Don’t underestimate: Men can cook

Why is it that many women on this earth believe that men cannot cook?

I bring this because of a discussion I had in my anthropology class.

When discussing ways of gender switching for one day, one woman brought up that men cannot cook which would be a downfall of being a guy.

Immediately after this shocking opinion was injected into the conversation, the professor took a quick class survey and found that the majority of men in the room felt they could cook.

Getting back to the question at hand, what drives women to the feeling that men cannot cook?

Asking countless women why they believe this, I have come up with an eloquent, yet tasteful, theory.

Allow me to introduce the Cooking Man Theory:

1.Women only believe that men can operate a microwave due to its simplicity and our narrow minds, which is why an oven or stove is completely out of the question.

2. They do not believe that macaroni and cheese counts as a gourmet meal.

3. Believing that men purposely fail in the kitchen so they do not have to cook is a scapegoat for laziness in an enticing situation.

4. The many decades that women have cooked, and the absence of men in the kitchen, has burdened men and disenfranchised them from cooking in general.

5. Finally, the lack of interest from men in the kitchen, which ultimately leads to horrible attempts at a finished product.

Applying the theory to real life, there is little correlation in respect to men’s performances in the kitchen. “An overwhelming majority of the more experienced kitchen positions are held by men: 89 percent of Executive Chefs, 82 percent of Sous Chefs, 66 percent are line cooks and 60 percent of management positions surveyed are male,” Starchefs.com states in a 2005 survey.

From a male standpoint, guys are good cooks with the right ingredients in front of them. When you think of a meal for a guy what comes to mind: small birds, potatoes and the occasional greasy concoction of a cheeseburger?

But give us the right tools for the job and just like we are in the garage turning a wrench, a masterpiece can be baked, grilled, sautéed, filleted or even boiled properly for all those woman who think we do not know what boiling water looks like. Women, next time your man says to you “Hey, I feel like cooking tonight,” give him the benefit of the doubt and let him. Then it is our job to actually come through with something that is not burnt to a crisp.