Cupcakes and Sexism

David Arrick, owner of Butch Bakery has published The Butch Bakery Cookbook.

From the book:

This is not your mother's cupcake cookbook

The Butch Bakery does cupcakes like nobody else. You can forget the pretty sparkles and the flowers on top, forget the pastel cupcakes for Easter or Halloween. These aren't cupcakes for little kids, but grown-up cupcakes full of contemporary, inventive flavors--like bacon, whiskey, coffee, and cayenne pepper.

The Butch Bakery Cookbook offers cupcakes for the twenty-first century--like a cupcake imbued with two different liqueurs or a devil's food cake made truly diabolical with a dose of chili powder. These are serious sweets. They're delightfully different and dangerously delicious.

(Photo Credit: Keivom/News)

Hear that ladies? These recipes are "dangerously" delicious. I suppose it's the danger that makes these cupcakes the opposite of anything feminine.

Those who read my blog know that I am a feminist and a cupcake lover. So this is a double whammy of an issue for me.

Throughout the past decade it has become increasingly acceptable for men to cook at home. Although, for years men have cooked in various arenas, as of late it has become acceptable because some how patriarchal standards have loosened enough to make it okay. Baking apparently is another story.

Is it truly unmanly for men to bake cupcakes? Is it acceptable if a man is a professional baker? Is it less acceptable if a man just digs cupcakes and wants to learn how to create his own?

Arrick's baking book is another example of men capitalizing on sexist gender norms. Arrick has amplified the horror that is stereotypical gender roles and has used it as a gimmick.

Isn't it possible that women might also enjoy a cupcake with flavors of bacon or whiskey? Is it safe to say that there are plenty of men who would not oppose a vanilla cupcake with pink frosting on top? Pink frosting, which traditionally and stereotypically suggests femininity? Unless the man dislikes cupcakes I don't think there will be a problem. Also, I highly doubt that the instant a man puts a pretty pink cupcake into his mouth he will think to himself, "oh no, I've become a woman."

Although, it seems the title of this cookbook is stated somewhat in jest, my fear is that there are some men out there who actually experience some relief through the book's utilization of the word "butch". How is this not problematic?