SHOCKER! GENDER ROLES IN FOOD TELEVISION

       When I was a kid I was a TV addict and let's just say my attachment for television probably equated for my attachment to the Internet right now. Watching channels like The Food Network or TLC was a big part of my childhood. Technically that's the reason behind my passion for cooking.You can't blame me. Television had the cool and relaxed Jamie Oliver, the badass Anthony Bourdain, and the ever adorable Giada de Laurentiis. But I noticed something now that I wouldn't have noticed back then when I was a kid or pre-teen. 

       Food television has gender roles.

       But wait! Isn't the gender norm that women are the ones who cook? Yes, yes it is. But that's an incomplete gender norm. The stereotype regarding cooking is that it's women who are the ones who cook at home.

Everyday Italian

Barefoot Contessa

Nigellissima

      I want you to recall all the female hosted cooking shows. I can't be the only one who was obsessed with the channel that shows food porn 24/7. Most of them are situated at home. Everyday Italian, Barefoot Contessa with Ina Garten, Poh's Kitchen, Easy Chinese, and most of Nigella Lawson's cooking shows. The assumption being perpetuated by these TV shows is that women are the ones who cook at home and they know how to throw a successful dinner party while at it. Although they may leave their house from time to time to buy ingredients at the local grocery or market, but this still falls under the category of homemaking. 

       And there's nothing wrong with that. Let women be homemakers if that's what they want.  But the problem here is only so few female chefs get to be perceived the same way as the male chefs.

      Before that, how exactly are male chefs put out there? First of all, sometimes they aren't even in the setting of a home. Take Bourdain for an example. He unconventionally travels to different places to taste food with this strong sense of professionalism. This is his job so he knows what he is doing. That's another thing that I won't see among female chefs in television. You do not get that sense of professionalism when they are situated in their comfort zones or their homes. What they're doing doesn't look like a job but more of a chore. You do not often see a female chef dressed in her uniform when she cooks on her show, since of course she is at home. We do not see Bourdain regularly working on his counter-top, or a set counter-top, in his kitchen as he is about to serve dinner to his family. We also do not see Giada in busy and bustling restaurant kitchen where there is an absence of color and flowers. 

      Is this a bad thing? Yes, yes it is. One of the few misconceptions by the whole world is that gender roles only limit women. This is ridiculous. By saying men do not cook at home, it discourages the boys that do. It marginalizes them even because if they step foot in the kitchen and put on an apron and start cooking, many of the very ignorant would call him out on diminishing his masculinity. For women, the lack of women shown working as professional chefs could discourage them from pursuing their dream of turning their passion into work. 

        But of course there are exceptions of these gender norms. We move onto the case of Jamie Oliver. I love this man very dearly, I do. His television career started with him cooking for friends in his apartment while drinking some beer. Then we see him cooking traditional rustic English food in his home, even to the point where he teaches how to garden and plant herbs and vegetables. He is one of the few male chef exceptions to the gender roles mandated by television. 

        Of course there are women too. We have Anne Burrell, Cat Cora, and especially Cristeta Comerford who challenges everything what I had just said about female chefs. The Kallinis sisters destroys the stigma that baking, especially by women, is all cutesy and bubbly with their show DC Cupcakes. 

      I'm not saying that Bourdain should be like Jamie Oliver or that Ina Garten should be more like Anne Burrell. What I'm saying is that there is a continuing presence of masculinity vs. femininity in food channels. But shows that stay on air like DC Cupcakes or Jamie at Home shows that this society is starting to crave for something more. They might just be craving for gender roles to thrown right out the window.

-Anna
(click photos for source)