Cooking with fire

Man cooks food on fire.

The sun came out, briefly, and so we all rushed outside to cook sausages on charcoal until they tasted unpleasant.

Men across the country rolled up their sleeves, made fire and threw meat on it for their friends and their womenfolk.

It's an odd thing, this barbecuing.

If I go to any other kind of festivity, it will invariably be the women fannying around putting crisps and olives into bowls.

Men are generally much better than women at understanding that parties are for socialising and enjoying yourself. They will turn up, they will bring beer, they will relax. While women do insist on making everything nice, and serving edible food to their guests.

But rock up to a barbecue and the first thing you see is a man slaving over a hot stove.

Even if the host is female, the odds are that a helpful man will have spontaneously, and probably without discussion, have adopted the role of Barbecuer-in-Chief.

Men, meat and fire

There is something about the combination of raw fire and dead animal that beckons to the primordial masculine soul. "Your place is here" it whispers to them through the fumes. So they pick up their tools and tend the smoking carcass.

We women step back to let the men do their fiery thing, We can hand them plates of raw flesh, and we can marinade to our hearts content, but this is basically their show, and we all know it.

I'm not complaining, for once.

This is an interesting point of gender differences. If you're a girl with a yen to barbecue and you're feeling like you can't get a fork in edgewise, then shove the boys aside and find your place at the grill. But I expect most of us are quite happy to let this status quo continue.

Bring me another burger, boys.

Make up and feminism

My daughter is at the phase of development where every day she learns new words. It's a lot of fun. Last weekend added 'tiara' and 'make up' her vocabulary - essential terms in our all-female household.

But am I compromising my feminism by letting a toddler learn about make up?

The curse of cosmetics

There is nothing unfeminist about make up. It's the attitude with which you use it that counts.

Make up becomes unfeminist when we are trapped by it:

• Can't leave the house without it
• Think it masks our natural ugliness, rather than enhancing our natural beauty
• Feel obliged to pay high prices for products before we can be seen by the outside world

It would be a better world if our appearances didn't matter. If what was on the inside was genuinely all that counted. The fashion industry would disappear overnight. Stylists, hairdressers and Maxfactor would all go out of business. we'd probably all be a lot happier. But that isn't going to happen anytime soon. And so we have make up. 

Growing up with make up

I'm a single parent with an only child. My daughter and I live, by necessity, an intimate life. She plays in the bathroom while I shower, she pats my knees while I sit on the toilet, she potters about the bedroom as I get dressed and she jabbers to herself in the mirror as I put on my make up. I think this is pretty normal.

Once she found one of my make-up brushes and expertly brushed her cheek with it. It felt a little wrong, and gave me a pang of guilt that she knew what to do so young.

But is putting on a bit of bronzer that different to putting on a bra? (This is a philosophical question, as obviously they are completely different, unless you put bronzer on your nipples before you go to work).

I can't lock my daughter out from any of these things - she always needs to be near me so I can watch her, and I think it's good for her to see what I do to get ready. This is how we learn. If I don't want her to understand about cosmetics from a very young age, the only way is to stop wearing them myself. I'm not about to do that.

As a grown woman, it's my right to choose to wear make up if I want to, and I do. I wear a minimal amount in my everyday life. But if I'm lucky enough to be going out for the evening I bring out the full works (It's a single mum thing. Trust me. We don't get out much). And I enjoy it. I enjoy buying it, I enjoy putting it on.

Stand up for make up

I don't want my daughter to grow up thinking it's shameful to go to Tesco's without mascara. Or even the pub.

My responsibility is not to keep these things from her, but to teach her to approach the feminine slalom of make up, jewellery and clothes, as stuff that you can have fun with, choices you can make.

So I'm standing up for make up. For our right to wear it, and for our right to not wear it. For our right to do whatever we please. And to teach our children the same.

Taking your husband’s name

Many girls want to be 'Mrs'. They spend evening practising their signature with their boyfriend’s name. It’s something that’s always been a bit of a mystery to me.

Take Mrs Joe Bloggs. She was Deidre Smith, but then she married Joe and hey presto, her identity is entirely eclipsed by that of husband. Mrs Deirdre Bloggs, a slight compromise, is a bit better. But Mrs Joe Bloggs – really? What about her? Doesn't she matter?

Why are we queuing up to give up our appellations in the name of love?

The answer, of course, is tradition. Traditionally women were property. Marriage transferred us from our fathers to our husbands. The name conferred ownership.

The tradition has stuck, so in 21st century Britain, our concept of love and marriage is often inseparable from the idea of taking our husbands' names.

When I said I probably wouldn't change my name, one friend asked me why I was bothering to get married. As if that was what it was about. If that's  the only reason you're getting married, then you may as well just change your name to your boyfriend's by deed poll. It's way cheaper and you won't have to do the first dance.

Making the change

I changed my name, reluctantly after I married. I did it piece by piece, over the years. I wish I hadn't. It feels like a betrayal of myself (I changed it back).

The advantage of changing your name is that you become identified as a family unit. And if you decide to have children, then you can all have the same surname and so clearly identified as the same family. That’s nice. That’s why I changed my name – I wanted our children to have the same name as me. But it reinforces the patriarchy.

Of course, men could start talking their wives names when they get married. But as my (now ex) husband said, “why should I take your name if you won’t take mine?” I could have answered, "because my gender as suffered years of oppression at the hands of yours", but I doubt I’d have carried the point.

And of course, if you dig your heels in and refuse to take your husband’s surname, you are choosing your father’s name over your husband’s – one man over another. I mean, it’s probably not your mum’s name you’re clinging onto, is it?

Finding another way

I looked into what other countries do and was pleasantly surprised:

• The Netherlands – you remain registered under your birth name, but can use your husband’s surname socially, or join both names
• Italy – you keep your birth name, but can add your husband’s surname if you want.
• France and Greece – you have to keep your birth name.
• Spain – you keep your birth name. Children have two surnames – one from each parent.
• Germany - a woman may adopt her husband's surname or a man may adopt his wife's surname.

It seems to me that all these countries, which include our closest neighbours, have a more progressive than our routine decimation of the married woman’s identity.

Even the term used to refer to the name we are given at birth - 'maiden name'- carries hideous connotations of matrimonial deflowering.

It’s easy for men to be cavalier about the name thing. They’re not expected to give up their identity – because that’s what a name is. They haven’t for hundreds of years been denied an equal place in society. Neither have I, for that matter, but the freedoms I enjoy today have been hard-won. And it seems wrong to me that we should still defer to men as our lords and masters (because that is what we’re doing) in this matter of what we are called.