The times, they are a changing

[jhetley]

We attended (command performance) a "do" last week for the retirement of a nice lady at the nature center, Wife's site of occasional employment. This was a pot-luck supper, with various and sundry goodies brought by the attendees.

And I was struck dumb by the percentage of "store-bought" stuff supplied, like even cookies and brownies and pies.

Way back when I was a lad, a woman would prefer to appear naked at such an occasion than to bring in "boughten" cookies.

Not arguing that Today's Woman doesn't have more important ways to spend her time, just observing a change in society...

Comments

[quilzas.livejournal.com]

Dude, I remember that from when I was a kid. Store-bought was the ban and was generally shunned. Now no one seems to make anything. Such a shame. Fresh made is always so much better.

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

Yes, exactly. When women were expected to stay home and do housework all day, they could easily use a little of their cooking time to make something for an event like that. Now, I know plenty of people who like to cook, but prefer to spend their limited time for doing so on their families rather than people at an office party.

And trust me, you don't want MY attempt at homemade cookies!

[quilzas.livejournal.com]

But even if you use the box mixes, it's better than store bought and is difficult to screw up badly. :)

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

Not if you know where to shop. Box mixes are much worse than good-quality store-bought! Have you read the ingredients list on one of those things recently? I wouldn't subject anyone I knew to that!

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

This _is_ practically family, with total staff of four. Three of those are part-timers. Add volunteers, coordinated by the retiring woman, husbands and sig-others, and the total turnout was twenty or thirty.

[cymrullewes.livejournal.com]

I make something for just about every Friday at work. It started as a way to keep construction project managers to come and update the schedule without fussing/fighting. It's amazing how much a bit of sugar would make them tell me they failed to make a milestone.

I think a lot of it these days is that women are convinced that it puts them at a disadvantage and that it is much MUCH too much time and effort. My female co-workers are amazed when I tell them that I don't spend more than about 15 minutes on making stuff for Fridays.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

And yet the question is whether the women will bake/cook or bring storebought, rather than whether the people will.

Well, I'm probably part of the problem rather than part of the solution; I don't think of the baking culture from which I come as at all egalitarian.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Well, this is an atypical subset of "society" in that the nature center is basically Women's Country. Three women run the place. The only male employee is the caretaker, and most of the volunteers are also women.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

It's atypical that women are a disproportionate number of volunteers? That's not my experience of volunteering, although maybe things are shifting.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

>It's atypical that women are a disproportionate number of volunteers?

Probably not. My "atypical" designation meant the overall power structure, and I aimed _that_ at the basic assumption of "whether the women will bake/cook or bring storebought" in your first comment. Women made that decision because that's the organization...