery, crockpot etc. so easy to just have a Tupperware and that you bring home and bung in the dishwasher.

(I'm assuming the pots don't come home dirty for the next woman)

OrlandoWoolf · 22/03/2015 15:56

But what a PITA for the men as well having to wash up everything afterwards?

Maybe they leave it till the next day and it miraculously happens when the next wife brings the food alone?

DocHollywood · 22/03/2015 15:57

..or leave it for the women on the day shift? Shock