Women and Economics · Chapter
XI explained
This chapter examines how the division of labor by sex has relegated food preparation and household management to women, framing cooking as a sex-function rather than a social one.
What happens
This chapter examines how the division of labor by sex has relegated food preparation and household management to women, framing cooking as a sex-function rather than a social one. It argues that this arrangement, rooted in women's economic dependence, leads to poor nutrition, adulterated food, and stunted progress, and calls for professionalizing cooking and freeing women from domestic servitude.
Themes in this chapter
Economic Dependence of Women
Women's lack of economic power makes them weak purchasers, perpetuating poor food quality and adulteration.
Sexuo-Economic Relation
Cooking is treated as a sex-function, confusing personal affection with economic service and hindering social progress.
Home and Family Structure
The home as a food agency is inefficient and retards the professionalization of cooking.
Characters to notice
- Unknown Narrator
The narrator analyzes the sexuo-economic relation's impact on food preparation and household labor.
- A Servant
Mentioned as an untrained, low-status domestic worker who performs cooking without the motivation of love.
- Pain
Referenced metaphorically in the context of human suffering from poor nutrition and adulteration.
Key passages
“We have assumed that the preparation and serving of food and the removal of dirt, the nutritive and excretive processes of the family, are feminine functions; and we have also assumed that these processes must go on in what we call the home, which is the external expression of the family.”
Society has wrongly assumed that cooking and cleaning are naturally women's work and must happen in the home.
Highlights the arbitrary gendering of domestic tasks.
“The selection and preparation of food should be in the hands of trained experts. And woman should stand beside man as the comrade of his soul, not the servant of his body.”
Food preparation should be professionalized, and women should be partners with men, not their domestic servants.
Calls for a shift from domestic servitude to companionship.
“Is it not time that the way to a man’s heart through his stomach should be relinquished for some higher avenue?”
We should stop using food as a means to win affection and instead seek deeper connections.
Critiques the conflation of love and feeding.