Feminine Women Can Cook: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

{{quote|'''[[Batman|Robin]]''': ''Isn't it nice that Raven made us breakfast?''<br />

 

By feminine we mean traditional [[Housewife|domestically-focused wife-like roles]]. Being [[The Vamp|sexy]] isn't enough to qualify. You can also lose femininity by becoming [[Kawaiiko|overly childish and cute]]. We are talking a traditionalist grown woman femininity here, The Wife of [[The Three Faces of Eve]]. But how do you [[Rule of Symbolism|symbolize]] an internal trait like femininity? Easy! Use cooking ability as a substitute.

The use of cooking as a symbol of femininity goes back to Biblical times, but whether this trope affects any given instance depends on the time frame, the specific location, the family's class, and even the age of the woman. In [[Fairy Tales]], ability to cook proved that you were a suitable bride for a prince -- trumping even the trivial fact that you were, say, a frog. In 18th and 19th century England, for instance, cooking was a symbol of femininity only for women of the yeoman class (moderately prosperous countrymen), and even then women were only supposed to perform certain delicate duties that couldn't be trusted to servants - distilling herbs and preserving fruit, for instance. Poor women, on the other hand, were not considered to ''have'' femininity and were expected to cook for their families whether they wanted to or not, and upper-class women were warned to never set foot in their own kitchens lest the filth, heat, and stink of the room render them 'coarse'. Americans living in the same time frame usually lived in newer homes, so the idea of the kitchen being a place of filth suitable only for drunken cooks and coarse maids never existed. Even the wealthiest women who employed servants or slaves to do the cooking were expected to learn how to cook so they could run their homes more efficiently.

 

 

The use of this symbolism can take many forms.

Compare also [[Harp of Femininity]], an alternative and somewhat more refined way to emphasize a woman's femininity.

 

 

{{examples}}

* [[An Ice Person|Yukime]] from ''[[Hell Teacher Nube]]'' dreams of cooking delicious meals to her love interest, Nube, and when he can't enjoy them (since [[Alien Lunch|they're frozen solid]], her being a [[Youkai|Yuki-onna]] and all) she's upset at her own lack of skill more than his own refusal.

** Likewise [[Tomboy|Kyoko]], a fifth-grader who is very much assured of herself and often has to bail out her friends or teacher from great danger, but desperately wants to be able to cook well. At least, cook well enough for [[Idiot Hero|Hiroshi]] to enjoy. When she was ([[Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane|somehow...]]) finally able to, she was happy to the point of tears.

** You can't really say anything about Chiyo's femininity since she's only like 10 and even then she is still more feminine than the entire cast. She just happens to be [[The Ace|good at everything]] except physical activities due to her age and size.

* In ''[[Chrono Crusade]]'', the [[Hot-Blooded]] Rosette can't cook. In a flashback, Chrono is shown ''foaming at the mouth'' when he first tries one of Rosette's cookies. Later, she's shown to have improved enough that her food is edible, but it still ''looks'' disgusting. In comparison, [[Meido|Fiore]]'s cooking is to die for, and in the anime Azmaria and Chrono (of all people!) are both shown to be good cooks, as well.

* ''[[The Wallflower]]'': Sunako is an excellent cook, at least with Japanese food, and it's one of the big signs that she really is [[Beautiful All Along]] and Feminine All Along.

** Hayate is an even better cook and continually shown to be a very feminine boy.

*** Both Hinagiku and Hayate are shown to be hyper-qualified at everything they do. Maria also is depicted the same way. So good cooking ability plays into that as well.

** Nagi however is shown to be a [[Lethal Chef]]- another clue that she's a [[Tomboy]] and still too immature to be a woman (and therefor at a disadvantage in her romantic pursuits).

* Type 2 is beautifully averted in ''[[Saiunkoku Monogatari]]'': Shuurei, the protagonist, is the first ''ever'' woman politician in her country, and she is an excellent cook. Her red bean buns in particular are much loved by the other characters.

* As seen above, Sumire from ''[[Venus Versus Virus]]''. The [[Younger Than They Look|slightly older]] Gothic Loli Lucia however could not cook well until Sumire taught her. Another variation that appears is that Sumire has a liking for flower arrangement.

** The character was based on Kazuko Hosoki, an actual famous fortune teller, who had very conservative views on gender roles.

* ''[[Wandering Son]]'''s protagonist is quite good at baking, though he's not shown to do any other sort of cooking besides that; he's also very feminine and [[Transsexual|identifies as a girl]]. His female peers aren't nearly as good at baking.

* A [[Rare Male Example]] occurs in ''[[Saint Beast]]'' where an already [[Long-Haired Pretty Boy|very]] [[Viewer Gender Confusion|effeminate]] character has his effeminacy further established by being the natural cook in his circle of friends.

* ''[[Real Bout High School]]'' (the anime version) has an episode where Ryoko and another girl compete to make lunch for the boy they have a crush on.

* Subverted in [[The Prince of Tennis]], where the [[Supreme Chef]] among [[Tomboy|Tomoka]] [[Tomboy and Girly Girl|and]] [[Shrinking Violet|Sakuno]] is... the tomboyish Tomoka. It's not that Sakuno is ''bad'' at the kitchen, but Tomoka is specifically mentioned to be the best of the two. (Somewhat justified since Tomoka has a partial [[Promotion to Parent]] to deal with: she learned to cook out of the necessity to take care of her two much younger brothers.)

 

* Averted in an issue of ''[[Justice League of America|JLA]] Classified'' written by Gail Simone, where [[Wonder Woman]] presents the other members of the JLA with a traditional Themyscrian pastry. Flash and Green Lantern are more than a little panicked at the thought that Wonder Woman ''bakes''... and shocked by the tasty results.

** Which leads to a [[Crowning Moment of Funny]] when Batman, after a grim monologue, turns and says "Diana, Alfred will need that '''recipe'''."

{{quote| '''Artemis''': We eventually proved ourselves to our elders by making them a feast from the eighteen eyes of a slain hydra.<br />

'''Cassie''': Oh, perfect. I can't even reheat mac and cheese. }}

* In ''[[Archie Comics]]'', Veronica subverts this by being a notoriously bad cook who couldn't boil water in a blast furnace. Furthermore, any boy who is pressured to eat what she prepares is usually convinced they are about to commit suicide.

 

* ''Woman of the Year'' spends much of the movie showing how Katharine Hepburn's female reporter is the intellectual equal (or even superior) of Spencer Tracy's male reporter. The last scene in the movie is of Hepburn trying to make waffles but failing spectacularly, indicating that by being so successful in the "man's world" (the movie was released in 1942), she's basically rendered helpless in the "woman's world."

* Film ''Always''. Air-traffic controller Dorinda Durston wants to have a man over for dinner. She has to buy a pre-cooked meal and pretends that she prepared it herself.

 

== Literature ==

* In the [[Star Wars]] [[Expanded Universe]], [[Action Girl|Mara Jade]] tries to give Luke a taste of home by cooking a Tatooine dish. She, of course, screws it up. Luke, perhaps for the sake of her feelings (or just to escape [[Berserk Button|her rage]]), tells her that it smells just like he remembers; and that he really wanted to leave Tatooine because of the food.

** This one's become a bit of a [[Running Gag]] in [[Fan Fiction|fanfic]], particularly among Luke/Mara shippers.

* Molly Carpenter from [[The Dresden Files]] is committed to getting Harry Dresden healthier, by cooking healthy meals for him. Unfortunately, though she can make a mean cup of coffee, a chef she [[Lethal Chef|ain't.]]

{{quote| '''Harry''': Once she burned my egg. My boiled egg. I have no idea how.}}

* In [[Belisarius Series]] Lady Sanga is so good a cook that the absence of onions at the place she was supposedly murdered makes her husband wonder if she really was murdered. In her case she was an aristocrat and didn't need to cook or even do much of anything. She just loved cooking.

* In the [[Mercy Thompson]] novels, Mercy is a Volkswagon mechanic who dresses in grubby T-shirts, snarks off incessantly to every macho-male she encounters, and devours small furry animals when she turns into a coyote. The one "girly" thing she does is to bake lots of cookies or brownies.

 

 

* [[Gilmore Girls|Lorelai Gilmore]] and her daughter Rory subsist on junk food, diner food and takeout. Rory is shown cooking twice in the whole series and both times a larger point about how either she is becoming adrift in a sea of privilege or showing how unfitting a life of domesticity would be for her. Lorelai ended the series with Luke, a diner owner.

** Although Lorelai is an incompetent cook, she is an excellent seamstress and can whip up a fancy dress in under a week.

* In the ''[[Law and Order Special Victims Unit|Law & Order: SVU]]'' episode "Competence," Alex Cabot, the assistant DA, mentions having set her stove on fire.

** That's more of a "everyone has accidents" thing, she had said it because an attorney tried to use setting a stove on fire as a reason to show that a woman with Down's Syndrome is incompetent to raise a child.

* In an early ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' episode, Samantha Carter states that she couldn't cook to save her life. However, in another episode several years later, she mentions that she makes "a mean soufflé", providing further evidence that the former episode [[Canon Dis Continuity|never happened]].

** "I cook a mean souffle" is a [[Stock Phrase]] joke. It doesn't at all mean she ''can'' cook.

* On ''[[Friends]]'' Rachel cannot cook at all - it is suggested due to her pampered, privileged background - but Monica can, and is a professional chef. Both are career women living in the city.

** Joey loved Rachel's 'traditional' trifle. [[Epic Fail|With beef.]]

* Debra of ''[[Everybody Loves Raymond]]'' fulfills Type 4; she's a traditional stay-at-home mom who happens to cook badly. Of course, it's probably not quite as bad as her mother-in-law makes it out to be, but it's pretty bad.

* [[Battlestar Galactica|Starbuck]] can cook, as seen in ''Daybreak''.

* Ria, in seventies [[Britcom]] ''[[Butterflies]]'', who was an early Type 4.

* Played with in ''[[Legend of the Seeker]]''. Cara is chopping wood while Kahlan gathers it, and she chides Zedd and Richard for fussing over the food while the women chop and gather wood. Zedd answers that on a team, every member of the team should perform according to their abilities...and considering Cara's last attempt at cooking, she should stick to chopping.

* Used to a remarkable extent in ''[[Kyle XY]]'', despite both parents working. During a period when the mother of the family Nicole isn't cooking the rest of them don't even seem to consider the possibility that maybe someone else could cook, subsisting entirely on takeout food.

* Averted and [[Lampshaded]] on ''[[Frasier]]''. Daphne, the sweet, caring, [[Team Mom|maternal]], capable, very feminine [[The Heart|Heart]] is, surprisingly, such an appalling cook that the badness of her cooking and the repulsiveness of her recipes is a [[Running Gag]] and transcends mere badness and becomes a [[Epic Fail|kind of awesomeness]]. However, Daphne ''believes'' she is this trope, and is oblivious to her lack of talent until Niles, [[It Makes Sense in Context|as part of an effort to prove how much he loves her]], kicks off his list of her flaws with a gleeful [[Understatement|"To be honest, I don't much care for your cooking. In fact, you can't cook at all."]] which strikes her dumb with astonishment.

** This could also be a joke on British cuisine, which in the US is mocked almost as much as [[British Teeth]].

* In ''[[Of Thee I Sing]]'', Wintergreen isn't too keen on marrying Diana Devereaux or any of the other [[Beauty Contest]] girls, since he doubts their ability to cook: "Why, the average girl today can't cook--she can't even broil an egg." Mary insists that ''she'' can cook, and introduces him to her corn muffins, which go [[Through His Stomach]] straight to his heart.

* In ''[[On the Town]]'', Hildy claims she can cook, but the bill of fare she presents to Chip consists of [[Double Entendre|Double Entendres]] served up in a [[List Song]]. She does, with great effort, manage to prepare one specialty: a peeled banana.

 

== Video Games ==

 

** Subversion: in the same game, Sheena is one of the best cooks the party has, especially regarding familial recipes (she gets this as a title: "the culinary master who raised home-style cooking to the highest level"), yet she's a [[Tsundere]] tomboyish [[Action Girl]]. However, the deviation from the trope is [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] in one scene where [[Handsome Lech]] Zelos [[Slap Slap Kiss|calls her on it]]:

{{quote| '''Sheena:''' Oh, well. It's fun to cook every now and then. I wouldn't want to get out of practice.<br />

** This is a habit in the Tales series. The main character is always good at cooking. The main heroine is almost always a bad cook. Then the second woman in the party (like Sheena) is either good at cooking, or neutral. It's usually done to get some laughs at how bad the heroine's cooking is.

*** In ''Tales of the Abyss'' this trope is tendency is played around with. [[The Hero|Luke]] is a mediocre to bad cook with a somewhat exotic taste, while [[Action Girl|Tear]] (the main heroine) is a good cook (albeit she cooks roughly like guy would as she was taught by her brother Van). Anise is the best cook in the game, and is the second woman to join you. [[The Ojou|Natalia]], meanwhile, is quite possibly the worst cook in the party, as there is a skit in which she tries to ''heal'' a burning soup and she repeatedly burns her dishes beyond recognition. {{spoiler|Asch is noted to be a surprisingly good chef, in contrast to Luke.}}

* Inverted in ''[[Persona 4]]'' the two traditionally feminine girls [[Yamato Nadeshiko|Yukiko]] and [[The Chick|Rise]], and the more tomboyish [[Tomboy|Chie]], [[Lethal Chef|can't cook at all]] (well Rise can, but only if you're a fire eater like her). At the end they manage to bake an edible cake only by {{spoiler|getting the help of [[Bifauxnen|Naoto Shirogane]], and even Naoto notes that it took them three tries}}. Also the male [[The Hero|Hero]] is noted as being an excellent cook. It's also implied [[Rich Bitch|Ai]] cannot cook either when she remarks that it would be nice to end up with a guy who can cook after eating food prepared by [[The Hero]].

** Eli is rather feminine, and is a baker.

* And again its sequel ''[[Aoi Shiro]]''. The [[Tomboy]] protagonist Syouko --the captain of the kendo team and the object of admiration of her underclassgirls-- can cook as well as the very feminine Yasumi, who has serious crush on her. Kind of making [[Through His Stomach|through-her-stomach]] strategy unviable.

 

== Visual Novels ==

** Saber could count as a type 2 since she pretty much takes the cake in terms of being successful in a "man's world" in addition to being one of the powerful character in the series. It makes sense that she's doesn't know how cook, in fact it would be more strange if she did know how to. As such she depends on Shirou to cook for her, made more noticeable by the fact that she's a [[Big Eater]].

* Arcueid from ''[[Tsukihime]]'' can count as a type 2 or arguably type 5. She is not brainless but she is an [[Cloudcuckoolander|airhead]] due to her empirical ignorance about the modern world or the world in general. She also happens to be pretty much the strongest thing on the entire planet (ORT don't count). Regardless, she has perfectly good reasons why she can't cook and depends on her love interest Shiki to cook for her, who is not an amazing cook but is good enough. She probably enjoys the fact that he cooks for her more than the actual cooking themselves anyway.

== Webcomics ==

 

** Yanderes can usually cook well (since they're often subversions of the [[Yamato Nadeshiko]] type), so I think that makes this even more of a subversion.

 

== Western Animation ==

 

* ''[[Doug]]'''s best gal pal the tomboyish Patti was shown in one episode to not be a good cook, despite that she's great at ballet.

** However, she was given a break by a male chef (arguably, the greatest chef ever), and combined with her overt and aggressive hostility, it tends to make her come off as a [[Straw Feminist]].

** Starfire's a straight example if you accept that Tamaranian cuisine is difficult for Earthlings to swallow at its best (unless you're [[Big Eater|Terra]].)

* In the episode "Johnny Daddy Day" from ''[[Johnny Test]]'', it is shown that Johnny's [[Workaholic|super-busy working mom]] Lila and [[Teen Genius|genius inventor sisters]] Mary and Susan have no experience in cooking whatsoever. They aren't even sure what a spatula is or does. Under the guidance of Johnny (who took a cooking class to get an easy A grade), they manage to make a meatloaf for Hugh for Father's Day, only for it to [[Lethal Chef|come alive and attack him]].

{{quote| '''Mary and Susan:''' We... might have used too much DNA.}}