Now that we are done fat-shaming little kids, we're apparently blaming feminism for how unhealthy America is. Via Amanda Marcotte, SarahMC has a really good takedown of male foodies like Michael Pollan who blame the obesity epidemic on women who've supposedly stampeded out of the kitchen and abandoned their families' health:
I wish feminists were as powerful as everyone thinks we are. Some women got sick of living their lives to grocery shop and tend to the stove, and suddenly they've singlehandedly “wrecked the family meal.” Pollan never questions that assertion. In fact, he seems to believe it. Last year, he wrote in the Times that “The Feminine Mystique” taught American women "to regard housework, cooking included, as drudgery, indeed as a form of oppression.” If women were not so gullible, children wouldn’t eat so much high fructose corn syrup and play video games all day!
I always thought Pollan took a bad turn after The Omnivore's Dilemma, when he swerved from investigation and explanation to polemic, especially in his New York Times Magazine piece from last year, "Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch." The idea that women are the guardians of the home, their children, and everything that goes on with them is pervasive, and is perhaps just reinforced by the fact that the campaign to fight childhood obesity is helmed by the first lady and not the president. As Marcotte says:
The point is that feminism isn't the problem. In fact, in many instances, what we need is more feminism. After all, it's the feminist impulse that causes men to feel like they should be doing something on occasion besides sitting around letting their wives do all the housework, even if that something they do is take over the most satisfying chore. It's imperfect feminism, but still a relief for women.
-- Monica Potts
