'Dr Swinbank, in case you didn't know, the Gender War in the West was won long ago by your side...'

Oh, really? Can you give me some idea of a date and time?

Or is that just privilege-speak which translates as: Now that men have so benevolently bestowed all this wonderful equality on women, all women have to do now to make life comfortable and pleasant again for men is to just shut the hell up about a few thousand years of gender injustice?

I really feel for you having to experience such intolerable levels of exasperation and impatience with an article on how women's contribution to the agricultural revolution - possibly the greatest milestone of human civilisation - was totally written out of history by men. I wish I could make it easier for you. I really do. But justice has its own time table.

You might also like to keep in mind that two thirds of the world's people who live in less industrially "developed" countries depend on the women for their sustenance - not just for the preparation, but also for the growing of the food. These women inherit vast amounts of knowledge, especially regarding the biodiversity around them.

Women have always tended the crops, harvested and prepared the foods in these countries.

It's interesting that once farming is industrialised and mechanised (and usually converted to monoculture), suddenly these women are seen as redundant and men take over.

All over the world women are right now tending small gardens and harvesting naturally grown foods to nourish their families.

'It's interesting that once farming is industrialised and mechanised (and usually converted to monoculture), suddenly these women are seen as redundant and men take over.'

Don't worry Poirot, then when the country goes further and outsources to the poor countries, and has a service/managerial based workforce, the women then take over again.

I'm with pelican, get a grip people.

Killarney,

I never see feminists spruiking for women to get credit for any of the terrible wrongs throughout history. They're innocent bystanders when things go bad, but somehow should be championed as central to the cause when things go well. That's why I see feminists as female supremacists; They genuinely believe women are superior to men.

Just like Julia simultaneously holds the position that she need not be married or have children to relate to the needs of families, but argues that men in blue ties can not possibly understand the plight of women in this country. Somehow the latter is not be considered sexist. Or rather misogynist, as she has redefined it.

Despite the saturation of feminist education, young women are disregarding the scolding feminist dinosaurs left over from the Seventies and Eighties excesses and are rediscovering the joy of cooking for self and family and the reward of cottage crafts done for a purpose rather than as a diversion for the bored middle class singleton.

The herd of feminist wordsmiths are scrambling to find a way around the Feminine Mystique's denouncement of the kitchen and home, "But she didn't say specifically that cooking was *bleep*, yadda, yadda".

Fifty years later of course Betty Friedan can flip-flop and she did. However, much earlier Betty Friedan herself revolted against the radical, man-loathing radicals who had taken over feminism.

"As early as the 1960s Friedan was critical of polarized and extreme factions of feminism that attacked groups such as men and homemakers."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betty_Friedan

If feminism should be about anything it should be choice, not what some fierce old feminists tell young women to do.

Young women are making their own choices and are rejecting the lives led by the materialistic, middle class feminists who spurned femininity and family. Their decision, good on them and it is the direction led by their interest in whole food and natural things. There is a lot of enjoyment and satisfaction in being able to raise a family on foods grown in the yard and bread made without additives. Yes, babies are best breast-fed.

For those who hope to continue the gender feminism that delivered so many cushy careers for so long it is disappointing, to say the least.

The old dragons of gender feminism might hiss and breathe fire that they are not always put on pedestals by the young. But when any woman is one day on her death bed and is asked what she really wanted in life but didn't get enough of, it will be time with friends and family that is mentioned, not the conspicuous consumption, material possessions and career 'status' that are the concerns of feminists.

Did any of the belittling, pontificating dudes here actually read the article at all? Or did you just get as far as the first phrase hinting at something about male privilege and double standards?

Contrary to attempts here to reduce the essay to a regurgitation of tired, irrelevant feminist dogma, it actually made a critical point that cannot be made often enough, one that is directly relevant to the ongoing gender income gap. Because women’s work, historically, was restricted to the family environment, it was deemed less valuable than work done by men.

While the essay focuses on the history of food production and food preparation, the general attitude that women’s labour is mostly done ‘for love of family’ still strongly influences the nature of today’s workforce. Female-dominated professions and jobs pay less than men’s, women settle for less remuneration for their labour than do men, and women compromise their careers and financial independence once they become mothers (while men do not).

Belittling the messenger does not make the message go away.

‘… young women are disregarding the scolding feminist dinosaurs left over from the Seventies and Eighties excesses and are rediscovering the joy of cooking for self and family and the reward of cottage crafts …’

They may or may not be, depending on what you read.

Most of the women I know absolutely hate the grinding routine of coming up with a family meal every evening and spending so much of their lives in supermarkets. Many women, on the other hand, ARE heeding the feminists of the 70s and 80s. Instead of cottage crafts, they are learning home maintenance skills (like carpentry, DIY and plumbing), which their upbringings denied them - particularly as so many women end up as struggling single mothers and heads of households.

Sure, some women are just born to be earth mothers - but the pay is lousy. If they have a private income to pay the bills while they’re busy making cheeses and quilts (or if they’re Amish), good luck to them.