Did Feminism Destroy The American Diet?

[Kulturkampf]

Once upon a time the majority of Americans ate together at meals. There was a time when it was not unacceptable for a woman to desire to be a mother as opposed to a worker, a time when such a role wasn't viewed as downright villainous and destructive to women. I can only imagine the uproar that would ensue in a high school class if a girl announced her ambition in life to be a housewife.
I grew up in a typical American home (well, almost typical, being that my parents were married and never had divorced) with a working mother and father. Eating together was a little less than possible all of the time and with a mother that worked 9 to 7 the notion that we would wait until perhaps 7:30 or 8:00 to eat or even think of requesting our mother to cook after such long hours was both unreasonable and cruel.


At the same time, our father worked virtually the exact same hours over the years and my brother and I were left at home for dinner. Usually, our dinners consisted of frozen pizzas, Chinese or Vietnamese delivery, hot dogs, maybe re-heated chicken from Sunday night or even waffles -- this delicious breakfast food was very fitting at dinner due to how easily it was made.


On weekends we'd occasionally have a dinner made by our parents but more often than not the weekends were the glorious time for the weary to rest and go to a neighborhood restaurant or sit around a TV watching movies and eating pizza.


I cannot help but think that the expanding waist line of the American people could directly be contributed to the lack of homemade food we eat anymore. There was once a time when McDonalds was even viewed as an occasional treat as opposed to every other day at lunch time or in the long list of rotating food mom or dad picked up on the way home. When I ask myself what an American dinner is really like I usually think of a time when people actually cook, such as Thanksgiving. I hate to admit it but I have probably eaten more Chinese take out food in my life than I have eaten anything else. American food can best be described as General Tso's Chicken or pepperoni pizza. Perhaps in the future no one will be referred to as a good, wholesome meat & potatoes sort of guy but rather a salt of the Earth, General Tso sort of fellow.



Call me whatever you want but I will not apologize: it is best for a family to have someone at home to make dinner. Our food culture is being destroyed. The only upside of this is the increase of masculine icons in America (Colonel Sanders, General Tso, Papa John, Papa Murphy, the Hamburglar, etc).



I'd love to give in, right now, to the modern day egalitarianism and merely dismiss this as it being perfectly fine whether it is the father or the mother at home providing the cuisine but something else inside of me would call this capitulation.


The role of mother is a sacred image -- she has been tattood on the very arms of the American people, she is the nurturer of the American nation, she is sacred. It has always been mother who can make things better and lovingly prepare our meals. God knows if it were my father as the chef du maison I would be raised on a strict regimen of barbecued chicken and steak.


I have a ghastly proposal that would make liberals cringe, conservatives denounce me as going too far but perhaps would make a small amount of reactionaries smile: maybe our mothers should cook for us, again.



The dramatic revolution of our nation from one based on families to one based on divorce, from one based on parents being parents and not laborers, has left us with crippled families.
The American people work too hard and too long, they have no time to cook; when they should be eating healthy they are eating mass produced garbage.


And more than that: The American kids do not know their parents. My generation is one that was raised by the television and the internet; we were indoctrinated into our beliefs by our peers. We never had anyone waiting at home when the school bell rang. Our most in-depth conversations were over commercial breaks during Seinfeld and Law & Order.


It is probably too late for us to ever go back to ideas like family dinners. I heard an expert on Korean radio say "You should never be so busy that you don't have time for at least one dinner a week with your family." I immediately thought: How can one dinner be the goal? How can we be so deprived from our families and have them so weakened that suddenly once a week is some sort of accomplishment?


Friends are a passing thing in life, but family is forever. But I can definitely say that I have more dinners in a year in my adult life than I would have had with my family in five years.


Something has collapsed along our sad little walk down the postmodern road to decadence. We may never get it back.
You know something is wrong when the best shot I can see at reestablishing the family as a strong institution would involve fundamentally withdrawing from the world as we know it and living in a virtual commune.



It's broke. I don't think it can be fixed. Now what?

[MattJack]

I couldn't read the last couple of paragraphs because the post is completely ass stupid.

Are you really serious?

You didn't eat at the dinner table with the family because your parents were working jobs to support a fucking idiot son that would later post on an internet forum how women should be at home to cook meals for their families so that fast food doesn't ruin American culture or family.

Brilliant!

And somehow "feminism" ties into this somewhere, but I just can't figure out where yet.

I hate females as much as the next thing with a penis and balls, but shit, you are a couple eggs shy of a dozen bruh.

[Kulturkampf]

I am sorry -- I wrote this from the perspective that most people would already have an understanding that the feminist movement thrust females into the competitive sphere of business, a time of increased hours and increased workload which resulted in forever altering the family. Instead of one member of the family working 8-12 hour days it was now two.

With that basic piece of information, I suggest you go back and reread it and post sensibly.

Until you do that, I do not know what to say to you.

You are a couple of IQ points short of the 100.

[MattJack]

Uh I think I'm aware of feminism (damn you college!), but I really don't think feminism is the cause of the majority of american households having two working parents. You are either very naive or just a complete imbecile if you believe it is a major cause.

How many fem nazis(the femininism you are describing) do you personally know? How many have you actually met? Do you think they are such a powerful force that they are shifting American society? Have they changed the way you live day to day? How many commercials or ads do you see that promotes this "feminism" you are talking about?

My mother was a housewife for 16 years. She wanted a job for her own personal reasons, and now she works as much as my dad. Oh and by the way, she loves her job. Did "the feminist movement" convince her to do this? I'll let you guess on that one, dick.

Until you post some type of figures on how feminism (the nazi feminism you are speaking of)has drastically altered American society, your assertion will be moot.

[Emu]

I didn't read the post, but I know what he's getting at, and there actually is a point to this. However, it assumes a lot and neglects a lot more. Before the feminist movement, we didn't have a lot of ready-access, high-fat, low-cost foods. Kids (and adults) didn't have the option of capitalising on the Dime a Dozen Fatburger deal at Sonic instead of waiting til 5 PM for dad to get home so they can eat dinner. Certainly feminism influenced this, but not to the degree that it's the sole (or even the primary) cause. The primary cause is more likely simply the outgrowth of cheap food.

[MattJack]

Feminism didn't bring on major success for fast food chains. I would say there is a lot more to it, but that is a whole other issue entirely.

If by feminism you mean women that want equal pay and rights to their male counterparts, I still don't think that is the reason why so many households have two working parents.

Or

If by feminism you mean the extremely small fringe group that would shun the notion of being a housewife, well, I think you need to take a few Galactus sized steps back and look at the bigger picture.

Maybe I'm just completely ignorant and backwards, but I really don't buy his argument.

[Jeanette X]

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b119/trstn11/1a9df7f2.jpg

:yum

[MLE]

There's two completely separate things working here. MAINLY the thing that is making america fat is readily available terrible for you food. A very minor player (and let me tell you, it's very minor) is the fact that females are sharing the role of housekeeper with males. There are other issues that have destroyed american's mass weight, and these deal with laziness and convenience, not only with food. Female vs. male is such a small part in here that you might as well blame global warming as well.

[Tadao]

We all know global warming is the fault of women and all the aquanet they used.

[MattJack]

http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/8899/technologybumxn0.gif

[derrida]

Cooking isnt magic. The only portion of a meal that usually takes more than a couple minutes to cook is starch, but theres minute rice and all that stuff. Get the kids to do some of the work, prep ingredients during the weekend and put them in the freezer, get a crock pot so you can slow cook food while you're at work... Besides being healthier, this is way cheaper than fast food.

As has been stated before, I'm pretty sure dual-income families have alot more to do with economic neccessity than feminism, even in some middle-class families.

Your last couple statements are odd. You decry postmodernism, but then you express reluctance to withdraw from the postmodern world (with its panoply of choices and identities) that capitalism has made available to us.

[AlliSabbah]

Basically what I get from the original post is that Women should stay barefoot and pregnant and in the kitchen.

[Zbu Manowar]

Basically what I get from the original post is that Women should stay barefoot and pregnant and in the kitchen.

Oh yeah, the concern trolling is strong with this one. And I bet if you asked them what feminism meant, they wouldn't even touch on Moi's rebuttal of Gilbert and Gubar's Madwoman in the Attic thesis.

Or know who the fuck Gilbert and Gubar are, for that matter. :lol

[AChimp]

I think the real lesson here is that KK's father should have beaten his wife more often AMIRITE????

[Sethomas]

Yes, then maybe she wouldn't have beaten the young KK so often herself!

[AlliSabbah]

Oh yeah, the concern trolling is strong with this one. And I bet if you asked them what feminism meant, they wouldn't even touch on Moi's rebuttal of Gilbert and Gubar's Madwoman in the Attic thesis.

Or know who the fuck Gilbert and Gubar are, for that matter. :lol

Why hello there fellow Michigander.

[Sleazeappeal]

Perhaps the women's liberation movement had a part to play in it, but I don't think it's reasonable to lay the blame squarely on their shoulders. Let's also not forget the cutting of funds to our nation's schools forcing them to pay for low-grade, high-carb foods for lunch and giving space on the playground for fatty snack vending machines to supplement their income.

And there's also the fact that, as one of the richest nations in the world, we have the luxury of having a SURPLUS of food. It's practically impossible to starve to death in America. Do you have any idea how many nations are MAD with envy over our having the luxury of being able to REFUSE food?

It's not a slab, my friend, it's a puzzle.

[executioneer]

The only upside of this is the increase of masculine icons in America (Colonel Sanders, General Tso, Papa John, Papa Murphy, the Hamburglar, etc).


yeah that hamburglar is butch man

[MLE]

hahahahahaha

[Miss Modular]

One Word: TELEVISION.

Who needs to sit down together and eat like a family when Oprah is on?

[Tadao]

One Word: TELEVISION.

Who needs to sit down together and eat like a family when Oprah is on?

This is true, much like technology is changing society in many ways. I know that many loved ones feel 2nd to the internet. Cell phones have made everyone available at all times. Home theater systems leave little desire to go out and see a movie.

But as far as putting the final nail in the coffin? I believe it is money issues.

[AChimp]

Seth and I are clearly the only ones in this thread who know how to treat a lady. :posh

[Kulturkampf]

Feminism has a lot to do with it as it thrust women into the most competitive areas of industry which transofmred the normal household from one where the mother would be home to cook to one where the woman would be working similarly long and exhausting hours as the man.

The social ramifications go very far.

You notice that now you have to have a working mother to support most households? This was caused by the inundation of the labor market which increased nearly 100% if we are talking about taking half the population who normally wasn't working competitively and now having them do so. The worker was fundamentally disenfranchised.

Of course, women did not become lawyers and doctors overnight although that doesn't much matter when many men were working on Assembly Lines during this time.

If the pool of workers for simple manufacturing work and services were to increase 20 or 30% over a decade, the wages would drop exponentially. With that tipping things off, the women who chose not to work now almost have to work to support their family if we are talking working class / middle class families.

Men would also have to work longer hours and so would the women in the workforce to make up for the decrease of relative wages. The result is more women and men working right up until dinner time.

And who wants to cook dinner after an 8-12 hour shift?

[kahljorn]

couldn't it have also been caused by some other rather large economic changes like I don't know a depression and a couple of wars?

all he's saying is that women wanting to work removed them from caring for their families. Then, all the extra employees ALONE somehow caused the entire economy to shift to where most families have to have two working parents in order to support that family, whereas before it would only be the father.

I think it'd be hard to show that feminism alone caused all of this and not any of the millions of other socioeconomic factors ;o

[Sleazeappeal]

Isn't it only fair to take into consideration the repurcussions of the demand for women to join the workforce during World War 2 AND the outsourcing of manufacturing and customer assistance jobs to overseas?

The feminist movement is hardly a Stand Alone Complex.

[kahljorn]

I think if you remove h is assholeface from this then this is an interesting topic. What do these types of family structures cause. I DONT KNOW! maybe it's bad or maybe it doesn't actually matter.

[MattJack]

Feminism has a lot to do with it as it thrust women into the most competitive areas of industry which transofmred the normal household from one where the mother would be home to cook to one where the woman would be working similarly long and exhausting hours as the man.

The social ramifications go very far.

How sexist can you get, dick? You honestly think that women not being home to cook, due to getting jobs, completely destroyed the American diet? Yes or No.


You notice that now you have to have a working mother to support most households? This was caused by the inundation of the labor market which increased nearly 100% if we are talking about taking half the population who normally wasn't working competitively and now having them do so. The worker was fundamentally disenfranchised.

:lol

You are a complete imbecile. I can't stop giggling at your reasoning.

My Idiot Room Mate

Act I

KK: You know what's wrong with 'Merica?
MattJack: Not now KK.. I'm trying to count the tiles on the ceiling.
KK: No, seriously! Just give me a chance this time!
MattJack: Fiinnnnee, but this is the last time.
KK: Alright! Yes! Ok, let me tell you, oh let me tell you what I figured out!
MattJack: :|
KK: OK I know why Americans are so fat now!
MattJack: Oh yeah? Do tell.
KK: YES! FEMINISM!
MattJack: :(
KK: OK GET THIS! Feminism thrusted, aka forced, women to work, and thus put us in a world where women wouldn't cook supper every night! Now since women can't be there to cook every night, heh, due to feminism, not only did it destroy the American family, but it also made households across America to rely on fast food 6-7 times a week WHICH IN TURN MADE US FAT AND DESTROYED OUR AMERICAN FOOD CULTURE!!!!! IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW!
MattJack::(


Act II

(KK walks in the apartment from a hard day at Staples)
KK: (mumbling)Stupid.. stupid women.. no.. stupid feminism.. ruining my, wages.. disenfranchising me..
MattJack: How was work buddy?
KK: (choking up)JUST TERRIBLE! ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE!
MattJack: Calm down, calm down. Here let me make you some Spaghetti-Os.
KK: Thanks.. *sniffing* it's just.. it's just that damn! THOSE DAMN FEMS! (begins crying uncontrollably)
MattJack: Now, now! Come here, here take this tissue, you're getting snot all on the new tie I got you. Tell me, what happened today? Did you get swamped by elementary teachers again?
KK: Thanks, and no that's only when school starts up around September*sniff*. It's just, It's just that I don't make enough money! I feel like a failure! (begins sobbing again)
MattJack: Awww! You make enough money, buddy! Don't get down on yourself like that! Look, we can fix up your resume and get you a better job!
KK: No! It isn't my fault that I have a job that pays me like this!
MattJack: (brings Spaghetti-Os and blanket to KK) Oh it isn't? Then who's is it, Mr. KK?
KK: Thanks! You're the best MattJack! It's all the fault of those damn feminists!
MattJack: :(
KK: If the pool of workers for simple manufacturing work and services were to increase 20 or 30% over a decade, due to feminism thrusting women into the workplace, the wages would drop exponentially, right?
MattJack: :(
KK:Noww, men have to work longer hours.. ..to make up for the decrease of relative wages. THIS IS ALL BECAUSE OF FEMINISM! (begins crying uncontrollably)
MattJack: :oneofthosedays

[AlliSabbah]

MattJack that is one of the funniest things I have ever read.

[Jeanette X]

:barnstar

You have won this award as being an exceptional newbie, MattJack.

[sspadowsky]

MattJack as KK is more concise, and way funnier than KK could ever hope to be on his own.

[Cosmo Electrolux]

MattJack is my new short term internet hero.... :bestthread

[AlliSabbah]

Now enough of this guys and go vote for your new fake president. :(

[Kulturkampf]

couldn't it have also been caused by some other rather large economic changes like I don't know a depression and a couple of wars?

Those were 20 years previous.

all he's saying is that women wanting to work removed them from caring for their families. Then, all the extra employees ALONE somehow caused the entire economy to shift to where most families have to have two working parents in order to support that family, whereas before it would only be the father.

I think it'd be hard to show that feminism alone caused all of this and not any of the millions of other socioeconomic factors ;o

What other socioeconomic factor was there? I would like to hear your explanation other than blaming it on events that happened 20 years previously.

Isn't it only fair to take into consideration the repurcussions of the demand for women to join the workforce during World War 2 AND the outsourcing of manufacturing and customer assistance jobs to overseas?

The feminist movement is hardly a Stand Alone Complex.

The outsourcing didn't begin until after the feminist revolution in the 1970s and 1980s and Detroit wasn't truly humbled until the 1990s as far as I know.

But outsourcing is a natural economic process. I am not mad about it so much. As wages get higher they need to have cheaper costs.

Paying 10,000 employees the Union demanded $28 an hour is not as good as paying 10,000 employees $3 an hour.

[kahljorn]

Don't socioeconomic changes sometimes take a long time to make themselves completely apparant?
Plus there's other things that have happened along the way as well, like black rights and all that which made it so other people, besides the white male, had a bigger shot at the market too.

Why not blame civil rights and stuff like that as well? Are women the only employees that have surged the workforce?

there's other industrial and economic things that have changed beyond that, I'm sure, as there are always several things which have changed over a 100 year period of time; but I thought that might be the most appropriate since you're talking about the workforce itself expanding and causing this problem.

don't forget all those wars made it so there were a lot of unmarried/widowed mother's maybe WHO HAD TO HAVE JOBS.

[dirtyxblondexdame]

yeah that hamburglar is butch man

is it the stripes?? or the mask?? or maybe the cape?!?!?

the world will never know.

[Madman914]

is it the stripes?? or the mask?? or maybe the cape?!?!?

the world will never know.

It's the hat.

[Sleazeappeal]

But outsourcing is a natural economic process. I am not mad about it so much.

Of course not, you live in Korea.

[AlliSabbah]

DEY TOOK OUR JOBS!!!

[Girl Drink Drunk]

MattJack is a natural mocker.

[Seven Force]

Most feminists are ugly fat and pretty much unfuckable and I think that's something we can ALL get behind.

[Jeanette X]

Most feminists are ugly fat and pretty much unfuckable and I think that's something we can ALL get behind.

http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s263/kantorp/kathleen-hanna.jpg

Don't tell me you wouldn't tap that.

[dirtyxblondexdame]

It's the hat.

ahhhh, the hat. i think it's a little bit of everything -- AND that's where R.Kelly got his inspiration for that video where he's wearing the same hat and mask getup as the Hamburgular, except in pink.

hot.

[Seven Force]

I definitely would, that's why I said most and not ALL