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?

Anna - baking cakes is not the same as mending shirts - sorry to make SUCH an obvious point.

MP - If I heard that one of the colleagues was being sarcastic about the kindly meant gesture of cakes being shared whilst eating one, I would suggest that they weren't included them in the next plateful - just seems very rude to me.

That's a fair point, Sticksanta. I may still enjoy showing off my beautifully trained Modern Man, but that is a whole lot more innocuous because it is rare for a man to be forced into stepfording, but not that uncommon for a woman.

blimey this is still going on! Bit of a storm in a bun tin now isn't it?

is this the right thread to admit i own a darning mushroom and have used it ?

I wish I could darn.... (sighs wistfully). My school was too busy forcing me to take Latin to let me do home ec... (sobs into her cath kidson apron)

Anna
If cake baking would affect your relationship... well good luck really.

Is the idea that we shouldn't bake in order to show off our feminism - or is it just that we should not admit to baking - like some guilty vice?

I bake and my DH is welcome to take them to his office if he wishes. I doubt his collegues would view me as subservient though as whenever they come here he does all the cooking.
I am a great baker. A crap cook.

Neither of these two things affects the fact that we have a very equal relationship.

I am a bit that anyone would have such a fragile relationship or sense of self that it could be shattered by a few buns.

Lulu
depends what you used it for..

@Pag...

i also did latin, and taught myself to darn. £19 for new school jumpers!! make do and mend, i say !!

We've had some good rucks on here today haven't we?

Competitive Crisping
Subservient Sponge Making

Can't wait for the next one!

What exactly is the difference between baking for your DH's colleagues and doing their mending?

I think I am with Anna, if I presented DH with some buns for his colleagues I think he would be very embarassed

He wouldn't think it appropriate either

He would happily receive baked goods that I had made for him though

But honestly, in the free time I have, making cakes for people I don't know is extremely low down on the list. My bafflement has not been sufficiently challenged by your arguments here and I am still suspicious that these spongecakes have the whiff of subjugation

I have missed the crisp-scandal and sponge-scandal, will have to catch up

erm.... they can't eat shirts?

Anna8888 - you are seriously weird.

And do you invite friends over for a Sunday mendfest instead of a Sunday lunch?

ummm

well simply Anna I bake but I don't mend.

Is that too difficult for you?

Dh on the other hand is a whizz at sewing on buttons.

Mending somebody's shirt (unless professionally employed to do so) to me is a fairly intimate thing; I wouldn't be doing that for dh's colleagues (or even for dh!). Cake baking is just one of those reckless bits of hospitality that you might perform to a comparative stranger because they mean very little. I wouldn't tell dh that he could make his own biscuit because I was eating all of mine. But I probably would tell him to see to his own shirts.

Would also bake cakes for the school cake stalls- but I offer to sew buttons on the headteacher's shirt? I don't think so.

I think that baking is quite an intimate gesture suggestive of dependency and nurturing

as it mending shirts to an extent

largely, both are something you do to people that you are fond of, perhaps?

Sharing food is sociable. Sharing washing or mending is not terribly sociable. It's not tricky.

actually I often give fudge to people who visit at christmas.
I must remind anyone popping round to bring something that needs mending with them.
Because that is really the same isn't it

And after the turkey we can forgo the christmas pudding and guest can quietly watch me knit.

I think I am starting to get this..

Really, MP? So when we all (Mums and Dads) bake for the local cake stalls/charity do/NCT morning, are we being dependent and intimate? I thought it was just sociable.

well cory those are largely for charity/to share with people you know

not to share for free with people you don't know

but pagwatch visitors are people you know (I assume)

MP
You haven't been to my house have you?

Cooking/feeding is suggestive of nuturing/dependency, I wouldn't say baking is. I wouldn't send in pack lunches for dh's colleagues (nor do I for him) however the odd batch of muffins/cupcakes as a treat to people I know fairly well and have socialised with is a different kettle of fish

actually pagwatch I popped by the other day - thanks for the delicious fudge