Something 4 The Weekend # 78

George Akaeze & His Augmented Hits: Nigeria Special: "Business Before Pleasure" [mp3]

Why is it that men are the grillers 99% of the time? Is it because Madison Avenue and Hollywood have traditionally portrayed men as the grillers in the family? Of course, that then begs the question - Did advertisers and screenwriters come upon this idea independently, or was it an honest reflection of what has simply always been true? Which came first?

Has it always been true, in American history, anyways, that men have traditionally been the grillers when families took their cooking outdoors? In my own family it was my dad who manned the grill almost exclusively in our backyard, nevermind the fact that he never cooked a meal in our kitchen. And it even went as far as our family camping trips - when we cooked inside the camper, my mom did the cooking, but when we grilled outside the camper, or on the campfire, it was my dad who handled things...Among my friends, the same was true, and even today, as adults, it is always the boyfriend or husband who handles the grilling duties at parties and whatnot...

So, if this phenomenon is not borne of pop culture influence, but has always been essentially true, why has it been true? The easiest answer, of course, is that anything pertaining to the outdoors has traditionally been a male thing - hunting, herding, camping - and so in modern suburbia, where the backyard is often the closest many people get to "outdoor living", a man on the grill is still the rule.

So, there's today's dose of trite blather.

Hotcha! Hank