Toast as a Statement of Gender

DSC_4488 Well?
Originally uploaded by Lillput

If you've read earlier blog entries here...or if you know me at all, you'll know that I find gender difference quite interesting.

For those who don't know me, and can't be arsed to read the rest of the blog I'll summarise...

I'm a straight, cisgendered, middle-class (there, I've admitted it), widowed, white woman in my mid-forties.
However, I'm bookish, geeky, prefer bitter beer to white wine, don't own a handbag, or a pair of heels. As DrC would summarise I'm "not very girlie".

Because I work from home I frequently hear Radio Four's Crackpot Hour...sorry, Woman's Hour and slices from the Today Programme - together with whatever's on between 9am and 10am.

Frequently these programmes cause me to grumble at the radio (but not turn it off because ranting's far too much fun).

Anyhow, one day this week the delicious Stephen Fry was doing an English Language programme and although I didn't hear most of it, I know that gender-specific language was mooted.

Then Crackpot Woman's Hour talked for a while about the plasticity of gender without making any real point. In irritation levels, this was beaten only by the ariticle they did last week about women and Real Ale (oh, please...don't get me started again).

Today the age-old accusation of women earning less than men was touched on in the Today Programme with shoddy reasoning, muttering and "it's so unfair" by the interviewee. It may be true but you need to make your point without whining and with some, you know FACTS!

Anyhow, as I was making my toast this morning I realised there's an untapped research piece for someone to do...

It's about gender vs toast colour.

Me? I like mine a delicious blonde colour, please. Or as the late, much missed, Idiot Boy was wont to call it "warm bread". Yes, that's right...just wave it for a while in the general direction of the toaster and that'll be lovely.

Idiot Boy, on the other hand was of the "If it isn't black it's not done yet" school. I thought it was a Northern thing but long term friend and neighbour MrB-H likes his toast similarly whereas MrsB-H likes hers like mine. Hmmm...

The reason this came to mind was watching TD get excited at the prospect of the hotel having a "make your own toast" machine so that he could toast his twice to get the desired amount of brown. When having lunch at my place a while ago, he swapped my over-dark toast for the blonde bit I'd given him.

On holiday S declared he liked his mid-brown.

So, in my limited experience I see patterns emerging. In the continuum of toast brown-ness would we see guys generally on the browner end of the spectrum?

Will it make a difference if the people we surveyed were gay, black, lesbian, tall, trans, straight, working class, or had degrees?

I think the good people in Radio Four land need to know so that they can make fatuous statements about how important it is to preserve a person's God-given right to toast of the right colour.

I'm sure there's got to be Crackpot Hour slot in here somewhere, don't you?




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