#3 Dear Self Loathing,
For tens of thousands of years before humans developed anything beyond permanent settlements, they were hunter gathers. Now a rabbit may feed you today, but to bring in real food means killing something big with your fellow predominately male hunters, because besides needing enough muscle to bring the beast down, you also had to haul it back to everyone else cause they were someplace something faster, bigger, stronger couldn't reach them to make them their meal while you and the boys were out. That meant breaking it down in portable sizes for the hunting group to move with. That also meant you left stuff behind because you couldn't carry it all. So, guess what? You cook the extras on an open fire right then and there and ate it for the energy to move the rest. Those who couldn't do all that usually didn't get to reproduce over the long run. |
I hate how much I love to grill. It's not that I'm inclined to vegetarianism or that I otherwise object to the practice itself. But I'm uncomfortable with the pleasure I take in something so conventionally masculine. Looming over the coals, tongs in hand, I feel estranged from myself, recast in the role of suburban dad. At such moments, I get the sense that I've fallen into a societal trap, one that reaffirms gender roles I've spent years trying to undo. The whole business feels retrograde, a relic of some earlier, less inclusive era.