Gender Roles in the Kitchen: Readers Weigh in

While our recent infographic on how traditional gender roles do or do not affect our readers in the kitchen was seriously jam-packed with interesting facts, it left out one of the coolest parts of the survey — the comments!
Most FBGs split duties up, at least to some extent, with their partners, although it’s still worth noting that a quarter of you say you do it all — cooking, cleaning, the works. But what did you have to say about it? Plenty. And we had to share!
Many of you make a conscious effort to share the workload:

For me, I only started cooking because my husband was a much better cook than me. About a year in to our marriage, I realized that a) he was better than me in the kitchen (well, except for the cleaning part), b) it wasn’t fair for him to always do the cooking, and c) cooking would be a new challenge, and I always love a new challenge … Gender roles don’t really have a place in my marriage. We both clean, we both cook, we both play to our strengths. I’m super organized and so I manage our finances. My husband actually enjoy things like ironing and vacuuming, so we split everything. —Cassie

For others, it comes naturally:

He is more natural in the kitchen and likes it more so sometimes it makes more sense for him to cook, but normally it just falls on whoever is less busy or we cook together. Cooking seems like something both genders need to be good at! —Katie
Cooking is split up based on who feels inspired to cook or who has time since I have a demanding job as an engineer and he’s going to school for nursing (we’re definitely not boxed into any gender roles!). Pretty much everything is split that way. —Christina
I don’t think gender roles actually play a factor in our kitchen. While I do all the planning and cooking, I do so because I enjoy it, and it relaxes me. He does not enjoy cooking or planning meals. If I don’t feel like cooking one night, he’ll take me out to dinner or pick up soup or sandwiches at the grocery store for us. —Kim