Woman Maliciously Complies With Her MIL And Chills With Men Instead Of Helping Out In The Kitchen

While some people enjoy spending hours in the kitchen creating wonders of gastronomy, others can’t think of anything more torturous.

Redditor u/hatethistradition belongs to the second group, which is why she wasn’t eager to join her MIL and SIL in the kitchen. She chose to maliciously comply with the MIL’s orders, and was consequently called arrogant, while her husband was deemed spineless. Scroll to find the full story in the OP’s own words.

Bored Panda has reached out to u/hatethistradition and she was kind enough to answer a few of our questions. You will find our interview with her below.

Image source: hatethistradition

The OP wasn’t fond of dancing around pots and pans, which is why she suggested she buy the things necessary for the family get-together; but the women in the family emphasized that that’s not how traditions work.

“What annoyed me the most is the lack of adequate reasoning and respect for my needs,” the OP told Bored Panda in a recent interview. “If they needed help, me bringing over food should have been enough. If they wanted to use the chance to bond, they could have chosen any other activity that I will also enjoy instead of forcing my hand.

“The fact they wanted me in the kitchen working alongside them knowing it was actually something I hated showed utter lack of respect or care for what I need and want. Their need to coerce and not compromise irked me; misogyny made me feel sick.”

Even though food-related traditions might differ from household to household, they often have one thing in common, as due to established gender norms, women are typically the ones to follow them. “This story is not just mine,” the OP continued. “I know many women who have compromised and eventually lived a life of servitude due to customs and traditions.”

The redditor pointed out that she was raised to be independent and taught that if she can support herself, she wouldn't have to live such a lifestyle. That was one of the reasons she has and still is working hard to earn a living, and that’s why being shamed and forced into it made her snap.

“I wanted to maintain a relationship, but I don't want to sacrifice myself and suffer because of that. If I keep giving in, I will have to give in for the rest of my life. The longer I would have let it go, the harder breaking it off would have been.”

Whether because of gender norms or not, women do reportedly spend more time in the kitchen than their male counterparts. Research suggests that cooking meals at home—especially from scratch—remains a highly gendered task. It also pointed out that in every country included in the study, “women cooked both lunch and dinner more frequently than men, though the disparity does vary considerably between and within regions of the world.”

Another study, which has analyzed people’s cooking habits over a 13-year period between 2003 and 2006, seconded the idea that women typically cook more than men. It stated that home cooking in the US during that time was on the rise, especially among men, yet women still did it much more frequently. Pew Research Center revealed that in households of spouses or partners living together, women are the usual meal preppers, taking care of it 80% of the time; they also do grocery shopping more often than their male counterparts.

Part of why women are often seen in or expected to be in the kitchen likely stems from certain gender norms. Feminism India emphasized that the constant narrative associating mothers and “good, home-cooked meals” has made cooking “embedded in the patriarchal construction of femininity”. It suggests that the romanticisation of the idea that a ‘good mother’ cooks good food for her family leads to altruistic attitudes in women, which construct care-based female ideals. Consequently, it might impose “a discriminative standard on women, where they draw their ‘feminine worth‘ from cooking for the family”.

Such—in most cases ancient—society-imposed gender norms can have detrimental effects. According to the United Nations, gender stereotyping or “the practice of ascribing to an individual woman or man specific attributes, characteristics, or roles by reason only of her or his membership in the social group of women or men” can limit individuals’ capacity to develop certain skills and abilities, or make choices about their lives.

In addition to that, such stereotyping can perpetuate inequalities. The UN suggested that the traditional view of women as caregivers, for example, can result in certain responsibilities, such as childcare, falling exclusively on the woman’s shoulders; similarly to cooking or grocery shopping duties. Set gender norms can also lead to discrimination or even human rights violations, whether it’s women or men at the receiving end.

The OP was seemingly expected to abide by the family’s ways of women cooking dinner for the family while men spend time relaxing. The mother- and sister-in-law considered it a tradition, in a way conforming to the gender stereotype of females taking care of all the cooking duties. The SIL added that her husband and her dad never had to cook a day in their life, correlating it to manhood, which, in her eyes, was “ruined” by “lazy women” such as the redditor—something quite a few netizens in the comments seemed to disagree with.