The way to a man's heart: Gender roles, domestic ideology, and cookbooks in the 1950s

In "The Way to a Man's Heart: Gender Roles, Domestic Ideology and Cookbooks in the 1950s," I examine how cookery texts from the post-World War II era revealed a marked ambivalence about male and female gender norms. I argue t hat contrary to assumptions about the role of cookbooks and cookery rhetori c in maintaining the domestic ideology which Friedan termed "the feminine m ystique," these texts demonstrated an awareness of and impatience with the tedium of housekeeping. While many texts did emphasize "traditional" gender roles, and often described particular foods as gendered (gelatin salads we re designated for women while only hearty hunks of meat could satisfy a man 's appetite), they also often contradicted that message by acknowledging th at daily food preparation could be boring and by noting the fact that many women were working outside the home. Most subtly, cookbooks actually underm ined their own authoritative demand for domesticity by articulating and rei terating the norms they struggled to uphold. Like much popular literature f rom the postwar era, these cookbooks were complex and multi-layered documen ts. Although I read these texts first and foremost as a social historian, I also draw upon analytical resources from critical theory and cultural stud ies to support my argument.