Are you bad at cooking, cleaning, embroidery and sewing? Well, I have an article for you. While taking a class on homemaking and making a home, a gender and labour studies class focusing on studying between 1860 and 1920, I learned a valuable lesson — I would be a terrible housewife.
I can’t cook, I hate cleaning, I don’t know how to sew. I’ve never crafted anything up except for my will to continue existing.
While I’m taking this class, I’ve noticed that many of my peers are much better at sewing and embroidery than I am at the assigned sewing we had to do.
I’ve noticed that the girls who sit behind me and the individual who sits right beside me are on a whole different level. I am constantly left thinking, am I the only one who can’t do this? Literal 5-year-old girls doing embroidery in the 19th century are better at home making than me.
Have you ever heard a stereotypical comment thrown around by men that is gendered and misogynistic saying things like “make me a sandwich woman!” Well, jokes on you, I can’t make you a sandwich because I can’t cook or put food together.
In comparison to the 19th and 20th centuries, these traditional practices of embroidery, quilting, cooking and cleaning aren’t as expected by women and have been replaced by more modernized forms of women. Despite women taking more active roles in the workforce, a lot are still doing household work within their family unit while also maintaining a career, taking in two forms of labour.
Through observing women in my own life, I’ve come to realize that women of the 21st century are greatly affected by the pushing of the idea that we must become mothers but also maintain a career to support the children society expects us to raise.
While studying in this class and the material we’ve read, we as a class have learned that women were performing acts of invisible labour such as embroidery, sewing, cooking and cleaning with little to no recognition in the 19th century. Even though the average woman doesn’t practice embroidery every day, there is still an expectation to fill certain roles.
Every time I hear a man make a misogynistic joke or comment toward me, I immediately think, “why are you telling me to go back to the kitchen? I literally can’t even make grilled cheese.”
Despite my inadequacies toward making grilled cheese or any food of any type that isn’t instant ramen or a toaster strudel, I still maintain the ideology that everyone should be able to cook, it is ultimately a life skill and shouldn’t be as gendered as it is like most home maintenance is.
Even though I state that everyone should know how to cook, I am a hypocrite because I refuse and seemingly end up burning everything I make. Please know if you guys ever catch me over a stove making something or cooking anything, know that it isn’t me and to immediately call my mom.
In my time in this class, I realized that everyone is practically better than me at anything that has to do with the keeping of a home space or the essence of community that embroidery and crafting create.
I suppose that I’m so bad at these things because I didn’t have strong crafters in my family and my lack of household initiative toward cooking was nonexistent as my meals throughout childhood were a pop tart and a mixed bag of nuts.
I’ve always wanted to be more involved in crafts but never had the community or resources to be taught. This class has made me appreciate the community that crafting creates for women and people who love crafting and the amount of skill and dedication cooking, cleaning and embroidery takes.
Through this class, I’ve learned how valuable the community crafting experience is for young women and girls and the intricate eye it takes to immerse yourself in the community of crafting while realizing the invisible labour women would have to put up with.
