Baked Relief: Un-feminist, or just welcome help?

Many of you will be aware of the Baked Relief effort happening post-flood in south-east Queensland (which I have been participating in myself). While most are praising the efforts of the bakers contributing to the cause, a minority on Twitter have labelled the movement as 'un-feminist', and accused the volunteers of clogging up the roads with their cars trying to deliver the food.

This has me pretty pissed off, to put it mildly. I consider myself to be a feminist. Yeah, I like to bake stuff and do the occasional bit of sewing, but that has nothing to do with being 'un-feminist' in nature. I bake because I like food, and I sew to avoid contributing to the exploitation of women and children in the garment manufacturing business around the world. Not only that, but my husband helped with the Baked Relief effort - what the hell does that make him?!

Contrary to popular opinion, Baked Relief does not simply consist of 'kept women' fucking around in their kitchens to make ourselves feel better. Many of us live in unaffected suburbs and either don't know someone directly to help with the grunt work, or can't get to an affected suburb to assist. Some of us CAN'T assist for whatever reason (such as physical disability, or children to look after). A good number of us are men (including a colleague of mine), but, yeah, I guess most of us are women. So fucking what?! Clearly the food has been VERY much appreciated, and continues to be. The fact is that the people working so unbelieveably hard out in the sun NEED to be fed and watered. Who else is going to do it if we don't lend a hand?

The Baked Relief team seems to consist of a diverse range of people. There are the stay-at-home mums making a wonderful contribution to the cause, as well as professionals who've been unable to get to their usual place of work. From what I've seen, there are publishing professionals like myself (and Kelley from Peppermint magazine), marketing and PR professionals, IT professionals, and I'm sure many others that I'm not aware of.

My personal situation is that I've been told I can not yet return to work. I do, however, have some work I can complete from home. So, in between jobs, I've been cooking up a storm for Baked Relief. I have not been clogging up the roads to deliver my baked goods - I have either delivered to a mass drop-off point like Black Pearl Epicure in Fortitude Valley, or my goods have been collected by someone doing the rounds of the city. Most of us have been combining our efforts in order to deliver as much food at one time as possible, but also ensure that less cars are out there on the roads.

Baked Relief is not about women saying that they can't get out there and shovel mud and push a gurney. It's about a large group of people making a big difference to the lives of others in their own way. They should not be criticised for what they are doing, they should be congratulated.

I'm pretty sure I'll be doing my fair share of dirty work when I can get back into the office later this week, and until then I'll continue to bake along with the wonderful people who started and continue the Baked Relief movement.