Feminist Housewives Reclaim the Kitchen

By Shannon Drury, Minnesota Women's Press. Posted March 3, 2009.

Many of the new wave of women stitchers and bakers see kitchen work as a reclamation of a lost culture that belonged only to women. The clothing follows suit: What a dashiki might be to a Black Panther, an apron might be to a feminist blogger of the 21st century.

I wish I could ask what my grandma Rose would think of all this, but I can't. My sadness over losing this part of my "herstory" could explain why I find myself inexplicably drawn to aprons as lovely and familiar as Charlot Meyer's.

"[My aprons] evoke memories of my grandmother, who never was seen without an apron," Meyer said, "and my mother, who owned a sewing shop and made most of my clothes when I was young."

And She Cooks, Too

One of my favorite cookbooks, "How it All Vegan," was written by two Canadian women who pose on the cover in adorable vintage housedresses (full disclosure, neighborhood: this book is the source of my banana bread recipe). Co-author Sarah Kramer accentuates her with a double strand of pearls, several large tattoos, and a lip ring. The look is a conscious attempt to link the DIY ethos of the punk movement with the gotta do it yourself reality of the mid-century housewife. Ladies, we can have it all!

Veganism is something my Grandma Rose just couldn't get. As I mentioned before, butter was the woman's natural milieu; I think she probably dabbed it behind her ears. She was born in 1914, into a North Dakota farm family where home cooking wasn't a lifestyle "choice." The only choices she knew were to cook or starve. Rose left North Dakota during the Great Depression, when the latter option seemed increasingly likely.

Grandma Rose loved her family but we all knew that she hadn't opted-out of paid work, like Hirshman tells you I did. Rose never had the opportunity to opt in. I often wonder if she'd be proud of me, or just really confused. With so many career options, she might wonder, why on earth would Shannon choose this one?

Home Life

One part of my job involves taking my 3-year-old daughter, Miriam, to a park board dance class. I recently witnessed two moms put the staff through its paces about the amount of trans fats lurking in the park's popcorn machine. Nowadays it is not enough to cook; one must cook properly. Their sons, Parker and Hunter, cannot be allowed to eat that kind of poison, no matter how much they crave it.

Grandma Rose made popcorn better than anyone. A huge iron pot soaked in vegetable oil popped the corn, then melted the stick of butter that she'd drizzle onto our bowls. She handed us terrycloth towels to wipe off our fingers. Yummy.

Cultural movements, like everything else, are cyclical. Rose was at the beck and call of her large family, making popcorn when they wanted it the only way she knew how. My working mom, a second-wave feminist, taught us to toss prepackaged bags into the microwave if we were hungry after school. Today those bags are known to be unhealthy at best and carcinogenic at worst. Hunter's mom will cook him homemade popcorn, with organic everything. Which way is the Right Way To Do It? I don't know. Friedan and Matthews suggest that our culture has a stake in keeping us doubtful of every choice we make, even going so far as to obscure whether or not we have one.

For as far as Friedan's movement has taken us, statistics don't lie. Women's paychecks are still short 23 cents for every dollar earned by a man. Child care costs in Minnesota are estimated to be as high as $11,000 per year. Mathematics proves that our playing fields still aren't level.

Yet I'm proud that I could put all my college writing skills to work eulogizing a woman who was one hell of a grandmother and housewife. In it, I noted a truth that would seem shocking if uttered about a mother of a different generation: I can't remember Grandma Rose ever telling me she loved me. That stern North Dakota mien never left her. She showed me, though, in her amazing cooking. I returned her affection by eating.

See more stories tagged with: feminism, second-wave, third-wave

Shannon Drury is a SheSaid columnist for MWP.

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