Cooking as a Social Function Essay -- Women Economics Culture Essays

Cooking as a Social FunctionIn Women and Economics, Charlotte Perkins Gilman directly addressed the notion of school divided along sexual lines. Her analysis, however, refutes the juvenile idea that the sexual divisions of labor ar driven by a comparative advantage to working in the household or in the market. In spite of some overtones of biological essentialism in her argument, in the form of the abundant nature metaphors, Gilman ultimately proposed a society where the household work and the market are indistinguishable from one another. Though it is a small part of her argument in the text, Gilmans discussion of prep as womans work encompasses much of the complexity and the essence of her arguments.Gilman, though she did not term it as such, addressed the idea of comparative advantages in the household rather directly. The main defense for the subjection of women, which is commonly advanced, is the alleged advantage to motherhood resultant from her extreme specialization to the uses of maternity under this condition (Gilman 169). She countered this argument by first rejecting it on the ground that the advantage to motherhood cannot be proved and secondly by arguing that it is not maternal tasks that women are subjected to, but rather the uses of sex-indulgence (169). This idea of sex-indulgence is the load of her argument as she sees household tasks as inherently conflated with men and womens sexual relationships. In considering the issue of our division of labor on sex-lines, Gilman focused on the complexities involved with the preparation and serving of food (225). Once the notion that women are somehow inherently better at making food than men, the idea of women cooking in the ho... ...still has some choice in selecting the particular establishment to live in, it removes much of the onus of responsibility off of the woman and onto the living establishment. While Gilmans vision of what she saw as coming to pass in the near future has not y et arrived, her arguments are still operating against contemporary notions of women in the household. Modern microeconomic models of household production still rely on the idea that women are somehow biologically fitted to the preparation and serving of food and the removal of dirt, and the nutritive and execrative processes (Gilman 225). As a result, her arguments seem striking over a century since they were written.ReferencesGilman, C. (1998). Women and Economics A Study of the Economic Relation Between hands and Women as a Factor in Social Evolution. Berkeley University of California Press.