What is the obsession with women who can put it down in the kitchen all about? Why can’t cooking be seen as a hobby like reading or running? I know that traditionally, women stayed home and waited for their men to bring home the bread. But times have changed and in some households women earn more than men and have tighter work schedules than their spouses. So why should their skills in the kitchen even matter?

I understand that women are ‘best suited’ to take care of their families. These days, successful women are the ones with the amazing career, great family, and great social life with time to stop by the gym six times a week! But how are men weighed? What makes them great partners or fathers?

I read an article the other day about a woman who learnt how to cook only when she got to university and now that she was older and knew her way around the kitchen she judged other women who didn’t know how to prepare a meal. She blamed their mothers for not teaching their daughters how to cook which I found completely unfair.

Personally, I’m not great in the kitchen. I suck at "African” food because there are hardly any recipes to follow. Show me a recipe and I will put the meal together, otherwise don’t expect me to go into the kitchen and come out with a six course meal. I’m not that woman and honestly, I don’t think I ever will be. Blame my mother?

Never. That woman tried everything to get me in the kitchen. The way she blends spices and flavours can put any professional chef to shame; she makes it with love for the people she is serving. I see cooking as a task. As a teenager I would rather snuggle up to a good book than get in the kitchen and learn a new recipe, and even today, I can think of a thousand things I would rather do than cook.

I cook to survive and not because I really want to. I cook so I know exactly what I’m putting in my body.  I do enjoy cooking with man-friends or with my mom but not alone. I hope this changes when I have a family but I want to do it because I like it and not because my gender dictates it.

What if my man is a better cook? I think for the safety of my dear future children, he should take the lead and I will help with the homework or drive them around to their extracurricular activities.

Either way, I don’t want jobs in my house to be assigned to me or my children because of our sex. I want my daughter and son to be equally as good in the kitchen and do it because they are interested. 

What do you 21st century women think? Should women be kitchen-shamed?