You know how they say, “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em?” This semester, my friends and I (spring semester seniors soaking up the last opportunities for side quests before real life begins) have followed that advice and taken on a new pursuit — one that has tested our physical limits, raised our emotional resilience, and given us a finer appreciation for the circle of life.
If you think I’m describing a yoga class, you’d be sorely mistaken. I’m talking about a hobby so immersive, so fruitful, that I don’t know how I went this long without it. I’m talking about grilling.
Since I was a small child attending Fourth of July barbecues, I’ve obviously had an awareness of grilling. But awareness is different from accessibility, and for much of my life, I was told that grilling, with its raw meats, high flames, and risk of burning your dinner to a crisp, was a daunting task to be done only by those who could rise to the occasion of its intensity. My friends all believed the same. We now know that couldn’t be further from the truth.
At first glance, grilling can come off as complex or confusing — the scraper, gas tank, and burner knobs make it look like a lot of moving parts. We often avoided our apartment complex’s gas grill for that reason, until we kept walking by it, watching solo grillers or big groups of friends do it with ease, and eventually figured it was worth giving a shot. We decided to document our journey as a group of all-girl, first time grillers through an Instagram account (again, spring semester seniors with too much free time), and landed on the name Girls Who Grill. With a whopping 19 followers, we’ve decided to enter the grilling conversation and break the stigma that grilling is hard and women can’t do or enjoy it just as much as men can. We are proud to be working toward closing the GGG: the gender grilling gap. (Pause for applause.)
If you can’t tell, we made our account somewhat in jest, but as a gender studies minor, I can’t help but stop and wonder if my prior lack of interest in grilling is due in some part to gender roles and the belief I’ve been fed that grilling is a man’s game. I mean, just look at any Father’s Day versus Mother’s Day gift guide — for moms, the extent of fun cookware gifts are charcuterie supplies or Le Creuset dutch ovens (which, don’t get me wrong, I would also love to receive). But why can’t we also wear a horrible graphic tee while flipping patties on the old Weber? I knew plenty of women (my own mother included) who were the primary grillers of their households, but the media and Big Grill (as I’ve coined it just now while writing this) doesn’t lean into this when promoting their products.
Learning the ways of the grill was a process, but not a terribly difficult one. Together, my friends and I learned how to light a grill (it’s very similar to a gas stove), what temperatures your meat should be at (a good meat thermometer is your friend), and how high the heat should be depending on the meat (I learned this the hard way when I opened the grill to find our ribeye steak fully engulfed in flames — still came out great though). We’ve also gotten to lean into our culinary creativity, crafting recipes for grill-based dinners in our group chat, like grilled chicken sandwiches, shrimp tacos, and steak skewers with vegetables. Grilling has given us a fun and productive hobby, and an excuse to get together every week and share a meal. It’s truly so fun to take a raw cut of meat from the butcher section of a grocery store and turn it into a delicious final product.
Summer’s fast approaching, which means cookouts will soon be in abundance. So, ladies, if you find yourself wanting to roll up your sleeves and get behind the grill, this is your sign to do it. To men, stop and ask yourself if you’ve given the women in your lives a chance to hold the spatula. And to grill companies everywhere: If you haven’t considered that it’s time to drop the act and market your products to us too, maybe you should. We do a pretty damn good job.