Frances Okoro: My Cooking Skills Do Not Define Me

I used to have a very sharp and acidic tongue when I was younger. I could go off on crazy roll when anything got on my nerves-just prepare to be assaulted with big words. As I grew older and subsequently gave my life to Christ, however, everything changed. I am now more for diplomacy, tact and respect. And that is why even if what I am writing about now makes me want to fly off the handle sometimes, I am going to put my somewhat controversial views across with as much tact as I can muster.

There’s a joke flying around the Internet right now. It goes like this – “You are 25 and you can’t cook, you can’t wash clothes, you can’t clean and you want a man to love you for who you are. Who are you really?“

Some laugh when they see this but I don’t. I think it’s absolutely degrading to say the least. Why would the whole essence of a person be predicated on whether she can clean or not?

Now before I go on and before anyone gets the wrong ideas, I must say that I started cooking in junior secondary class 2. I can toast a very bad chicken stew when needed and I launder my clothes myself so this has nothing to do with the fact that I am defective in home making skills.

So I also had a Twitter conversation with someone on the above issue last year and it seemed really offensive to me then and still does.
Why would anyone want to ascribe value on someone based on just their home making skills? What about their talents? What about their loving and kind hearts? What about the fact that they have touched so many lives?
Why would the basis of their existence be relegated to just the fact that they can clean really good? What about the fact that some women just don’t enjoy cooking? What about the fact that some grew up in dysfunctional homes and their mothers were not home to train them up in home making skills?

And what about the fact that some women are not just interested in marriage and having someone to launder their clothes, tidy up their apartment while they pursue their career is good enough for them?
We have to understand that people were raised differently and that what someone wants maybe a whole lot different from what another person needs.

I have brothers and friends and I know the chores deemed to be for men but the men are not measured based on whether they can wash a car are they? They aren’t measured based on whether they can change a light bulb.
Some are so skinny and can’t even lift up a hammer to hit a nail or do any of the things that the manpower of men require… but despite this, none of them are judged based on their lack of manly home skills.

The double standards should stop.

Yes, I aim to be a virtuous woman. Yes, I have home making skills and I yearn to even learn more of them. But the line should be drawn. The entirety of who a woman is isn’t the fact that she can cook and clean. It isn’t the fact that she can turn 360 degrees which so ever way on the bed with a man. Let’s set facts straight and get things right. Who we are- who women are is not based on their home making skills.

It is based on their heart…
On their soul…
On what they bring to the table…
On what impact they make in the world…
On what lives they touched…
On how fully they lived the gift called lives they were given…
The standards are the same for men and women and should be seen to be the same.

Like it or not, when God calls us all up there tomorrow or farther than tomorrow, He won’t be asking if you cooked or cleaned really well while you were on earth. He would ask you if you gave it all-if you used all He placed in you to affect your world. That’s what really matters.
And it is important that the things that really matter sink into our heads too.