Your spouse is your partner in life. Cooking something for them that you know they don’t like is thoughtless, and doesn’t show that you value what they bring to the partnership. If you want to have a happy, long-lasting marriage, sometimes you will have to sacrifice your own desires to make someone else happy.

I do most of the cooking for my husband, and I take great pride in making something he will enjoy. He occasionally cooks for me, and is equally proud when I am pleased with what he has worked to prepare. I wait until he is not around to eat the things I love that he doesn’t, and vice-versa.

Growing up, my parents were pretty ‘traditional’, as far as their ‘roles’ in the marriage. But since Daddy enjoyed cooking, and Mama did not, he prepared most of our meals. But I can’t imagine him ever taking the position that he should make whatever *he* wanted to, with no thought to what she would enjoy. He would never treat ‘his lady’ that way. I can’t imagine treating ‘my man’ that way, either. I genuinely enjoy making him happy, as he enjoys making me happy. Isn’t that what love’s supposed to be about?!

I would also bet that not cooking and relying on processed foods has a lot to do with the obesity epidemic in this country.

The idea that “women’s studies” can really be taught in classrooms is inane.

Ninety percent of feminists I’ve met fall into one of a few categories: 1) Lesbians 2) Recent divorcees 3) Young women who believe they were abused by their father or another male figure 4) Divorcees who won’t tell you that they bugged the crap out of their husbands and never put out, but still enjoy the settlement 5) Cat-women who could never, in a million years, ever get married.

These crazed and angry women dominate the “feminist” landscape, to the movement’s very detriment.

Contrast some of the comments here against most of the comments on allrecipes.com. Seriously, take a look. See how many women just say, “I loved it, but I won’t be making it again, because DH hated it.” Or, “the kids didn’t like it, but DH loved it, so I was happy.”

Yeck.

Sounds like those stupid WalMart commercials where some fat Southern girl is mis-pronouncing how she’d like to make her husband, “a real mil.”

Figure it out, okay? Cooking for your kids, ok. Slave-pleasing your hubby and vetoing your own interests because he didn’t like it? Gimme a break.

The “feminist” movement here better start hanging together if you want to make some real progress. But then again, you haven’t yet, and you probably won’t. After all, look at you all still bitching at eachother.

Individual brains and souls are good, people. Lesbians, divorcees, and “abused” girls included.

Semper Fidelis,
Sgt Spring “Betty Crocker” Keyzers

I do agree with your culture on this, however: cooking is a deeply spiritual act of love and nurturing. It is a very intimate thing, cooking for others: when we cook, part of our own essence, our own energy, goes into the food we make. It is the intangible ingredient, and I have found that when we cook with love, our food has a quality that is indefinable, but yet quite present, and the positive energy of it has a positive effect on others. I believe that food which is made with willful, intentional love, and with spiritual awareness and care from high quality fresh ingredients is healthier for us to eat, and nurtures not only the body, but the spirit as well.

As for feminism–I was heartened to hear what you had to say about it. Although I think it is a shame that feminist has become a dirty word–thanks in large part to pundits like Rush Limbaugh and his ilk, I am pleased to hear a young woman embracing the -essence- of the word, if not the word itself.

I care more about what feminism can do, and has done and will do than what it is called. And frankly, I am happy that there are young women growing up expecting more than the young women of my generation, my mother’s generation, and my grandmothers’ generation. That, to me, is a great sign of progress.

Social change moves slowly. There are of course, sudden bursts of movement at certain times, but mostly, the wheels of change grind along at a snail’s pace. I would say that on the whole, the changes I have seen in my lifetime have been going forward, and while they are slower than I would like, the pace is also a realistic one from a long-range anthropological or sociological perspective.

Thanks again for posting your insights. They are valuable.