{"id":2248,"date":"2016-05-23T15:35:33","date_gmt":"2016-05-23T10:05:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/women-gender-discrimination-men-eat-first\/"},"modified":"2016-05-23T15:35:33","modified_gmt":"2016-05-23T10:05:33","slug":"women-gender-discrimination-men-eat-first","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=2248","title":{"rendered":"Ladies Never Get the Leg Piece"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cM<\/span>ehmaan aa rahe hai.\u201d The phrase came with mixed feelings. <\/p>Happiness<\/span><\/a>, that there would be delicious food, chips, and soft drinks in the house \u2013 and horror, that I would have to be my mother\u2019s elf in this endeavour.<\/span>\n\nThe entire process of making your house look casually exquisite like, \u201cYes, we use this expensive chinaware every day, don\u2019t you?\u201d The running for errands every 15 minutes. Putting an effort into your look made my heart palpitate harder. But none of this comes close to what I hated most about hosting or being a mehmaan… having to wait until we got to eat. Rephrase: Having to wait until the ladies got to eat.<\/span>\n\nI was six years old when I was made to get up and leave the dastarkhan because the \u201cgents\u201d were eating. I said I\u2019m also a gents; everyone laughed and I was promptly sent away appearing only when the dishes required a refill. And while no one told me why I had to do that, I learnt that we ate only after the last man burped.<\/span>\n\nBecause I\u2019m the youngest in my family, I thought we let the men eat first as a sign of respect because they\u2019re older than us; traditionally, husbands are older than their wives. So my baby brain made this wild connection that the eldest members of each family ate together. <\/span>\n

As I looked at the piece in my hand, and as I chewed that first bite, I saw an image of a bearded, kurta-pyjama-clad old uncle on a familiar dastarkhan shaking his head as he glared at me.<\/blockquote>\nI realised the practice had everything to do with my gender when I had to serve delicious gosht ka saalan to my cousin who is younger than I am. I watched him from behind the parda as he dipped the naan in the gravy and grunted \u201cmmmm\u201d after every bite. Oh, I watched and felt smaller, angrier with every dip that followed.<\/span>\n\nThe rules were only slightly different when the gathering was small and involved men and women eating at the same table \u2013 but they were are always in men\u2019s favour. It wasn\u2019t just the fact that I was forced to eat later \u2013 my appetite I could still deal with. But eating first had a more insidious implication. The men got automatic dibs on the most meaty, delicious piece of whatever was being served. And in the case of <\/span>biryani<\/span><\/a>, it was the coveted leg piece.<\/span>\n\nNow I know this is an unpopular opinion. The leg piece is one of those things that draw extreme reactions, like the duran or the jackfruit \u2013 you either hate them from the bottom of your soul, or you love them with the intensity of a thousand suns. I also know that the world skews heavily in favour of the juicy breast piece \u2013 but gimme a meaty fine leg any day.<\/span> \u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\n\nYet, this tender piece of heaven has managed to elude me my entire life. The very hands that type this have cleaned it, marinated it, and prepared it to succulent perfection… only to have to serve it to someone because they have two XY chromosomes. <\/span>\n\nI finally got to enjoy the leg piece \u2013 all by myself \u2013 when I was 21. We\u2019d ordered biryani at <\/span>office for lunch<\/span><\/a> and I opened my foil package to find a piece of drumstick laying seductively on a bed of fragrant <\/span>rice<\/span><\/a>. My joy that day was unparalleled. I should have marked it as a \u201clife event\u201d on <\/span>Facebook<\/span><\/a>, gone around the streets throwing confetti, making a day of it. <\/span>\n\nInstead, all I did was make a mental note of how it made me feel. It made me feel guilty.<\/span>\n\nAs I looked at the piece in my hand, and as I chewed that first bite, I saw an image of a bearded, kurta-pyjama-clad old uncle on a familiar dastarkhan shaking his head as he glared at me. I am six again. The faded image still has significant power over me. And to this day, I have a \u201cI should, I shouldn\u2019t\u201d relationship with the leg piece.<\/span>\n\nMy life is dramatically different from that time. I don\u2019t live with my <\/span>parents<\/span><\/a> anymore, and my guests are my friends. I enjoy hosting now because <\/span>beer<\/span><\/a> and poker are involved. We eat, drink, dance, play, and pass out together. Everyone serves themselves. I\u2019m surrounded by people who look at me as \u201cpeople\u201d too. <\/span>\n\nBut the KFC bucket still feels far away. It\u2019s okay because I now like popcorn chicken better.<\/span>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As a child, what I hated most about hosting, was having to wait until I got to eat. At first, I thought we let the men eat first because they\u2019re older than us. I realised the practice had everything to do with my gender when I had to serve delicious saalan to my much younger male cousin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":218,"featured_media":2249,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[170],"tags":[4543,4544,4545,4546,710,94,4547,4329,2402,735],"class_list":["post-2248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gender","tag-biryani","tag-chauvinist","tag-eating","tag-eating-habits","tag-feminism","tag-food","tag-leg-piece","tag-machismo","tag-men","tag-women"],"yoast_head":"\nLadies Never Get the Leg Piece<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"As a child, what I hated most about hosting, was having to wait until I got to eat. At first, I thought we let the men eat first because they\u2019re older than us. 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