It’s long been well-known that if you want to absolutely infuriate a feminist, tell her to go make you a sandwich. For some reason, making a sandwich for a man is seen as the ultimate act of domestic servility.
Apparently, asking for suggestions for new sandwiches to make for your husband will do the same.
An Australian mom named “Maddie” was getting bored making the same thing day in, day out. So, like most of us, she turned to Facebook to ask for help. In her case, she turned to a group called “Northshore Mums” and its more than 26,000 members.
It did not go well.
“I would love to hear what other mums make their hubbies for lunch and snacks throughout the work day,” she posted. “We are getting over sandwiches.”
What Maddie got, instead of cute recipes and artisan mayonnaise suggestions, was a violent backlash. Australia’s feminists moms berated Maddie for perpetuating systemic male oppression, and lambasted her choice of lifestyle, which included packing her husband’s lunches along with her kids’.
“Your husband is a grown up and you’re not his mother,” wrote one group member.
“My husband can make his own damn lunch,” scolded another.
One user even went further: “I make my husband the same thing he makes me. Nothing!!”
Others called her a “slave,” and a “throwback” to the 1950s. They accused Maddie of being “weird,” and insisted that no woman in her right mind would ever so much as toss together a peanut butter and jelly for her harried husband.
Wow.
It’s funny how there doesn’t seem to have been any effort to understand why a grown, married woman would make sandwiches for her husband. Perhaps she’s out of work and is making her husband a lunch each day as a thank you for his support. Maybe her work hours are such that her husband has to take care of dinner, so she handles lunch for him and the kids.
Honestly, there are myriad reasons why a woman would make a sandwich for her husband that have nothing to do with being subservient.
Even if Maddie is a housewife, so what? Wasn’t feminism supposed to be about women having choices? If her choice is to be a housewife, then I fail to see the problem.
But then again, feminism has never been about women making choices. It’s about women letting feminism make choices for them.
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