Liberation or Liability?: Feminism's Unintended Consequences
What has happened to American women over the last 30 years that has resulted in the highest level of obesity among women in recorded history?
The answer? They consume more than their fair share of EVERYTHING, including food.
Lady Liberty has had it all too easy and let herself go. Chained by student loans and debts to the Fed we trusted.
You can try and place the blame for the explosion of obesity on the additives included in our food, the grab & go tendency caused by rushed, career-oriented women or the convenience of the fast-food. But, none of these excuses explain away the fact that the preparation of healthy food for herself, and her family, has always been one of women’s vital, and enjoyable, contributions to humanity, up until recently….
Unlike the women of the Greatest Generation, who prided themselves on their cooking ability, and the Baby Boomer generation, who enjoyed cooking for their families, the current crop of females rarely have the skills, interest, time or ability to assemble a healthy meal. This leads to obesity.
There was actually a time in the 1940s, when the “just add water” boxed cake mixes were first introduced, and women refused to buy them because the women took so much pride in making their own cake recipes. The companies finally had to make the mixes more interactive by requiring the women to add oil and eggs before they finally started to buy them.
And, despite those changes, boxed cake mixes remained a slow seller until the late 1950s. Women simply refused to abdicate their primacy in the family kitchen to anyone else. They knew their families depended on them for life’s sustenance, and they guarded that privilege with a vengeance. These women strove to provide the healthiest meals they could afford for their families because they knew their family’s very health and happiness required it. This was a serious, and cherished, business and hundreds of generations of women fulfilled those culinary obligations cheerfully. They knew they were needed, and their efforts expressed their love for their families.
Cherished cookbooks were handed down from American mothers to daughters for centuries, starting with the first American cookbook written by New Englander, Amelia Simmons and published in 1796. Some family cookbooks were entirely handwritten. Some were published by a printing house but adopted by families as their own. Many still contain notations, comments or personal adjustments to the recipes made by grandmothers and great-grandmothers. Inevitably, the pages that were in the worst condition, the ones that were stained, torn, and distorted, proved to be the favorite family recipes. Much used, much loved.
An additional upside to this culinary expertise was that, since all women knew how to cook, entertaining became easy.
They would decide on a date, notify their friends and family, and begin by choosing the menu. The rest was just fun! The sociability surrounding house parties was inexpensive, highlighted the host’s lovely home, and encouraged reciprocal entertaining, thus reinforcing communal connections.
Today, having a family/friends get-together seems like too much trouble for the ill-prepared, untrained, and often indolent young working woman. Dining out has replaced dining in. And along with this enormous and unprecedented shift away from home, has come tremendous emotional losses and devastating physical ramifications as well.
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The women of the Greatest Generation, who prided themselves on being stay-at-home mothers, fed their families at home 99% of the time. The Baby Boomer generation women managed to work AND cook for their families at home, as they still took pride in their family’s traditional culinary legacy. And yet, all of these full-time cooks were not obese. Why?
The answer is, it took a good portion of the week to plan and implement family meals. The Baby Boomer just had to speed the process up and plan their time better than their mothers to accomplish the same thing, because choosing recipes, shopping for ingredients, preparing the ingredients, and finally cooking and serving the meal all took lots of time and energy.
Eating the food was only a small part of this action-packed process. Women expended a lot of energy in order to make meals for their families. Sure, it was time-consuming, and on occasion, wearisome, but they had a very receptive and captive audience who complimented, admired, and applauded them for their efforts. It was a symbiotic relationship based on love, and there was no time or need to eat a jar of peanut butter or an entire bag of Milano cookies.
Unfortunately, today, most young women lack the very basic training necessary to put a healthy meal on the table.
This downward trend started when most high schools eliminated Home Economics classes 25 years ago because they were considered too “female” by the radical, second-wave feminists. Don’t train young girls to be homemakers; train them to be men! Today, we know this approach is a complete failure, and everyone, especially women, is miserable while floundering around aimlessly, without families of their own, and wondering why they can’t find any real meaning in their lives.
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This meaningless existence, based on working, shopping, and eating out, has produced millions of unhappy, overweight young women.
The inactivity of sitting at a desk all day is the antithesis of what women’s bodies were designed to accomplish. And, you can’t shop yourself into happiness because it is too transitory and ultimately unrewarding. And, you certainly can’t find eternal happiness by eating your 8th super calorific meal of the week with your girlfriends at another expensive restaurant.
Chris’ new coin, “Lady Liberty” places the blame for young women’s personal predicaments at their feet. No one can truly change the dead end, and deadly, course of their lives but themselves. It is time to get back to the traditions that have, throughout the history of Western Civilization, provided women with the highest form of human happiness attainable—solid families of their own and ample time to provide and care for them.
And, to get started, all they have to do is change direction and look to their mothers and grandmothers for inspiration rather than to radical feminism.
