I have to be honest, this is my third attempt to write this post. It was a simple question, Why do Indian men eat before 
women? The gamut of answers on my FB should have made it easy for me to write this. All I had to do was summarize and be done. I did that, it didn’t make any sense. The discussions revealed the practice prevails in cultures across the globe for very similar reasons and the two main ones being; man has been considered superior or the woman just accepts it and continues the traditions. As I wrote and read to myself, it didn’t make any sense. There had to be more to this. If this was a practice that annoyed women, then how can women across the globe just let it be? If this was disrespectful, how did woman beyond geographical boundaries and traditions continue this practice for generations? These questions and more made me write and re-write.
I want to make it clear, that by no means am I an expert on women’s issues or a fundamental feminist. If anything, I am your neighborhood everyday Jane, just trying to make sense of my imperfectly perfect world.
The responses made me think hard and I am convinced that it all goes back to our roots. How else can such a bizarre practice span time and not morph into a better version of itself?
Every country has a native tribe of sorts. I Googled values and principals of many and in a nutshell it came down to this: The women are the life givers and nurturer’s. Nature made women the giver of life, so how can the giver of life, take life away too. It would be opposite to nature, and that’s why the men hunt and women take care of the home and nurture the family. Our ancestors believed the woman to be the giver of life so they did not let her hunt or take life. Seems logical, right? This is feminism at its best. They accepted the natural order of things and found their balance. I found this same balance at the Pueblo of Acomo , New Mexico (if you haven’t seen this, I highly recommend taking a trip to The Land of Enchanted during the winter break.
Do we blame the natives for this practice that carried forward and never changed. No, we blame ourselves for creating this mess. The natives had a balance that worked beautifully for them. The modern man came and with it came the imbalance. However this is not a post about feminism. We all have our own definition for the word and personally, I don’t connect with the men bashing definition. There are women who never cook and there are men who never change a diaper. It’s just who we are. We can complaint about genders and how submissive women are, but that is never going to change the status quo.
Feminism or not, the truth is, if you serve people good food, they don’t complaint. Wait, maybe the problem is with the word “serve.” It is reminiscence of slavery and brings out the negativity in us. Instead of serving food, let us start presenting, offering and or providing the food. Maybe that’s all it takes, a word change by all of us to bring out positive memories of the warmth and love of being on the dining table without the worry of who ate first.
I read the discussion on my FB wall again and found the answer staring at my face. It’s me. Yes, when there is a social event, I too insist the kids and men eat first, I insist my girlfriends also eat at the same time. I very rarely eat when I am the host. I can only speak for myself, so here is why I allow this to happen.
Being able to feed others is a very empowering feeling.
My Nani (maternal grandmother) always said, “If there is one thing you should know how to do, it should be cooking. Armed with my arrogance, I would ask why? Her response ” if you know how to cook, you will never sleep hungry.” I took this message seriously and learnt how to cook and at a very young age I could whip up a meal for the family. This is a very powerful message for men and women alike. We need to cook, so we can feed ourselves and in the process if you can feed others, more power to you.
Just to be clear on a daily basis, my daughter and I eat first and the boys later, because that’s just how it works in our family. Yes, I do want them to wait for me on the weekends and sometimes they do. When they forget, I give them a reminder 🙂 I do what I have to do, to keep the wheels of life churning. Keep it simple and keep the communication channels open… if it bothers you that no one waits, let them know loud and clear 🙂
It is a cooks instinct and privilege to feed first.
Cooking is a chore for some and for others it is an act of love. There are many for whom cooking is an art form. An art form that allows them to express their love through the food they make. These men and women will never eat first. They will always feed first. Let’s not judge. If the woman cooks, she offers the food. If the man cooks, he offers the food. It’s that simple. (P.S: I replaced serve with offer)
It may sound ironical but the fact that one knows how to cook also gives the confidence of feeding others first because you 
know there will always be food that you can make. So the women who feed first are not necessarily losers or timid followers of tradition, it’s quite possible these ladies know what they are doing. They know their strengths and they know their partners weakness and just like the natives recognized the order of nature an found their balance, the women who serve food first and eat later have also found their balance.
This post has also allowed me to do a lot of self reelection, that is why I love my blog. It’s not famous yet 🙂 , but it helps me stay sane. Every woman has an internal energy and I am not talking about the energy to get up and do chores, it is the intrinsic energy that allows her to keep her balance. The woman from Venus, needs her time away for the chaos and for many women like me that time away is in the kitchen. Cooking a good meal brings the calm back in me. There will always be days of feeling angry and flustered. There will always be days when you wish, you were served a meal and when that happens, just say so and get a carry out.
Why do we always applaud the bold and the beautiful? In the name of feminism, why are we shunning those who don’t? Why don’t we applaud the conventional and traditional, after all the world is optimized for the average and conventional.
Can you imagine what the world would be if the majority of us were outliers bending and molding the conventional?
