I can’t bake and I give zero f***s

Baking just became a feminist issue.

News just in: women can’t be arsed with all the bother of the workplace and want to stay home baking and cleaning their kitchens instead.

Er, what?

You heard right. “Both feminism and the Women’s Institute have come together a little bit in that domesticity isn’t such a bad thing as people thought or possibly that the workplace is not as much fun as we all thought,” Maggie Andrews, professor of cultural history at the University of Worcester, told the Hay Festival.

She went on: “Elements of the domestic have become much sexier and are seen as an escape from the horrors of society. It has made feminists rethink themselves.”

Appaz, feminists now “see domestic space as one area of women’s power in a way that they didn’t once”.

Permission to rant. * Gargles *

Firstly, I have long been suspicious of the whole Domestic Goddess, Yummy Mummy phenomenon. It’s all dressed up as having an enormous cleavage while pulling a great big chocolate torte out of the oven while your little scamps lick the bowl when actually it’s a way to keep us down!

Yes, women! Forget about baking. Get down the pub. Or the gym. Or wherever else you fancy going. Because you don’t have to apologise for having a job to your kids, your partner or anyone else by force-feeding them home-made cake. You can just go to work, get your salary, spend most of it on the rent and, in the unlikely event there is any left over, blow the rest on cocktails, should you so wish. There is simply no need to involve butter, sugar, flour or eggs at any stage.

I myself have recently been sucked into this competitive cycle of cup-cake based oppression, when it emerged that there was a cake sale at my child’s school for which I had not prepared, not even by going to Sainsbury’s. I looked in the freezer, though, and found that I was actually a brilliant mother, because I had (even though I didn’t remember doing it) a frozen a tub of Waitrose brownies. I duly defrosted them overnight, feeling smug that I was this kind of person, and gave my instructions to my husband to take them into school the next day. Except it wasn’t brownies. It was actually a tub of frozen chicken stock. Made by my husband.

But did I feel guilty? No!! Well, actually, yes I did, so next cake sale I got up at 7am and made biscuits off a recipe I found on the World Wide Web. They were disgusting. But they were home made. Everyone nearly wet themselves with delight.

But now I’ve come to the conclusion that baking is a feminist issue. No, Professor Andrews, my domestic space is not a seat of power. It’s a fucking mess. And if someone else in my family clears it up instead of me, well, that’s a good thing, because when I get in I’ll be knackered from work.

And yes, the workplace on a Monday morning is about as inviting as a dose of typhoid, but it’s not supposed to be fun. It’s supposed to earn us money. If we enjoy ourselves along the way, it’s a bonus. We work because we need the cash and we’d rather not ask our dad, big brother, husband or any other person. And if we start viewing it as a choice we might as well give back the vote because we can’t be arsed doing that either.

That is all.