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UAE Education

The kitchen has place for men and women

Women don’t have any special powers that help them cook, so why the stereotype?



Family making pancakes
Image Credit: Agency
Shazia Emaan

In school, if you know a kid who brings the tastiest meals in his lunchbox every day, you automatically assume that his mother is an amazing cook. In reality, it might just be his father who enjoys cooking for him. It is taken for granted that women are supposed to be in the kitchen all day long, even though I’m sure we have no special powers that help us cook.

Food is one of the basic needs of a human being. So why is it that only women are expected to know how to cook?

A study published in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior found that young adults with strong cooking skills are more inclined to eat healthily as an adult. This should encourage parents to teach both their sons and daughters how to cook. But it’s not really the parents’ fault, is it? They were told by their parents that boys need not know how to cook. It’s a never ending cycle and our generation has the power to end it.

Both boys and girls grow into young men and women who eventually have to fend for themselves. Instead of them struggling to learn how to healthily feed themselves or hiring cooks, parents should just teach them the basics when they are young.

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Teaching them this will help nurture capable men and women for the new era who will erase stereotypes once and for all. If famous chefs of five-star hotels and owners of restaurants can be men, then why can’t the men also be in the kitchen at home?

This is something to think about and finally, make it happen.

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