Erin Gloria Ryan at Jezebel asks a rather obvious question: “why the fuck are we still making the candidates’ wives bake cookies?” Good question. Apparently, Michelle Obama beat Ann Romney in a cookie bakeoff sponsored by Family Circle. But who the hell cares? And why is this still going on? This actually surprised me:
Believe it or not, the First Lady bake-off started in 1992, not 1952, after a terribly uppity Hillary Clinton remarked that after her husband was elected Governor of Arkansas, she chose to pursue her career rather than “stay home and bake cookies.” America did a collective spit take at her unbridled, raw, unfeminine ambition. Who did this be-pageboyed Delilah think she was, eschewing cookie baking? If every mom in America followed Hillary Clinton’s dangerous example, cookies might nearly go extinct, like the California Condor. If future Americans wanted to show their children what a cookie looked like, they’d have to drive to a zoo. No more cookies in the wild!
Cookie-bakers were offended by Clinton’s remarks because if there’s anyone who is terrible at taking criticism, it’s people who are defensive and insecure about their own choices. News outlets called Clinton’s remarks “careless” and “dumb.” Columnists rushed to defend stay-at-home moms and their choosey choices, saying Clinton’s pointed defense of her own choices was akin to attacking or criticizing them. Shitstorm ahoy!
Something had to be done. Enter Family Circle, that bastion of family-friendly popsicle stick gluing tips, to save the endangered mom-cookie and defend the bruised honor of the stay-at-home mom by going straight to the top and challenging Hillary Clinton to a bake off with First Lady Barbara Bush.
I assumed this had gone on for decades. The fact that it was started by Hillary Clinton is particularly ironic. But I agree with Ryan here, it’s time to end this ridiculous ritual that only helps reinforce the idea that the proper place for a woman is in the kitchen.
26 comments
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MikeMa
October 6, 2012 at 10:13 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Ed,
You are missing a golden opportunity to show just how incredibly stupid this whole thing is. And potentially funny. I think at every primary contest, especially for president, the candidates, male or female, must bake cookies! On stage. No outside help. It might be interesting to see how many can even turn on the oven.
Michelle Obama is constantly in the news discussing what she is wearing. The idea that that might be important is demeaning to her and to us. Cookies are the least of it.
Michael Heath
October 6, 2012 at 10:18 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Ed writes:
Ahem, may I present the word of God via 1 Timothy 2 [RSV]:
For consistency’s sake, I think the kitchen-keeping mandate goes along with being silent, submissive to adult males, modest, guilty of screwing men in a bad way, and bearing children. I vote yes on the last item.
ArtK
October 6, 2012 at 10:29 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@MikeMa
No, no. Male candidates can never bake cookies! We need something manly. How ’bout the President and Romney do a chili cook-off, or grill steaks?
That would probably tell us more about the candidates than that last “debate” did.
thalwen
October 6, 2012 at 10:33 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
To go along with MikeMa’s suggestion, I suggest that at least one of the debates in the primary and general be Iron Chef President! Each candidate gets 60 minutes to cook up a bunch of dishes that not only bring out the theme ingredient but show the candidate’s political philosophy.
This of course should be followed by having the candidates compete in other ridiculous reality show formats – Presidential Runway, Dance Presidents, etc. They’re already nominating the Made-for-TV idiots, why not get all the entertainment out of them as possible.
d.c.wilson
October 6, 2012 at 10:43 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Even better, before every primary, make them create a dish that’s emblematic of that state’s cuisine. For Iowa, they can make deep-fried butter and corn; in Pennsylvania, Philly cheese steaks and sho-fly pie; Alabama, chitlins; and for New Jersey, toxic waste.
That will not only show off each candidate’s cooking skills but enable them to pander to the locals.
As for the cookie bake-off, I’m surprised Ann Romney lost. After all, she’s a stay-at-home mom. Surely, she’s had a lot of experience in telling her servants to bake cookies.
davem
October 6, 2012 at 11:11 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Am I bad for wanting to know what the result of that particular competition was?
matty1
October 6, 2012 at 11:22 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I had never heard of this but now I’m wishing Hilary had got the nomination in 08 so there would have been news stories about Bill Clinton’s cookie baking skills.
Gretchen
October 6, 2012 at 11:37 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
…to which Clinton replied “No thank you.”
Wait, she didn’t? Huh. I didn’t realize we live in the world where magazines can order around first ladies and start political traditions in a fit of patronizing sexism.
How sad.
Didaktylos
October 6, 2012 at 11:42 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@#5 – this was the servants’ chance to stick it to her …
lofgren
October 6, 2012 at 11:43 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
You… didn’t? What the hell world did you think you were living in?
MollyNYC
October 6, 2012 at 12:06 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I’ll bet the spouses of politicians all over the country, and at every electoral level, have cookie recipes tucked away somewhere, along with some idea of what causes they’ll support and what they’ll wear to the Inaugural Ball. “And I’ll be the best, most beloved First Lady, like, ever!” [1]
Family Circle should get those recipes. [2] And then shut the bake-off down.
_____
[1] I don’t mean to make fun. I personally know exactly what I’m going to buy when I win the lottery.
[2] My guess: an assortment of shortbreads, jam prints, brownies, blondies, jumbles, wafers, meltaways, oatmeal-cranberry extravaganzas, lebkuchen, ice-box pinwheels, biscotti, meringues, gingerbread, spritz etc. from the Democrats; 3,189 toll-house cookies copied word-for-word from Nestle’s packages from the Republicans.
Modusoperandi
October 6, 2012 at 12:12 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“Moochelle Obama says our kids are too fat and now she’s baking cookies?! Outrage!” ~ Rightwing
lancifer
October 6, 2012 at 12:41 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Mmmmmmmm. Cookies.
Dr X
October 6, 2012 at 1:44 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Ann Romney is a treasonous flag-desecrator in the kitchen.
http://pinterest.com/pin/112590059404518198/
Chiroptera
October 6, 2012 at 2:02 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Believe it or not, the First Lady bake-off started in 1992, not 1952, after a terribly uppity Hillary Clinton remarked that after her husband was elected Governor of Arkansas, she chose to pursue her career rather than “stay home and bake cookies.”
Huh. I remember that so-called “gaffe” and did a facepalm when the media made so much of it. I remember Ms. Clinton having to bake cookies to prove that Bill wasn’t gay married or something. I don’t remember the “bake-off” part, and I didn’t realize that it is now a staple of US Presidential elections.
(Jesus! You know, I wouldn’t blame the rest of the world if, on watching our elections for the last few cycles, they got really, really scared and decided that they needed to pre-emptively nuke the US.)
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…if there’s anyone who is terrible at taking criticism, it’s people who are defensive and insecure about their own choices.
Hear hear.
I mean, Jesus, what if a potential First Gentlement made a crack about “stay at home dads”? I can’t imagine nearly the outrage over a remark like that. I imagine more like, “Ha ha. You know, people should be free to make their own choices. But, really, stay at home dads? Ha ha.”
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I’m not belittling the amount of work a stay at home parent does. I am saying that if stay at home moms are good, then stay at home dads are equally good, and we need to figure out what to do to equalize the numbers.
If it is silly for men to drop out of the work force, even temporarily, to devote their time and energy to domestic acitivities, then it is eqully silly for women to do so, and we need to figure out how to provide the necessary resources for family care and equality of opportunities so that women can take their rightful place as equal members of the work force.
Dr X
October 6, 2012 at 2:13 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@14, I mean, just think about what happens to Our Flag along the way from oven to septic tank. Shameless. We can’t have First Lady who shows such disrespect for America.
Sastra
October 6, 2012 at 2:27 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I never thought of the “Bake Off” as a staple of American elections: I assumed it was a staple of Family Circle Magazine. Maybe that’s why I don’t read much into it. If homemakers were upset over the implication that they do nothing but “bake cookies,” a cookie-baking contest would not look like the diplomatic way to smooth things over.
My guess is that Family Circle would eagerly sponsor a Bake-Off, a fashion contest, a fishing competition, a craft fair, a wrestling match, a jousting tournament, and/or a footrace between the candidates, their spouses, their children, their pets, and/or their friends and relatives … if it will sell issues.
democommie
October 6, 2012 at 3:03 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I would be perfectly happy to let Mittmoroni’s Stepford wife borrow my recipe for “Healthy Herb Brownies”*.
I’m thinking that “Stay at home dad” in GOParlance might mean something to do with an ankle monitor and house arrest.
* Warning: Slice brownies into 2 x 2 squares, remove one per person and lock the rest in a safe place, prior to eating them.
kacyray
October 7, 2012 at 7:25 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
High-status women doing something manifestly feminine! That’s gotta chap feminists asses.
democommie
October 7, 2012 at 7:31 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Once again, the inimitably indignorant KKKrazyKKKacy shoots off his face.
After all, he did so well defending himself on the post about the judge, the cop and the victim of sexual assault–NOT.
BobApril
October 7, 2012 at 8:17 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Yes, this is a silly thing. But I really, really want it to continue long enough for the first First Gentleman to participate. And if that should happen to be Bill Clinton, so much the better.
pipenta
October 7, 2012 at 5:54 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Well, we do have a national baking & cooking crisis that no one will admit. Lots of people don’t know the first thing about cooking or baking, which is so wrong. Thing is, we need Obama and MIttens having that bake off.
It will, of course, be stupid. Use the wrong recipe and you are a commie. I figure chocolate chip cookies and brownies are your safe bets. Oatmeal raisin is probably too left wing, whole grains and all. Yeah, stupid.
Reminds of an ad I saw a couple of days ago for a company called Cookie Witch or something. It’s so sad. Sublime brownies are one of those things that anyone can make if they just kind of follow directions. So I figured the customer base is not too sharp. The thing that really got to me was they claimed the brownies were made with AMERICAN CHOCOLATE. And that got me wondering, where are our national cacao plantations, exactly?
pinkboi
October 8, 2012 at 10:07 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Obama makes his own beer… and I’m sure some presidents earlier in our history did as well. We need to have a brew-off! Makes just as much, heh, sense as a bake-off.
The Lorax
October 8, 2012 at 10:11 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Okay, yes, down with stereotypes of all sorts and whatnot…
But I gotta be fair, my mom does bake some pretty damn awesome cookies. Granted she’s also the home-run champ on her softball team, but y’know… props where they’re due.
betheves
October 8, 2012 at 11:39 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
pipenta – Hawaii, actually.
Moggie
October 8, 2012 at 2:16 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
pipenta:
Nice try, but those of us from the rest of the world who have tasted a Hershey bar know that American “cholocate” has been nowhere near a cocoa bean. Isn’t it wax flavoured with spoilt milk?