So maybe there is hope and evidently educated people care less about sexual identity stereotypes than you think.
https://nutritionj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12937...
I grew up in a poor country, with an objectively deprived food supply chain. There were multiple home cooked dishes in the fridge at all times, though, if memory serves right, '88/'89 were rough. Every single social gathering had more 10x tastier and more varied home cooked food than I ever saw in decades of American life. I met exactly one American family that took cooking seriously and placed a noticeable degree of effort in home cooking dinner from raw ingredients, though their results were rather on the high end, not sure they were engaging in the process on a regular basis.
Consider using 1900ish as the comparison point... https://collections.musee-mccord.qc.ca/scripts/explore.php
The linked study claims: While the mean per capita time spent cooking increased over time for both men and women, women cooked for a much greater amount of time than did men (50 min/capita/day vs. 20 min/capita/day). Even 20 minutes is a long time for microwaved mac & cheese.
From what you've been observing, it's very different here in Europe, I know a lot of people now who take cooking quite seriously, and I knew a lot of people back in the 90s for whom it was perfunctory. And in fact: The increase in men’s cooking found here mirrors trends in Europe, where research from four Nordic countries found increases from 1997 to 2012 in the percent of men cooking, particularly those from the working and upper classes [28]. Even in 2016, however, US males’ cooking levels were still lower than in the United Kingdom a decade earlier, when a 2005 time use survey showed 60% of men (and 85% of women) in the United Kingdom cooked over one 24-h period [29].
Unfortunately, I don't get a response for the URL you posted, maybe I'm geo-blocked or something.
> According to People in the EU, a new publication from Eurostat, the EU’s statistical office, Denmark boasts by far the highest proportion of single-person households of any country in the European Union, at 45%. Finland, the country with the next highest share, has only 40.8%. In the UK it is 30.6%. In Spain, 23.2%.
> According to figures from Statistics Denmark, the phenomenon of alene-kultur, as the Danes call it, has been on the march for decades, with the proportion of Danes living alone rising by 42% since 1986.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/20/city-of-borgen...
> Around 47% of households have just one occupant – typically a child-free, single adult.
https://www.flashpack.com/us/relationships/sweden-solo-livin...
PS. We might have inadvertently HN-effect the prior link, it was simply a reasonably looking description of the 1850-1930 household lifestyle.
I am aghast at the misogynistic downplay of the skills, hard work, love and dedication our foremothers poured in keeping the household happily humming along. But to each its own, at this point some of these words are probably just some empty strange anachronisms. Enjoy the Nordic lifelong solitude, probably happier to simply not know what has been lost.
I am aghast at the misogynistic downplay of the skills...
I'm sure you are. What specifically are you talking about?
* The food supply is fake. Anecdote. Back in the '80s the Eastern Block went through a deep crisis, including a low grade famine. After the communism fell, the food supply improved. One item stood apart: the American frozen chicken. Three times the size of a domestic one, tasting like moist cardboard. Most people would not touch it, unless positively starving. These days, everything is tasteless fake: bread, chicken, milk, eggs, veggies. For somewhat better quality, the prices are at least 2x, possibly quite some more. Good quality produce is nearly impossible to find, the fakes have pushed real farmers into bankruptcy long ago. Even the meager subsistence farmers markets of the Eastern Block of old had noticeably higher quality offerings (caveat: in season).
* Americans don't prepare food at home. The American woman was pushed into the workforce and doesn't have time, energy, will or knowhow of basic homecooking. What, you reminisce of (grand)mother's comfort food? What kind of barbaric misogynist are you? No, men didn't step up to take on the traditional feminine role. Realistically, they will never do. No amount of nagging NYT editorials will change that. The food industry happily filled the void with processed fakes.
* The mass restaurant network delivers fake food. The staples are ground meat & fried potatoes, fake chicken & rice or pasta. Sometimes industrial tofu or shrimp. If you are really "health conscious", there is "gluten free" for you. Sure, there is a dazzling variety of sauces and presentations, but the basis is pauper. You have to search hard for ethnic restaurants to even find a veggie basis, and even then the most popular offering is American Indian, with dubious thick sauces.
* Americans eat way too much sugar. The food industry drops ridiculous amounts of sugar in everything, including savory foods if they get a chance. Anecdote. Coming from a different culture, American sweets literally make me sick. Making sweets at home, using about 1/4 - 1/3 of the American recipe sugar recommendation is about right.
* Americans don't walk. Old World cities are (were?) built in such a way that doing basic life functions require walking. Buying groceries, going to school, going to church, going to see friends, going to work (walk + public transport). Americans drive everywhere, because everything is too far away for walking. With Amazon and Amazon Fresh, even the meager shopping trips are vanishing, which will lead to an extra bump in obesity. Removing the reward for walking mostly removed walking itself. Shaming people for not hitting the gym often enough doesn't work, we are built to pick the path of least resistance.
* American kids don't roam the streets. Something happened and kids simply don't just go out to play with their friends for hours on end. At the minimum the parents must setup activities, playdates & transportation. In practice, this leads to sedentary overweight depressed kids. Let's buy them the latest networked gaming console instead, that will keep them socialized, active, and healthy.
* American culture is increasingly adverse to generating signals for distinguishing healthy and unhealthy. In the name of "inclusivity" we are implicitly promoting deeply unhealthy lifestyles. We are good people and wouldn't want to hurt feelings, right? Right, except that we are depriving our kids of the ability to identify and model healthy behaviors.