This vintage add (found here) for Kenwood appliances is a nice example of how the act of preparing food is gendered, and how one side of the gendered dichotomy is valued more than the other. Men are chefs– professionals, with careers. And their wives are cooks– they cook at home. Men have prestige as professional chefs outside the home, and women have value as caregiver cooks inside the home.
I guess that this ad is from the early-1980s. How much of this gendering of cooking changed over the years?
Comments 12
Nohoval — May 19, 2009
Are you sure the man is meant to be a chef? The way I read it the Chef is the Kenwood (it does all the preparation but not the cooking), the man is just your regular white collar professional who has just won his wife's affections with white goods. I don't know any chefs who wear collar and tie.
Still sexist claptrap of course.
Meredith — May 19, 2009
Agreed. The Chef is the appliance being sold, not the man. But yes, still heinous with the "That's What Wives Are For!" stomach- churning copy.
wendy — May 19, 2009
I think you're both right-- The Chef is the appliance. Thanks for clarifying that! But, still sexist claptrap =) And the chef=man and cook=woman is a powerful image that sill holds some truth!
Dubi — May 19, 2009
I think it's obvious the chef is the appliance (it's called a chef, for crying out loud), but there IS a play here on the idea of the chef as necessarily male.
And I'm sorry, but I absolutely fell over laughing upon reading the "that's what wives are for" line. It's so ridiculously quaint, I guess. Or naive, or what have you. It's really hard to imagine, these days, how this sort of line DIDN'T get women pissed off at this company (and, in the end, it's the women who are the targets of the ad, not really the men).
That's what wives are for! And that dreadful grin on her face! I should print this and hang it over the kitchen sink. If I want a good wallop, that is.
Lyndsay — May 19, 2009
"(and, in the end, it’s the women who are the targets of the ad, not really the men)."
Looks like the ad could be trying to convince the men who have more of the income after all to buy one for their wife. It says so in the corner. It's like, your wife cooks so better get something to help make it easier for her.
Clem — May 19, 2009
I saw the something similar happen in some kind of classification of French blogs. There were several categories, mostly occupied by men: politics, geek, etc. and gastronomy. Then women complained and so special categories were created for women's blogs (the fact that they couldn't share the same categories as the guys is already ridiculous) and "gastronomy blogs" became "cooking blogs".
Men cook food = it's gastronomy !
Women cook food = well it's food.
And there were no "politics" category for women's blogs, but a "motherhood" one.
Fred — May 19, 2009
Judging from the hairstyles, the design of the machine, and the font used, I wouldn't be surprised if this ad's from the mid 1960's.
With a little googling, I found this website stating that it's from 1961. The design of the machine actually looks a little later than that to me, but this is the only date I could find.
http://momgrind.com/2008/08/05/cooking-thats-what-wives-are-for-wordless-wednesday/
Carly — May 19, 2009
The fact that the ad is actually referring to the appliance I agree with, obviously. I'm not very well-versed in the norms of advertising in this era, but the fact that the man is even in the picture when it's pretty unnecessary for him to be there (in my opinion) shows that that sort of double-meaning is exactly what the people who made this ad had in mind.
Also, with a boyfriend in culinary school, I can tell you that I never refer to his schooling or his colleagues/instructors as "cooks". The women, who know how to cook, are still not proficient enough to do all of the work, which is why they need the appliance, the "Chef".
At least from what I've seen and heard, the man-chef woman-cook mentality isn't as common as it once was, as some of my aforementioned boyfriends most respected, talented, and innovative chefs have been women. How the rest of the country (or people in other countries) see it, I'm not so certain.
al oof — May 19, 2009
i think it's safe to say that the advertising industry's concept of who does the cooking at home has not changed since this ad. in the few instances where men are cooking for their family, they are either using a microwave or bumbling the whole thing up.
Anonymous — June 22, 2009
This ad is actually from the early 60s.
Tired of Tradwives? Get a Boyfriend Chef - Smudge Report — September 25, 2024
[…] Men should (and do) cook for their loved ones all the time. But we live in a culture and media landscape that rarely shows us what that looks like. In this country and many parts of the world, home cooking is a traditionally feminine responsibility, work that’s essential but deemed degrading and unsophisticated. But a professional chef? Now that requires seriousness, even genius – traits we associate mostly with men. Regardless of how far we’ve come since the 1950s, and how many talented women chefs have risen in the professional food ranks, the stubborn message persists: women are cooks, men are chefs. […]
Tradwives'tan bıktınız mı? Bir Erkek Arkadaş Edinin Şef - Gazete İstanbul — September 26, 2024
[…] Erkekler sevdikleri için her zaman yemek pişirmeli (ve pişiriyorlar). Ancak bunun nasıl göründüğünü nadiren gösteren bir kültür ve medya ortamında yaşıyoruz. Bu ülkede ve dünyanın birçok yerinde, evde yemek pişirmek bir geleneksel olarak kadın sorumluluğugerekli ama aşağılayıcı ve basit olarak görülen bir iş. Peki ya profesyonel bir şef? İşte bu ciddiyet, hatta deha gerektirir — çoğunlukla erkeklerle ilişkilendirdiğimiz özellikler. 1950’lerden bu yana ne kadar yol kat ettiğimize ve profesyonel gıda sektöründe ne kadar yetenekli kadın şefin yükseldiğine bakılmaksızın, inatçı mesaj devam ediyor: kadınlar aşçıdır, erkekler şeftir. […]