# Straight women in relationships: do you make a plate for your men at parties/dinners? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 18, 2013, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-women-in-relationships-do-you-make-a-plate-for-your-men-at-parties-dinners/661293 "2013-06-18T18:58:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2013, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-women-in-relationships-do-you-make-a-plate-for-your-men-at-parties-dinners/661293/21 "2013-06-18T19:51:38Z")
Hell, no. (Midwestern born and bred, here.) I’ve done it for my husband when he injured his foot and was walking with crutches, and I typically plate up dinner for him after I’m done cooking it, but otherwise, no way, everyone (in my extended family and my husband’s) who’s able-bodied and can handle a plate and spoon deftly makes up their own plate. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2013, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-women-in-relationships-do-you-make-a-plate-for-your-men-at-parties-dinners/661293/22 "2013-06-18T19:53:32Z")
Early in my marriage, or perhaps a little before, my wife’s mom used to try to get her to basically wait on me whenever the three of us were together and there was food involved. It was so strange. It pissed me off, actually. This marked the beginning of my particular version of hating one’s mother-in-law. ---
**Author:** ![Katriona](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/katriona/32/113_2.png) [@Katriona](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Katriona)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2013, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-women-in-relationships-do-you-make-a-plate-for-your-men-at-parties-dinners/661293/23 "2013-06-18T19:57:59Z")
> [@congodwarf](#): > > At our house it generally depends on which of us has a dog (or two, or three) on his or her lap. If he does, I’ll get the food. If I do, he gets the food. If we both do we both starve until the dog moves or our bladders threaten to explode. 😃 This is pretty much how it works at our house; I voted “HELL NO!” because the not-so-subtle pressure in the OP reminded me of my in-laws (one of the first questions they asked was why did my parents waste their money sending a GIRL to college…) but usually it’s a matter of who’s up or can get up easily. At a buffet-style gathering, it’s every (wo)man for him/herself, barring an injury. ---
**Author:** ![HoneyBadgerDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honeybadgerdc/32/1033_2.png) [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2013, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-women-in-relationships-do-you-make-a-plate-for-your-men-at-parties-dinners/661293/24 "2013-06-18T19:58:12Z")
No set rule, sometimes I fix hers, sometimes she fixes mine but most often we fix our own. ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2013, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-women-in-relationships-do-you-make-a-plate-for-your-men-at-parties-dinners/661293/25 "2013-06-18T19:59:13Z")
I didn’t vote because I am a man, but for me and my wife, we each get our own plates. When our two kids are with us (which is most of the time) we each get a plate for one of them first, then for ourselves. Pretty soon our son will be old enough to get his own damn food though. We never get a plate for each other - I’d not trust myself to know what she wanted from the table and vice versa. ---
**Author:** ![Rhiannon8404](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rhiannon8404/32/17929_2.png) [@Rhiannon8404](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhiannon8404)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2013, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-women-in-relationships-do-you-make-a-plate-for-your-men-at-parties-dinners/661293/26 "2013-06-18T19:59:53Z")
**Suburban Plankton** likes getting his own food. ---
**Author:** ![shiftless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9c0ed/32.png) [@shiftless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shiftless)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2013, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-women-in-relationships-do-you-make-a-plate-for-your-men-at-parties-dinners/661293/27 "2013-06-18T20:14:04Z")
There may be other forces at work here. I’ve been shooed out of the kitchen enough times to know that men are not always welcome in there. Not sure how your buffet was going down but if the food was in the kitchen or some other restricted area it is very likely that some or all of the women didn’t want any men poking around. Or, the lady of the house may just be the type who waits on her man and therefore thinks all women should do the same. My aunt was like that - always trying to force everyone into the roles she and my uncle had adapted, because they could never do wrong, even in trivial habits. ---
**Author:** ![Scarlett67](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scarlett67/32/7387_2.png) [@Scarlett67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scarlett67)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2013, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-women-in-relationships-do-you-make-a-plate-for-your-men-at-parties-dinners/661293/28 "2013-06-18T20:17:28Z")
How the hell do I know what he wants, or how much? He’s a grown-up, last I checked, and I’m not his mommy. ---
**Author:** ![Speaker\_for\_the\_Dead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@Speaker\_for\_the\_Dead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Speaker_for_the_Dead)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2013, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-women-in-relationships-do-you-make-a-plate-for-your-men-at-parties-dinners/661293/29 "2013-06-18T20:20:34Z")
I’d be uncomfortable if a girlfriend did this for me. I mean, if I’m under a cat or otherwise immobile, it’d be nice, but as everyone above has said, it’s nice in a “caring partners of either gender do caring thing for their partners” kind of way. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2013, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-women-in-relationships-do-you-make-a-plate-for-your-men-at-parties-dinners/661293/30 "2013-06-18T20:22:32Z")
No. And the thing is I grew up in a very service-oriented society. Women are expected to take care of their fathers, uncles, and husbands in Hindu society. About a million billion times I was asked, “Beti (daughter), please get your dad a fork. Beti, get your uncle some water. Beti, take the plates and put them in the sink.” I still do it automatically sometimes now (but I do it for all - men and women), and my SO’s family, who does not have this in place at all, are always a little bit surprised. But the preparing a plate thing is not expected at all, unless someone genuinely has mobility issues. The men in my family like their food; they’d get it themselves to make sure they got MOAR of it. ---
**Author:** ![delphica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9a140/32.png) [@delphica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/delphica)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2013, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-women-in-relationships-do-you-make-a-plate-for-your-men-at-parties-dinners/661293/31 "2013-06-18T20:24:59Z")
> [@Monstera\_deliciosa](#): > > Okay, I voted strangely, with both Sometimes, and Hell No, because there are situations where both apply. I voted the same way. HELL NO, to anyone expecting me to do it. SOMETIMES, in the sense that I would fix a plate for anyone who needed an extra hand, so my husband if he was the one juggling our cranky baby at the moment, or someone who was ill, or had an mobility issue, or was doing something critical that he/she couldn’t come to the buffet in a timely way. I would also consider special circumstances, like if your team is on 4th and 2 on Thanksgiving, that is a special and stressful occasion and I am happy to get you a plate to either facilitate your celebration, or prevent you from having to do the walk of shame to the buffet. My in-laws are big with the whole “ladies making plates for their menfolk” and it drives me crazy, in part because they are also big with the “ladies go clean up the kitchen while the menfolk sit around and drink beers after dinner” thing. You didn’t ask, but I will always ask an elderly person (like in my grandparents’ cohort) if they would like me to fix a plate for them. ---
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2013, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-women-in-relationships-do-you-make-a-plate-for-your-men-at-parties-dinners/661293/32 "2013-06-18T20:27:11Z")
The women in my family (not my Mom though) have some of these old fashioned trappings. They wont make your plate but as soon as everyone finished eating, they’re the ones in the kitchen cleaning everything up. Even if it’s not their house. They’ll do this when they’re at my house. It makes me fell kind of weird but not weird enough that I’m going to tell them to stop, 😃 ---
**Author:** ![FrancisCastle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b4bc9f/32.png) [@FrancisCastle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FrancisCastle)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2013, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-women-in-relationships-do-you-make-a-plate-for-your-men-at-parties-dinners/661293/33 "2013-06-18T20:27:56Z")
I’d make a plate for him if we were at some kind of outdoor function and he was busy with the kids or something like that. I would not like it if he made a plate for me because he would totally overload it and I can’t eat nearly as much as he thinks I should! ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2013, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-women-in-relationships-do-you-make-a-plate-for-your-men-at-parties-dinners/661293/34 "2013-06-18T20:30:34Z")
Sometimes I do, sometimes he does for me. Mostly it was when the kids were little and one of us was wrangling a kid and the other got food together. Now, not so much. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2013, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-women-in-relationships-do-you-make-a-plate-for-your-men-at-parties-dinners/661293/35 "2013-06-18T20:33:54Z")
> [@shiftless](#): > > There may be other forces at work here. I’ve been shooed out of the kitchen enough times to know that men are not always welcome in there. Not sure how your buffet was going down but if the food was in the kitchen or some other restricted area it is very likely that some or all of the women didn’t want any men poking around. Or, the lady of the house may just be the type who waits on her man and therefore thinks all women should do the same. My aunt was like that - always trying to force everyone into the roles she and my uncle had adapted, because they could never do wrong, even in trivial habits. The dinner was in the building’s rec room. The main dishes were prepared by me and Cinderella the Rhymer up in the apartment; two of my four sisters brought desserts, and Cinderella and I brought everything down to the rec room at the appropriate time. So there was no shooing out of the kitchen. I agree that I don’t want non-working people in the kitchen when I’m cooking for a large group. But why the implicit assumption that only women cook? ---
**Author:** ![Laggard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9de053/32.png) [@Laggard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laggard)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2013, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-women-in-relationships-do-you-make-a-plate-for-your-men-at-parties-dinners/661293/36 "2013-06-18T20:37:04Z")
If asked to do so my wife would remind me I moved out of home many many years ago. Unless I physically couldn’t do it. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2013, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-women-in-relationships-do-you-make-a-plate-for-your-men-at-parties-dinners/661293/37 "2013-06-18T20:39:47Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > I agree that I don’t want non-working people in the kitchen when I’m cooking for a large group. But why the implicit assumption that only women cook? OK, people have this weird blind spot about this. Despite the fact that my dad cooks, and cooks very well, my mom told me over and over again I’d never find a man that cooked. 😕 (I did find one that cooks so well I think he could have been a professional chef.) ---
**Author:** ![PunditLisa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/4af34b/32.png) [@PunditLisa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PunditLisa)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2013, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-women-in-relationships-do-you-make-a-plate-for-your-men-at-parties-dinners/661293/38 "2013-06-18T21:28:35Z")
Not unless he was incapacitated. If that were the case, I might hurl a roll at him across the room. Wouldn’t want him to starve… ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2013, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-women-in-relationships-do-you-make-a-plate-for-your-men-at-parties-dinners/661293/39 "2013-06-18T21:30:55Z")
Hell no, and ice cream. My husband’s family is VERY into the “women should make the plates for their husbands and kids at meals”, and this is especially true at family gatherings. My husband tried to get me to make a plate for him when we were first married, and particularly when we went to see his folks. I was willing to make a plate for our daughter, when she was too young to do it herself. And when my husband broke his foot, I made plates for him, and brought him stuff so that he didn’t have to get up, and made him chocolate milk so he’d get enough calcium. But I’m his wife, not his servant, and if he’s in good health, he can damn well make his own plate. Now, I can see that it might be practical for one person in a family to plate meals when it’s a big gathering, and there’s not enough room for everyone to gather in the kitchen. So go ahead and make plates for Suzy, and Johnny, and Bubba, and a spouse. But I don’t think it’s a good idea for just one sex or the other to make plates for the whole family. This is just one of the reasons why I refuse to go to my husband’s family gatherings…another reason is that most everyone chain smokes. My husband says that this tradition is dying out in his family, and about time, too. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2013, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-women-in-relationships-do-you-make-a-plate-for-your-men-at-parties-dinners/661293/40 "2013-06-18T21:39:29Z")
Since I’m a married male, I didn’t vote. But my wife occasionally makes a plate for me, and I sometimes make one for her. If anything, I do it more often, since I know her tastes very well while she can never remember what I like. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-women-in-relationships-do-you-make-a-plate-for-your-men-at-parties-dinners/661293.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-women-in-relationships-do-you-make-a-plate-for-your-men-at-parties-dinners/661293.md?page=3)