to take the mick out of male colleagues who bring in shared food that their WIVES have made

[morningpaper]

this makes me both scornful and slightly depressed and I resort to extreme sarcasm

Only last week I was nibbling lemon cake from a colleagues WIFE.

What IS that ABOUT?

AIBU?

Because sometimes it's just lovely to have a nice argument where the outcome doesn't really matter and no-one is truly getting their knickers in a twist.

On another occassion he came to work on a monday furious with her that she didn't get up and cook him and his sons breakfast when he woke her up on Saturday morning. He was still mad on Monday. I said, "I wouldn't cooke you breakfast eather if you woke me up." Clearly not the supportive response he wanted.

The question nobody is asking here though (whether or not you agree if it is right or wrong) is why it is almost always (but not exclusively) the women who bake, pack, mend. And the men who empty the bins, top up the oil, cut the grass.

Because it's a choice right?

It isn't always. Not in the cory household.

but it isn't like that in my house.
We choose and do the tasks that we like the most and are most competent at.
Dh does all the cooking and all the food shopping. DS1 cuts the grass. I empty the bin.

It is a choice.

No, I agree and said so: in any individual family it might not be so gender-specific. But there is no doubt whatsoever that these kind of behaviours do, on aggregate, fall into stereotypical gender patterns.

Athene, oh in that case he is just an arse.

Actually it is a choice Wilf, I choose which chores I want to do and DH does the rest

heh heh, pretty much like that in my house too Libra

Then surely the question is why people make the choices they do. Rather than the suggestion that there is no choice.

My DH would be delighted if I would take up cake baking. He once asked me if I wanted him to buy me a mixer, like it was a really nice gift he could get for me. I said something like "if you are going to use it, fine, but I wouldn't know what to do with it"

I do cook a fair amount. But he doesn't really like my cooking because I insist on putting in lots of veg and little fat.

Indeed, that's a better way of putting it. Still, we don't have the answer yet on this thread. Why do women, en masse, choose to do more cooking, baking, nurturing, food provision, domestic care, 'housekeeping' and household management activities than men?

I'm inclined to think it is learned and not genetic.

Where is Xenia? Should she be here by now?

Wilf - yes, there is clearly an issue if girls are still taught cooking and sewing but not metalwork,and vice versa for boys (but metalwork not something commonly used by most people anyway. I mean, who has the tools?) - BUT, I do feel that MP's scorn is misplaced and unjustified - her equation of baking with intimacy and nurturing is surely part of the problem, rather than seeing it as something some women or some men do better/enjoy more than their partners.

FWIW, I bake, do most meals (and yes, it includes sandwiches - I'm making them for myself, ffs, it's hardly an imposition to make another one while I'm at it), and DH mows the lawn BUT he does most of the ironing and dishwashing and generally clears up after I've turned the kitchen into a bombsite.

I think we're in danger of throwing the baby out with the bathwater here, if we don't allow people to indulge their desire to perform simple acts of kindness...

hmm true wilf

you don't often hear men protesting: "But I choose to do craft!"

I do all the cooking/baking for two reasons;

1. I am very good at it seeing as my mum taught cordon bleu and all that and passed everything on to me.

1. My partner is shit at it because his mum is a shit cook and passed everything on to him.

I also do any plumbing, rewiring, mechanical jobs on our cars, fixing various toys/lawnmowers/domestic appliances as necessary.
Cos i am an engineer innit.

But I don't think MP's connection between baking and nurturing/intimacy is at all misplaced. It is gendered behaviour and women do this more than men. Women don't just learn it through explicit teaching from schools or parents; complex patterns of femininity values women for their provision of food as care. The justifiable anguish that many of us on here face as we try to wean/feed our babies is enough evidence of a strong connection between feeding and intimate motherhood. And it stretches into partnership relations to, as well as friendship relations: being a good woman (by baking for example) is also for other women too sometimes (and the social good: hence the PTA).

Can't help noticing that most of my Swedish male friends seem to be more into cooking/baking than their colleagues in this country. Now that wouldn't be because Swedis schools have run compulsory cooking classes for both sexes for the last 40 years or so?

Also, compulsory woodwork for girls.

I'm with Athene on the active-on-the-PTA-but-doesn't-bake-cakes thing. I will never, ever bake a cake for school. I reserve cake-baking for friends and family, where cake baking, IMO, belongs.

I even lobby other parents on the Parents Association to join me in my boycott of all cake-related activities .

MP, that's partly to do with the fact that craft is generally not something one needs in day to day life, though - how many pencil holders does one person need?

The problem is that girls are taught the useful, practical real day-to-day stuff, and boys learn metalwork or "craft". Would you, however, be equally angry with a man sending cakes to his wife's work, as per my example above.

I think we need to be free to choose to enjoy baking and distributing baked goods without feeling that we HAVE to, surely?

Good point cory. When i was at college doing my apprenticeship (both of them, i did an apprenticeship as a motor mechanic when i left school and then later di another one as a marine engineer) i was the only female.
I was touted around the local girls schools in an attempt to get more young women interested in engineering.
It didn't really work that well at one of the schools as they had no options for any practical subjects such as woodwork or metal work for example. Just home ec or needlework.

When i was at school i went to a girls school, i used to go across to the boys school down the road for metalwork and cdt.

I do most of the cooking in this house because if I didn't then our suppers would consist or either Sainsburys chicken super noodles OR pizza. If he was very hungry then it would be both and no if I made him do the cooking every night he wouldn't soon change his mind and learn to cook. He likes sainsburys chicken super noodles and pizza and sees no reason to deviate from this.

Go Sweden! My point exactly. I bet Swedish men all knock up little things at Xmas for their wives.

I wasn't at all suggesting it was genetic (think someone may have misunderstood me). But the idea it is a free choice not v convincing either.

But Wilf - is the answer to stop some people doing what they turn out to be skilled in, or to simply allow them not to do it if they're shit/hate it? t

Am I allowed to admit I think that men and female think differently or is that basically mumsnet suicide?

Anna, I also think it's very hypocratic of the school. They send home guidelines for the lunch box and specifically ask parents not to put chocolate or crisps in it... and then "Bake sale at 3:15!" Yes, of course, because chocolate is more nutritious at 3:15 than it is at 12:00.