“Cooking Lesson” portrays a married Mexican woman in a cooking setting in a household. Interestingly, the story deals with the symbolism of cooking which can be compared to the act of traditional feminine ‘role.’ The method of writing can be seen as passionate, dynamic, andSome of the details in the story shaped how the story is read by the audience: “…But I, self-sacrificing little Mexican wife, born like a dove to the nest, smiled like Cuauhtémoc under torture on the rack when he said, “My bed is not made of roses, ” and fell silent…” (Castellanos, p 347) include a sense of the wife’s rant on how her life is pressured and difficult to open up as a woman. Castellanos’ descriptive expressions are definitely noticeable as she uses the ‘meat’ as a symbol to expand on the concept of ‘women’ being just the wives rather than true members of the society.The role of being the wife is represented with a traditional lense of looking at gender, and the culture definitely plays a part in shaping this gaze notion that women, as wives, are restricted and limited to their ability to do more than household work.
I personally believe that food is a huge part of a culture both in the past and the present; food can be dissected as something that one buys the recipes, washes each ingredients, cooks with care, and prepares for others to eat. The whole experience is a culture and as one can witness in the “Cooking Lesson”, the relation to the meat the life of the wife is compared. As the meat’s features differ and change over time, different meaning is emerged. “Firs there’s the piece of meat, one color, one shape one size. Then it changes, looks even nicer and you feel very happy. Then it starts changing again and now it doesn’t look so nice. It keeps changing and changing and changing and you just can’t tell when you should stop it…So? My husband also gives the impression of being solid and real when we’re together, when I touch him, when I see him. He certainly changes and I change too…” (Castellanos, p 352) The reality of a marriage, the change that the wife and the husband experience, is met and witnessed; it cannot be certainly said the change is negative or positive, but the changes bring different dynamics in the household. I really liked the strong words of Castellanos: “On the level of my consciousness, my memory, my will, changing me, defining me, establish the course of my future.” (Castellanos, p 353) Being a Mexican woman and as a wife may have had the concern for not being able to make independent decisions and express wills in life. As women pursue great achievements, women, in some cultures, are still restricted to those traditional ideas of their roles in society.
I would like to quickly comment on the new Vice president of the United States, Kamala Harris, who is an African, Asian American, who has a multicultural background, but has achieved a great position in our society. I truly hope that she provides reasonable and appropriate leadership skills to many young generation who looks up to her, and as a person who has diverse ethnic background, she performs with dignity and justice.
Class question:
How does Rosario’ details of the cooking lesson resemble the roles of women in society?
What is a role of gender in society? Is it constantly changing for the better.. or worse? Why? What is an example of the situation like the wife in “the cokking lesson” in today’s world?
I think you made a good point about talking about the gender expectations and roles that are portrayed in the piece. It seems to me that in many ways what we think of gender is changing in society, whether it’s being more accepting to people who don’t associate with the gender they were assigned at birth or not letting cultural norms of gender stop us from doing what we really want to. I think progress has been made but in many countries that progress is being reversed and I think those cultural forces are a direct result of economic and political froces
Hey!
I think Cooking Lessons was filled with observations about womens status in society. As you said, the activity of cooking itself has been associated with being a woman. She describes how she feels trapped in her marriage, in the kitchen and in her gender because of the narrow definitions, however at the same time she is conforming to those very same expectations. So in a way she is accepting patriarchy while she clearly resents it. I think that is pretty descriptive of womens status in general, since patriarchy exists everywhere in the world, and even the most non-conforming individuals in the most “modern” parts of the world fall prey to it. Therefore, even if I do believe that our definitions of gender have changed and will continue to change for the better, I believe patriarchy is something that is hard to shake off.
Hey,
I loved your response and thought that you provided some awesome insight into how “Cooking Lessons” plays into a bigger cultural story altogether. I personally think that gender is changing for the better. Sometimes it’s one step forward two steps back however as you mentioned we are seeing more and more females in positions of power whether it be VP of the USA or executive positions in big companies. I feel as though a real life example similar to that of what we read in “Cooking Lessons” are wives struggle for identity a lot of them time. Even though one might have a good sense of self women are judged with how they portray themselves everyday. An example being men are more often referred to as being assertive whereas women are being bossy. Therefore there is still a sense of women trying to find and identity their own roles and how they want to be portrayed to those around them today.