Why does it make us so uncomfortable that Martha Stewart wasn't nice?

Or what the recent Netflix documentary says about how women in the domestic sphere are supposed to behave

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Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

I find it interesting that women who cook, crochet, knit or grow their own vegetables are expected to behave in a certain way. A certain “nice,” sweet-natured way.

We could blame the Tradwife movement but it’s been happening far longer than that. As the recent Netflix documentary Martha — a deep dive into the life of Martha Stewart — says:

Before Martha there were a lot of women who gave advice about homemaking and the number one thing about these women; they had to be very nice.

Martha wasn’t very nice. In fact she was routinely branded a bitch.

Martha was the first American self-made female billionaire who made her fortune selling women the dream of beautiful homes and gardens. For want of a better term, she was the OG “Domestic Goddess.”

She was also a ruthless businesswoman. A woman with a lack of maternal instinct. Someone who tells it like it is and doesn’t care if that means people don’t like her.

It’s jarring to have a woman like Martha succeed in the domestic sphere. The world of entertaining, housekeeping and cooking. A world we traditionally consider to be the realm of maternal, nurturing women.

Nice women.

But we need women like Martha. Arguably, she is the blueprint for women who don’t want to be defined by their kitchen or the expectations that come with a woman working within domesticity.

And that is relevant to all of us.

When I think of women who inspired me to become a food and drink writer — women who made their career and fortune from being in the kitchen — I think of Martha Stewart, Julia Child, Delia Smith and Nigella Lawson.

In one way or another, all four of these women went against the female norm.

Martha had a kid but as the documentary says, (she) didn’t have that great joy in her marriage and raising her child.

Julia Child and Delia Smith never had children. Nigella Lawson did but her brand never linked her with that identity. She was far more interested in equating food with sex.

And every Brit will remember the time Delia Smith — a major shareholder in her local football club — gave a half-time pep talk that wouldn’t sound out of place from a drunk dude in a rowdy pub.

I remember this. I remember being shocked at the normally mild-mannered Delia coming out with such an aggressive speech. I wasn’t the only one — it made headline news in the UK.

It seemed so out of character for a woman who made her name teaching people how to properly boil an egg. But in hindsight, I realise that’s only because I — along with everyone else — put Delia into a little box labelled “nice lady who cooks on the TV.”

This preconception feeds into the societal expectation that women should serve through domesticity with smiles on their faces. They should be sweet and nice.

But not all women are nice, nor should we be. There are too many women in the world with Good Girl Syndrome —  the pathological desire to people please.

And when you think about cooking and entertaining you don’t automatically have to think pleasant, submissive, nice women.

It doesn’t have to work like that.

In fact, it shouldn’t.

I don’t cook just because I’m a woman

I cook because I love both the control and the creativity. I cook because I love to eat — and eat with gusto.

@cinemastructuresHow to eat with Gusto. Duncan teaches Bella in Poor Things. #poorthings #movie #scene

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And yet because I am a woman who puts my cooking online, I’ve got front-row tickets for the expectations that come with having a domestic identity.

Expectations I’m often reminded of. Like the time I received an email asking me to not swear in my writing because it’s not attractive for a woman.

Or when I received feedback I should keep my political opinions to myself, despite the fact that these opinions literally drive my writing, including my recipes (anyone who thinks recipes are apolitical entities didn’t pay attention in history class).

As the Martha documentary highlights, my struggles are nothing new. I am just one in an infinite line of women who have felt the weight of female expectations in the domesticity sphere. The weighty expectation of being nice just because I happen to work with food.

And with that niceness comes an expectation to nurture too.

As British chef Juliette Feller says in her excellent essay Professionalism vs Motherhood: The Double Standard for Female Chefs:

The professionalism of male chefs is measured by a variety of factors, be it their sense of innovation, thinking outside the box, strict commitment to their work, the ability to revive old traditions, their continued flow of new creative output, or even just their individual personality.

Narratives about female chefs are different. Different factors of professionalism and skill get pushed into the background as the food of women gets more frequently associated with the supposed warmth, care, and nostalgia it evokes.

Martha showed this doesn’t have to be the case. That you can separate domesticity from being a nurturing woman.

Or as the excellent

Alicia Kennedy

says in her essay On Martha:

I do wonder if the contrast of “ruthless bitch who’s really good at making scones” will drive the point home to people who need to hear it: These skills aren’t and cannot be synonymous with motherly care or wifely duty.

You can also separate these skills from being nice, whether people are comfortable with that or not. It certainly never stopped Martha, nor did it hamper her popularity with the (mainly) women who bought into her world. She knew that just because you like to cook, crochet, garden or do any other domestic task does not mean you have to fit into a box named “nice.”

And that, friends, is welcome relief.

During the documentary, the Editor-In-Chief of Spy Magazine Owen J. Lipstein says “the more you know about this woman the less you like her.”

But I don’t think Martha cared that she was disliked. Just as some people dislike me for my swearing and opinions. Just as Delia was criticised for acting like she did on a football pitch.

Just as every woman I know has been criticised at one point or another for not being nice or happy enough in a “you’d be so pretty if you smiled more” sort of way.

Martha helped show women they didn’t have to subscribe to that way of being if they didn’t want to. That you don’t have to be a Good Girl. That you can exist in the domestic realm without having to behave in a certain way.

That’s not to say I agreed with everything Martha did or how she ran her business. She was certainly more cutthroat than I would ever be. And plenty of reports say she wasn’t always a kind person (although she commented in the documentary that she doesn’t like people who are mean for the sake of being mean, so who knows).

But kindness and niceness are two separate things. I always want to be kind. I don’t always want to be nice.

Martha didn’t either. And for that, I’m grateful she came along and shook things up in the domestic realm.

Because they certainly needed shaking up.

They still do.

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