Coming soon to Ten and gender discourse blogs everywhere is an icky new season of MasterChef which pits the boys against the girls (because ratings) to find out which sex is more willing/likely to embrace reductive gender stereotypes. So far? Both of them.
“The average woman cooks 1000 meals a year,” says tea towel waver Christine. “Men can’t compete with that.”
“If you look at all the top chefs in the world, they have one thing in common,” cattle rancher Lynton retorts. “They’re all men.”
Elsewhere we learn that men are more creative and women are better at presentation because they’re “used to grooming ourselves”, spouted by some ethnically diverse contestants described as “The Dude”, “Daddy’s Little Princess” and “Tiger Mum” only one of which has positive connotations. Seriously, who would self-identify as Daddy’s Little Princess? Ugh.
At the end the men arm themselves with the biggest phallic food product available and stare down the sheilas, who are all like pfft cool story bros we eat baguettes for breakfast.
Let the battle begin.
