"Why are you so keen on women learning to cook & bake? Are you really so backwards, that you think that women should be stuck in 50's style gender roles? I have a big important job, so I don't have time for stuff like that. I'll either pay someone to do it for me, or get my husband to. So there!"
Yet so many girls aren't bothering to learn how to cook or bake, and seem to be awfully proud of the fact that they are utterly crap at something that is vital to human life. Guess your PHD wasn't in common sense, eh?
Here's the thing - if you are relying on someone else to provide you with food, even by paying for it with your own hard-earned money, you are still relying on someone else. And you are assuming that you will always have the money to pay for it! You may have a great job NOW, but take a quick gander back at recent history, and you are going to find these things called "crashes" and "the depression". Life can change awfully quickly, and if you want to stay on top, you should be prepared to pull on your big-girl panties and take care of yourself.
The girls (I don't really think that these people have earned the title "woman" yet) who expect that they will just find a man who will stay at home and cook for them are even worse. First off, you are basing a decision to avoid learning a life skill on the assumption that you will "get a man". Gee, how very progressive that thinking is! It sure is nice to be living in these modern times where women don't plan their life around the idea of getting married! Oh wait...
And even if you do manage to find a man, fall in love, and he just happens to be a phenomenal cook and wants to do all the cooking for you, you are still making some pretty ridiculous assumptions. First off, you are flying in the face of every study on life expectancy, ever, and assuming that your personal chef/husband will outlive you. Better take up smoking and scotch drinking girls! Otherwise you may find yourself in your 60s and 70s living on microwave dinners. You are also assuming that hubby is going to STAY married to you for the rest of your life - again, statistics don't have your back on that one.
I'm also not sure that you are increasing the chances of a long and happy marriage if you are incapable of boiling an egg. To my mind, one of the great things about having a partner is that you are able to take care of each other, and treat each other with kindness and love (I know, I know, setting the women's movement back again here by treating men the way I would like to be treated). I wouldn't want to be married to someone who couldn't make me so much as a bowl of soup and a grilled cheese sandwich when I'm down with the flu, or who never baked me a birthday cupcake or brought me breakfast in bed "just because". If you decide you want children, cooking and baking together is just plain ol' fun! Do you really want to miss out on making green eggs and ham, or helping your kid make cookies for father's day? More importantly, do you want to raise kids to be as helpless as yourself?
Knowing how to cook helps you in the wider world as well. It's not just good manners to offer to help your hosts out in the kitchen, it helps you build friendships. It's not a secret - people like people who are helpful and nice, not people who sit around being waited on hand and foot. It's respectful to your parents to be able to take on some of the responsibility of cooking at big family gatherings, and it's certainly not very feminist to expect your mom to cook an entire thanksgiving dinner on her own while the family watches tv. What if you don't have family, or don't care about making friends? Well, then I feel pretty sorry for you, but I know that isn't the point. What if you only care about work? In that case, guess how much better it is for your career if you are the person that brings in home-made cupcakes on your colleagues birthday - it certainly won't get you shuffled to the back of the line come promotion time. In fact, that's not only going to help your relationships with your colleagues (always important if you want to be successful), but it brings you into the spotlight. It shows that you are capable, thoughtful, and clearly have good time management skills, if you are able to handle your workload and still find time to be baking from scratch! Sure, you could just buy them, but since when is going the extra mile a bad thing? Being able to make a healthy lunch for yourself means less time out of the office, waiting in line at sandwich shops. And that means more time to work, and an appearance of a harder worker - both clearly terrible ways to advance your career.
Finally, cooking isn't just going to help you in your relationships, in your work, in your family and in your friendships.....cooking, and food, is about health. Knowing how to make nutritious food, pulling together fresh, healthy meals - it's not about going all Martha Stewart (although let's face it, that would be pretty cool), it's about keeping your body healthy and strong. A diet of ready meals and take out may be easier, but it's not going to help you stay fit. Decided to run a marathon for charity? Don't want to be looking around for the fabled "big strong man" when you have to lift heavy things? Got a big client or a heavy workload that means extra stress and working overtime? Eating healthily gives you the ability to do those things.
So if you want to be a helpless, weak woman, then sure, you don't need to know how to cook. How very feminist of you.
But if you want to be strong, successful, balanced in your relationships, respected by your friends and family, and have even a tiny chance of surviving a zombie apocalypse - pick up a spoon and strap on your superwoman apron!! Who knows, you might even (gasp!) enjoy it! Don't worry, it'll be our secret...
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