Erik Drews

SOS ComAlt

Seminar week 7

Wordcount: 247

Triggering passages:

“In contrast to twentieth-century feminist configurations of the kitchen as a female prison, for this radical nineteenth-century woman writer domesticity and its elaborate skills are conditions that give rise to female independence.” (Tompkins 2012, 124)

“On one hand, the pills, secretly manufactured in the male part of the house, emphasize the vigorous and viral blandness of the food; on the other hand, the box in which they are laid, emphasizes the transnational economics that bolster the affluence and middle class morality of the Campbell clan, themselves purveyors of luxury Asian goods.” (Tompkins 2012, 128)

News Media Content: “An Asian’s Take on Why Cultural Appropriation of food is Offensive”

“First of all, what does the label “Chinese” even have to do with the salad I’m eating? Is it the fact that the ingredients of the dressing contain sesame oil or soy sauce? Is it because of the canned mandarin oranges that limply sit between the layers of lettuce? I pause for a moment in disappointment as I realize that I’m literally consuming a form of cultural appropriation.” (Joh 2015)

It is interesting to me that the kitchen was sometimes regarded as a place that gives power to its inhabitants. The kitchen’s ability to give power to its inhabitants is reliant upon an inherent inequality within the norms of the time that force one group to prepare food for another. Therefore working in a seemingly counterproductive manner in terms of the goals of modern feminism. It seems that the inequality within this dynamic that lends this power to the kitchen imprisoned female fortifies the very dynamic that contributes greatly to the problem that is intending to be solved. The standard norms of the time allow for significant inequities within the distributions of wealth, power, and respect. This can also be demonstrated by the second passage. The concept of transnational goods serving as an indication of affluence, simply because they are from a foreign land, arguably inaccurately romanticizes a foreign culture with little regard to the realities of the culture itself. This seems disrespectful and bastardizing toward Chinese and Japanese cultures. This type of disrespect can surely generate inaccurate perceptions of marginalized peoples, perceptions that may perpetuate hostility towards non-white Americans. Even today, as demonstrated by the article that I have provided, inaccurate perceptions foreign cultures can be damaging and deeply offensive. When white Americans portray cultures other than their own in a way that is not reflective of that culture’s customs, important histories are ignored and disregarded while stigmas are created and attributed to particular cultural groups.