Doing, undoing, and cooking gender: Mapping the masculinities of white-collar men in the home kitchen

Official URL: https://risc01.sabanciuniv.edu/record=b3157892_(Table of contents)

Quantitative data such as time-use surveys indicate that women in Turkey continue to devote a disproportionate amount of time to unpaid domestic labor. According to these statistics, the kitchen is one of the primary spaces where unpaid domestic labor is unequally distributed. Literature often focuses on this inequality through social norms, especially the role of women as the feeder of the family. Nevertheless, current data, while somewhat limited, indicate an increase in men’s involvement in home kitchens. These behaviors that can be considered out of the norm may be more egalitarian, as in the debate on inclusive masculinity, or they may be maneuvers that may hide and deepen inequalities, as in the debate on hybrid masculinities. In this research, I examine the masculinities constructed by white-collar men in Turkey who take active responsibility in home kitchens from the perspective of Critical Masculinity Studies. For this purpose, I conducted a total of 51 semi-structured in-depth interviews with men and their partners who have been sharing the same house for at least 2 years. The most important finding that emerged as a result of my thematic analysis is that men’s participation only in kitchen activities, without producing multidimensional egalitarian behaviors that affect all activities requiring unpaid domestic labor, creates a suitable environment for hybrid masculinity maneuvers. This situation can act as a driving force for the emergence of new inequalities and social pressures on their partners.