I love, just love, the way in which FWR responds to goady threads by gentle conversations about baking and bees and cups of tea.
On a recent, thread, I laughed when someone asked if the clearly-spoiling-for-a-fight OP wanted a recipe for lemon drizzle cake, (sadly, no).
And it go me thinking about the role of baking and feminism, so I did a little Googling and I'm not the first to have thoughts on this topic,
Nigella Lawson said that baking is a feminist act, "she described her classic book on baking, How to Be a Domestic Goddess, as an “important feminist tract in its own right, and I’m not being entirely ironic”. Baking, she continued, is “the less applauded of the cooking arts, whereas restaurants are a male province to be celebrated. There’s something intrinsically misogynistic about decrying a tradition because it has always been female.”
www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/jemima-lewis/8556185/Nigella-Lawson-reveals-the-feminist-meaning-of-cake.html
And it's true, that things pertaining to the home, to comfort, domesticity and to the care of children and the elderly are seen as traditionally female responsibilities, and therefore of little worth.
Jane Austen was criticised for writing about domestic events; courtship, marriages and family relationships, because those things were seen as less important than "great events". The reality is though, that for most of us, the domestic sphere is the often the largest portion of our lives, and the success of that sphere has an incredibly significant impact on society.
Which is not to say, that I don't believe it's women's "natural" role to care about domesticity, although that's mostly the current reality; women still do the bulk of the housework, the care of children and the elderly.
I do think that the tradition of domestic baking has often been a quietly subversive activity. Getting together to cook, to share recipes, to make food, create meals, has traditionally been a way for women to be with each other. It's an acceptable form of women's collaboration, which doesn't outwardly threaten the patriarchy.
Women know that women together are funny, and rude and fierce: men suspect this, so women's gatherings (such as right here), attract male aggression. Sharing recipes is a sly nod to the ways in which women, and women's work has been over-looked, which women have used to their own advantage, sharing not just recipes, but support and advice and knowledge.
As a girl, working in the kitchen with my grandmother and mother and sister, was often a way to talk about our concerns without being belittled by men. I still love to bake, because it speaks to me of time spent with other women, enjoying food and conversation.
It's not just food: the pejorative phrase "sewing circle", obscures the reality that the while women getting together to sew, was acceptably domestic, the conversation didn't have to be.
Within that is a whole conversation about women's culture and language which is obscured by male-dominated society, but easily deciphered by women.
I hope that in future women will not have to keep their conversations on the down-low, that women's gatherings are not seen as a threat to, but an integral component of civil society (because I think women's biology will always mean that women will want and need to turn to other women at points in their lives).
In the meantime though, I so much enjoy seeing the inheritance of a millennium of quiet sisterhood using traditional women's work to take the piss out of rude men.