SOUTH KOREA-GENDER/COOKING CLASSES In paternalistic S. Korea, "sexy cooking men" break kitchen barrier

Record ID: 144416

  • Title: SOUTH KOREA-GENDER/COOKING CLASSES In paternalistic S. Korea, "sexy cooking men" break kitchen barrier
  • Date: 7th August 2015
  • Summary: SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA (RECENT - JULY 24, 2015) (REUTERS) EXTERIOR OF KOREAN WOMEN'S DEVELOPMENT INSTITUTE BUILDING SIGN READING (in Korean and English): "KOREAN WOMEN'S DEVELOPMENT INSTITUTE" SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOW AT KOREAN WOMEN'S DEVELOPMENT INSTITUTE LEE SOO-YEON SPEAKING (SOUNDBITE) (Korean) SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOW AT KOREAN WOMEN'S DEVELOPMENT INSTITUTE, LEE SOO-YEON, SA
  • Embargoed: 22nd August 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA7OY40VG2WLYYPE0Z3NKRVKIAR
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: After his workday ended on a recent Friday, 53-year-old Lee Jin-soo headed for the "Happy Guys Cooking Class," where he joined six other mostly middle-aged men in tall white hats and aprons.
    Lee, who runs a business making compression bags for bedding, gently handled abalone and shrimp and made a rice crust that went into the Korean stew of chicken and seafood on that night's menu.
    He is one of a growing number of men taking up cooking in a country where men have long done little housework, ranking last in a survey by Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries for sharing household chores including cooking, spending just 45 minutes a day.
    Lee described himself as an authoritarian father and domineering husband, which he says he later regretted.
    "I was an extremely scary father and authoritarian husband. I always thought about how to break it down, and taking cooking classes at '& Space' was a turn around," he said.
    Go Dong-rok, a student chef and a human resources executive at auto parts maker Hyundai Mobis, found the experience of learning to make pizza and bibimbap so enlightening that he brought the idea of men cooking to his workplace, organising an event where male employees tried their hands at cooking Korean food. Their wives were invited to the event.
    "Korean society is paternalistic and just because they work during the day, husbands want to be served by their wives. But cooking can soften this," he said.
    Reality TV shows featuring men cooking and the emergence of star male chefs are credited with helping lure men into the kitchen, spawning a catch phrase: "Sexy cooking men."
    Gmarket, an online retailer owned by eBay, said sales of kitchen utensils to men rose 24 percent in the first half of 2015.
    The appeal of men who can cook as potential husbands is also prodding younger men to take to the kitchen.
    "As there are many sexy chefs appealing to women these days, young men are saying: if you don't cook you can't get married," said Han Hee-won, a chef who has run the cooking classes for men in a trendy riverside neighbourhood of Seoul since 2012.
    The kitchen was once seen as off-limits for men in South Korea, so much so that according to a common Korean saying: "If a man enters the kitchen, he risks losing his testicles."
    Demographics and popular culture are changing that.
    With more women working in demanding professional jobs and households shrinking, many men no longer have the choice to not cook.
    "Men could not show their interest in cooking when the stereotype of gender roles remained stubbornly persistent. But as our society gets more tolerant about men cooking, men started to take more interest and this can be seen as a desire of self-expression," said Lee Soo-yeon, a researcher at the Korean Women's Development Institute in Seoul.
    Lee added there are many cases that men have fun cooking, but they leave the kitchen without doing the dishes.
    Whether Korean men apply their new-found zeal for cooking to less glamourous household chores remains to be seen.
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