The cook, the cooker and the gendering of the kitchen

• Published in: The Sociological review (Keele) Vol. 48; no. 4; pp. 612 - 628
• Main Author: Silva, Elizabeth
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford, UK and Boston, USA Blackwell Publishers Ltd 01.11.2000; SAGE Publications; Wiley-Blackwell; Manchester University Press; Sage Publications Ltd
• Subjects: Actors; Causality; Cooking; Cultures and civilizations; Deconstruction; Domestic labour; Family Roles; Feeding Practices; Food; Gender; Gender roles; Households; Innovation; Kitchens; Lifestyles. Everyday life; Microwave ovens; New technology; Opposite Sex Relations; Sex roles; Sexual Division of Labor; Social change; Social Constructionism; Sociology; Technological change; Technological Innovations; Technology; Women; Womens Roles; Technological innovation; Cooking; Kitchen; Sexual Division of Labor; Baking; Housework; Deadly dull task
• ISSN: 0038-0261; 1467-954X
• DOI: 10.1111/1467-954X.00235

This article combines the approaches of actor-network theory and poststructuralism to consider how a household technology has interacted with patterns of gender hierarchies over time. Two major innovations in cooking technologies are analysed in relation to cooking activities and the related conceptions of women's roles in families, which are central to these concerns. The first technological development is the thermostat oven control, introduced in the 1920s and 1930s; the second is the microwave oven, introduced in the late 1980s and 1990s. Important conceptions of the cook's performance are examined and various implicit roles that have been tacitly assumed by innovating agents in the use of cookers are made explicit. The study contributes to discussions of gender and technology in the context of domestic life.