The Pittsburgh Press (November 19, 1941)
Curls and cakes
By Mrs. Walter Ferguson
The modern girl is more interested in curling her hair than in baking a cake.
This statement, made recently by an eminent educator, deserves attention.
It is true, of course, and the reasons are not hard to find. They derive from the peculiar nature of the male animal who, while praising virtue highly, is inclined to run after vice. All the fellows nowadays are more interested in a girl’s curls than in her cakes, and modern misses are smart enough to know it.
You have to do more than “feed the brute” to get and hold a man these days. Trying to reach his heart by way of his stomach is almost sure to land you on a bad detour. Those old slogans, once so popular, are as outmoded as the trundle bed.
The person who first thought them up, and then sold them wholesale to the ladies, must have been a man who had outlived his glamor and become an addict of gustatory delights. They bear all the earmarks of masculine propaganda, since the men stood to profit most from their popularity.
For Don Juans, who wanted to have their cake and eat it, too, they were an inspiration. And how the women fell for them! They toiled furiously in their kitchens, hoping to hold philandering mates by fluffy biscuits and light pastry, but, alas, too often the men gobbled up the delicacies and, without a murmur of appreciation, walked out to seek the company of some chit who didn’t know enough to boil an egg.
Baking a good cake should be the aim of every homemaker. This means that girls who intend to marry must learn the art. However, the individual should regard her culinary talents merely as a part of her job, which is keeping house, and not let it get mixed up in her mind with love, except as every woman loves to see her hungry husband filled with a good dinner.