There's two different things here: communal cooking/engagement, and the distribution of labour (i.e. mostly women). The former is presumably a positive, the latter is very unequal. You do appear to be passing judgement on both at the same time, though, and I think this is a shame - we could all do with more communal activities, just not to the point where it becomes intrusive or forces people to do what they do not wish to do.