This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Warning: I am going to be unapologetically sexist in this column so if that bothers you, go ahead and read something else.
But before I get my sexist on, I have to do a little scene-setting. Here's what happened …
My husband called the other day to see if I wanted to join him for an impromptu lunch date downtown. We can do stuff like that now that we are empty-nesters, not counting all the pets that live at our house. But the advantage of pets is that you can leave them completely unattended for an hour and nobody will call DCFS on you. Score!
Anyway. I joined my husband downtown, where the two of us decided to walk to the nearest food joint, DP Cheesesteak, which specializes in — wait for it! — Philly cheesesteak sandwiches. I was fine with this, of course, because who doesn't love mounds and mounds and also more mounds of meat piled on bread?
So there we were, eating cheesesteak sandwiches like a couple of crazy teenagers in love, when my husband looked around and said, "One of these things is not like the others."
ME: What are you talking about?
HIM: I'm talking about you. You're the only woman here.
And he was (almost) right. The place was packed with wall-to-wall Philly cheesesteak sandwich eaters. But apart from the girl yelling out orders at the counter, I was the only female on the horizon, awash in a sea of men, men, men. Men in suits. Men in jeans. Men in uniforms, including cops and firemen, a situation which always gives rise to that age-old question: Who rocks a uniform better? The cops? Or the firemen? (Please feel free to include subsets of both groups such as "SWAT teams" and "hotshots" in the discussion.)
Now here comes the sexist part.
I turned to my husband and said, "A Philly cheesesteak sandwich is dude food. Obv."
Not that I'm a dude. But still. Men and women are just NOT the same when it comes to food sources.
Consider "soup," for example. I'm not the first person to point out that women are happy to think of a bowl of soup as a complete meal. They're just all, "Let's go to the Paradise Bakery and get some of that delicious fire-roasted tomato soup for lunch!" Maybe they'll even go a little crazy and buy a cookie for the road. But suggest soup as a meal to a man, and he'll start acting like an orphan in a Charles Dickens novel. "Please, sir," he'll say (pathetically) while clutching his little bowl. "Can I have some more?"
"Salad" is the same way. Not that guys don't eat salad. But salad is a side dish as far as they're concerned — unless you throw a cow or possibly a couple of chickens on it. "Please, sir," guys will say while (still pathetically) clutching their little salad plates. "Can you throw a cow on there?"
I realize I'm speaking in generalities. After all, one of my five sons is a committed vegetarian, which means your cows are safe whenever he's around. I'm serious. They can come and go as they please at his house, which is excellent news if you're a cow.
But whatever. You get the point. When it comes to food, it appears we still live in a world where gender shapes our choices, right? At least that's what I think. If you agree, feel free to provide your favorite examples at #guyfood and #girlfood.
Meanwhile, carry on. And have a nice day.