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?

I'm with you on this one Morning Paper. Why does nobody ever bake and bring it to a women's refuge or to a homeless shelter or to the staff at A&E?

If I was afflicted by the urge to bake 5 cakes (cos it's as easy as baking 1 ) then I'd bring them to an old people's home I think!

I've tried that but they aren't able to accept home baking because of health and safety regulations.

Oh yes, I also occasionally iron shirts for DH.

Birthdays and Valentines Day usually guaranteed.

Sometimes if I'm ironing a pile of stuff for myself of an evening, I'll do one of his shirts too.

It is easier than baking one at a time,imho once you have the mixture you just spoon it into the tins, there's very little extra effort involved.

And I'll be dammned if I'm creaming bloody butter and sugar every time I want a slice of cake. I love baking but I absolutely hate that part and baking a few at a time means I can avoid it for longer.

Have to point out the perennial comedy of people MNing complaining that other MNers have too much time on their hands. Oh yes, we're all sooooooo busy...

ONly read op. What alot of replies.

Quite a few women get a warm satisfaction from baking for others, especially if they will not bne there as often they are trying To Lose Weight.

I sorta understand it even though I would scoff.

It's a wibbly wobbly woman thang

LOL @ Habbibu, if there was no MN just think how many workplaces would be tucking into homemade cakes/flapjacks and other goodies that industrious wives could have knocked up.

It is, of course, also one of the symptoms of an eating disorder: to cook rich or sweet food to feed to other people .

That means James Martin's screwed...

well, stick, it can hint at an unhappy relatiosnship with food, I would agree...

All chefs must be in deep shit then.

chefs do it for money, I thought

So they say but there may be an unconscious desire to fatten up others that leads them in the direction of a catering career.

possibly. If they specialise in cakes like my mum

I can't believe people are so fucking uptight about baked goods.

I also share salads, evil manipulator that I am.

In fact for our college party I'm making quiche, salad and cranberry and orange muffins. What do you think of that Dr Freud?

can I attempt to throw a spanner in teh works?
I bake with the DD's, it is our default activity, and as such there are normally some fairy cakes or biscuits or some other homemade foodstuff lying around.

DH then takes them into his work without asking me and shares them around his colleagues.
hence I am left bereft of nice things and have to make more.

Now how does that fit in with your theories?

(I also make DH 2 birthday cakes every year, one for us and one for his work to eat, and send in christmas snacks if I feel like it, but mainly it is things DH nicks while I am not looking)

oo - I haven't read the threads on this. Strong feelings have obviously been aroused. It's only a bit of baking

See Falcon , you're onto something there. The same logic that drives anorexics to be obsessed with cooking is at play. Health warning: I am NOT saying all women have eating disorders. But this is one of the explanations for why women use food as nurturing and care: because they can since it is part of the normative expectations of femininity.

Doesn't matter whether you like it, you hate it, whether you do it or not in your family or workplace, whether you even know you're doing it... It's just a social fact that most women cook, and that most women include cooking for others as part of their repertory of nurture.

Meanwhile, women have the other side of the tyranny to deal with too: how to cook cake without stuffing yourself full of it.

So the Tyranny of Torte is pretty important and not trivial IMHO.

lol @ tyranny of torte

GoodWIlf: well exactly. There's still a lot of pressure for women to prepare food for others but refrain from eating it, or eating too much of it, themselves.

I do keep considering buying a packet of cake cases and making cupcakes with DS who adores the idea, but can't really be arsed (he gets to do cookery at nursery). I am lucky enough to be single (and freelance) so I have neither a partner's workmates to service with food items, nor colleages.

At the risk of a flaming, I agree that most women have a need to nurture.
I work part time as a lawyer have three children but love to bake and usually force excesses (24 cupcakes from 1 cake receipe) onto DH's staff to save my waistline.
Surely the move towards stepford wifedom is down to the expectation? You can bet your bottom dollar that if DH asked where his weekly cakes were he'd get told where to go.

Is sticksantaupyourchimney SGB by any chance? The turn of phrase is so evocative.

The reason I really love baking is not because I can share it with others, but because it relaxes me and most importantly because I'm dyspraxic and utterly crap at anything practical.

For years I struggled with anything that involved practical skills, I didn't learn to tie my shoelaces until I was 12 or ride a bike until I was 16.

I couldn't cook either for years then eventually it all came together and I tried to bake muffins and it went well. I was so happy, for me it was like climbing Mount Everest and something I never thought I'd be able to do.

The novelty of being able to bake and to bake well, though it takes far longer than it would for most people, hasn't worn off yet, so every time I bake and see the results I still get excited, it's validation that I'm not completely useless after all.

If I'd discovered that I could finally do DIY I'd be hammering away at everything within reach though I don't know what I'd do with a dozen bird houses.

No, Wilf, I do get the "normative expectation" thing, I do. But I think the detail of where the problem lies, if there is one, is more difficult, and I don't think it's been drawn out much here - what should we do, if we believe in a feminist goal of equality for women. Stop baking? Stop baking for men? Only eat cakes baked by men? I'm being facetious, obv., and I guess I just can't grasp the problem properly.

I've always had a good relationship with food and weight, as do the other women in my family, and cake has just always been one part of the food we ate - not loads but not A Huge And Significant Treat either, so I guess I've never thought to analyse it much.