These videos by rural women are available at a historical moment when gender is fraught, when there are global demands and requirements that gender is fixed and immutable, and deviations should be punished. In June, FINA, the world governing body for swimming, banned transgender women from participating in swimming competitions. Over the past few years, at least five African women have been banned from competing in global sports based on their hormone levels. While the world of elite sports may seem completely detached from cooking by rural women, the latter world is offered as a corrective to the former. Tradition is invoked to discipline women into performing proper gender, and that gender is located in the rituals of home and hearth. Most of all that proper, traditional gender is located in the silence of the cooking women.
K'eguro Macharia wrting at The Real Sarah Miller. Cooking with Grandmothers
K'eguro Macharia guest writes this week about rural cooking shows.
