Sen. Amy Klobuchar emerged from Iowa and New Hampshire as a serious contender for the 2020 Democratic nomination. That came on the heels of a New York Times headline focused not on her speeches or debates but on her bid to attract supporters through her cooking. The Times reported that Klobuchar’s “Taconite Tater Tot Hot Dish” — a layered dish of ground beef, tater tots and pepper jack — was the star attraction of her campaign events.

The 1909 Washington Women’s Cook Book was an ingenious political tool. Published by white woman American suffragists before a statewide vote on the issue, the community cookbook helped convince white male voters to give up sole ownership of the franchise. By emphasizing their housekeeping skills, these suffragists demonstrated that women would not abandon their homes and families if they got involved in politics. Reassured that their meals would still be prepared, men were more likely to vote for the cause.
But that’s not where the politics stopped.

Sociologists have systematically overlooked the family and home as arenas of social movement activity, focusing instead on episodes of public protest or actions that occur within social movement organizations. This approach is problematic for the study of women’s movements in particular, since women’s socially mandated responsibilities and understandings about femininity continue to be intimately connected to the home. For women’s movements, the home is likely a central setting in the struggle for power.

Recent studies have examined how the conventions of cultural genres help advance frames. This line of scholarship can be used to study how activists might popularize radical frames that fundamentally challenge widespread beliefs. In this article, I analyze how the gendered character of suffrage community cookbooks aids in frame alignment. I determine how these cookbooks advance ‘femininity frames’ that drew on widespread beliefs about femininity (and thus were more likely to resonate with a broa

Is an apron-clad feminist cook an oxymoron? Feminists in the 1960s, ‘70s, and ‘80s (“second-wave feminists”) have been accused of abandoning the kitchen and blamed for the rise of fast food.

Why is there such a stark gendered division between home and professional kitchens? Since women spend more than twice as much time in home kitchens than men do, it seems strange that there are so few women in professional kitchens. Many social forces, ranging from the organization of professional kitchens to cultural ideas about women and cooking, can help explain the phenomenon.

In 1912, New York City press fawned over the opening of a new restaurant at numbers 13 and 15 East 41st Street in Manhattan. On the inaugural day, 48 men and 652 women patronized the restaurant between the opening hours of noon and 2:30 p.m. Prices were shockingly low. For only 25 cents, customers could get a plate of roast lamb or beef accompanied by spinach and mashed potatoes; for 15 cents, lamb stew or codfish balls. “You can’t possibly spend more than 50 cents,” wrote The New York Tribune.