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

Cooking as a Social FunctionIn Women and economics, Charlotte Perkins Gilman directly addressed the ruling of work divided along sexual lines. Her analysis, however, refutes the modern idea that the sexual divisions of labor are driven by a comparative degree advantage to working in the syndicate 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 dwelling house work and the market are indistinguishable from one another. Though it is a small part of her argument in the text, Gilmans discussion of planning as womanhoods work encompasses much of the complexity and the summation 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 justification for the subjection of women, which is unremarkably advanced, is the alleged advantage to motherhood resulta nt from her extreme specialization to the uses of maternalism under this condition (Gilman 169). She countered this argument by first rejecting it on the kingdom that the advantage to motherhood cannot be proved and secondly by rivalry 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 loading 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 think on the complexities involved with the preparation and serving of intellectual nourishment (225). Once the notion that women are in some way inherently better at making food than men, the idea of women cooking in the ho... ...still has some choice in selecting the token establishment to live in, it removes much of the onus of responsibility off of the woman and onto the living establishment. While Gilmans visio n of what she saw as approach path to pass in the near future has not yet 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 Men and Women as a Factor in Social Evolution. Berkeley University of California Press.