Heated discussion

The idea behind these unique workshops is to facilitate networking and exchange of experiences, knowledge and personal stories. For this reason, we have agreed to divide each time in the afternoon into three working groups. And so we have our one and only cooking team,an inquisitive blogging duet and a holistically-oriented discussion group. We thought that we might elaborate on issues like "gender and food safety regulations", "gender and politics of food" or "passing intergenerational, gendered knowledge of food on children" or how local initiative can influence the system. Having moved to the divine fireplace (now you know where the title of this post comes from), we opened the discussion which eventually handled various topics and had nothing to do with simply following the convention.
First, we shared our observations concerning today's events, so we conducted a gendered critique of presentations that we listened to. The first one on food safety was presented by a man, the second about holistic nutritionism - by a woman. It was really amazing to realise how differently they handled empowerment, how they interacted with the audience, imparted their knowledge, held their positions or facilitated the understanding. We wondered to which extent the outcome was influenced by gender or maybe language barriers or personal qualities.
Then we shared our personal stories about 'having voice' in public/academic circles, about being encouraged or, unfortunately more often, silenced by rather (objectively) unjustified accusations of "talking too much". We all know well what is the reason behind this common charge. If the ideal of a woman is based on expectations that she shall not speak (dates back to the Renaissance), than it is no wonder that women who actually 'dare' to talk are criticised. But we want to challenge it and we will not allow others to silence us (of course it does not mean that we will not let others speak, democracy in discussion goes first:)). Another issue we touched upon is how women behave as mentors and what are the expectations towards them.
What struck us, was that discourse on food is actually very limited. It focuses on women as main counsumers, it is restricted to heteronormativity and it does not take into account all life stages, e.g. older people. We really need to widen these perspectives. We discussed how some feminists consider cooking as means of womens' subordination to gender roles and social expectations, which made us wonder what are the solutions. If women reject this limititatng convention and refuse to cook, they consume more industrialised, highly processed food (not to mention cultural and social repercussions). What else can they do? We thought that involving men and encouraging them to get involved in cooking and more generally sharing duties despite stereotypes and rigid role attribution could help. Women would be disburdened, not feeling like servants and also men would get a chance to dismiss accusations of being 'unmanly'. The problem is how to achieve it... Share your ideas with us!:)
We also wondered to which extent class background exerts impact on our attitude to food. Is class separable from money? How does the notion of class differ among nationalities? Speaking of post-communist countries, how do they handle politics of food and role division? We see a solution in collectivism (cooperation of partners in home duties), but how can we achieve it in capitalist system promoting individualism? What about countries with non-existing social capital?
The last (but not least, it was just the first discussion evening) matter we discussed was the decison-making with reference to food (of course). We usually see women doing shopping, but is it really so that they are the ones who decide? Women most often cook for their families, but are they really empowered? Who gets to decide what we eat?...
Many questions were left unanswered, many were given consideration, many have to be slept on. Speaking of which, I shall approach the end:). Hopefully, we will solve those and subsequent issues, normalise current food crisis  and make our world a better and truly sustainable place.
Liliana