A few months ago, Michael Pollan wrote an editorial in the NY Times urging Americans to cook more. Feminists called him out, claiming that this burden would inevitably fall on women rather than men, and called him sexist. I disagree – I think we do need to cook more, and both men and women should do it – but I recognize that in practice, most of the cooking would probably fall to the women.
Recently, Peggy Orenstein wrote an editorial arguing almost the opposite: that growing one’s own food (and, in her examples, raising chickens and bees) could be fulfilling and empowering to women who chose not to work, but wanted something more meaningful than housework to fill their days. She calls it femivorism.
I’m intrigued, and I can see the appeal of staying home and spending time working the land. At the same time, it’s again framing “putting dinner on the table” as the woman’s responsibility – this time, with a much higher bar for what “dinner” should be.
What do you think? Can cooking and gardening be empowering for women? Or does the local food movement need equal participation by men and women to avoid leaving women with an unfair share of the burden?