Department for Education renames course because of concerns boys wouldn’t be interested.
A GCSE course that was to be named Cooking and Nutrition has been renamed Food Preparation and Nutrition in a direct reaction to consultation responses claiming that the original name would put off “male students” and the sons of “certain race groups”.
The Department for Education (DfE) bending to (seemingly light) pressure in this way is really problematic, as it raises the obvious question: what the hell is wrong with men cooking?
Male dominance in the kitchen
It's truly bizarre that despite the huge number of well-known male chefs appearing on television on a regular basis (Jamie Oliver, Gordon Ramsay, Marcus Wareing, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, I could go on...), the DfE actually thinks there is good reason to even take such comments seriously.
It says that it is important that “the value of the qualification to all relevant careers” is made clear, so that “boys and girls alike can make informed decisions about studying it.”
The DfE also says that it has a responsibility to ensure no one is discriminated against by 'barriers' to equal citizenship, and it seems that the word 'cooking' is accepted as one of these barriers.
Rather than promoting all of life's options as equally available, it has bowed out of the debate with a weak compromise that undermines cooking as both a necessary life skill and as a valid career decision for all.
In listening to these archaic views, and actually taking action upon them, the DfE has let down the ideals of gender equality.
It's like me suggesting that maths should be renamed ‘number studies’ because mathematics sounds too intimidating for girls. It's sexist, it's stupid, and it's just plain wrong.
That name
Managing Editor Simon Ward was quick to comment that the new name was “better than home economics” and I have to agree that it does sound far less patronising.
However, there's no excitement to be found in the name 'food preparation'. It makes me think of my days of kitchen 'prep': slicing up piles of tomatoes, cucumbers, herbs and so on ready for service later. All the boring bits of working in a kitchen. Yawn.
'Cooking', to me, sounds dynamic. It's about a range of techniques, learning how to use ingredients with new skills, exploring and enjoying new foods, and most of all, creativity. Oh, and fire.
It's wrong that the DfE felt it had to compromise in this way, as its reaction lends legitimacy to the argument that 'cooking' is female-gendered. If anyone seriously holds the opinion in 2015 that it's a woman's job, and an ‘unmanly’ endeavour (I don’t accept the gendering of it at all, by the way), they should take a day out to work in a professional kitchen. I think they'd change their tune rather quickly.
Cooking is a vital skill that everyone needs to get a grip on, so it's important that the view that it's the job of one group of people and not another is eliminated.
In fact, in my opinion, it should be a compulsory GCSE subject for all.
What do you think of the change of name? Is it non-consequential, or does it show acceptance of ignorant group of views? Let us know in the Comments below.
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