Recently it was suggested to me that my attempt at the beginning of the semester to create a unified theory of men was a little bit sexist. This criticism came not so much from my editorial itself (“A Theory of Men and Muffins”), but rather of the simple fact that I developed (or more accurately, adapted) a dating theory for women. But I neglected to give an accompanying theory of women, for men.

Though my (very short) attention span wandered away from such an article previously, I here, in the interest of political correctness, will attempt to right that wrong.

If men are pastries, then women are the bakeware.

Bakeware comes in many varieties: cookie sheets, cake pans (round, rectangular, bundt), loaf pans, brownie pans and cupcake tins. Though this sounds at first to be far more complex than the basic “muffin/donut” distinction for men, it can be broken down into the following rough categories: functional and specialty.

In the category of functional, you have your cookie sheets and your brownie pan. You can also throw in your rectangular cake pan (which is basically just a brownie pan confused about its true purpose in life) and your cupcake tin.

In the category of specialty, you have the bundt pan, the round cake pan and the loaf pan.

And what, you ask, are the characteristics of these two categories? What are the implications of being functional or specialty?

The label “functional” may sound at first to be derogatory, but it’s anything but. To be functional means, in effect, to be versatile: cookie sheets and brownie pans can almost always adapt to your needs. These are the girls who go with the flow, the girls who are relatively low-maintenance and don’t overwhelm men with specific requirements and demands. Their products, so long as the right ingredients have gone in and the right oven settings have been observed, are “sugar and spice and everything nice.” Cookie sheets and brownie pans make you feel good about yourself by giving you cookies and brownies, or make you feel healthier by providing you with a nice hearty meal (dinner rolls and pizzas from the cookie sheet, casseroles and lasagnas from the brownie pan). Just looking at functional bake-ware might not excite you, but if you’ve got imagination (and an appetite) the possibilities are endless.

Specialty pans, on the other hand, are often misleading. When you see a bundt pan you think, “wow.” A bundt pan obviously has a special purpose; it’s far more exotic than the cookie sheet, and that exoticism is often appealing. That said, your possibilities with a bundt pan are limited: you can make a bundt, you can make a coffee cake, maybe your occasional Jell-O-mold, but that’s about it. Furthermore, you can often make that same coffee cake in your functional brownie pan (and that Jell-O-mold in a bowl); it just won’t look as pretty. Bundt pans are those girls who look good on the outside, but in the end are far too high maintenance/one-note for most men to keep.

There are also, as with men, things pretending to be what they’re not: functional bakeware pretending to be specialty, and specialty bakeware that doesn’t realize it’s not functional.

In the former category we have cupcake tins. Cupcake tins seem at first glance to be just as exotic and specific as bundt pans, but that glance is misleading: you can actually bake muffins, dinner rolls, cinnamon buns, arguably even brownies with them. It takes more of an imagination to see the possibilities, but they’re definitely there.

In the latter category are round cake pans and loaf pans. Though they appear on the surface to be pretty functional, round cake pans will burn your cookies and loaf pans will butcher your brownies. This doesn’t mean (like with bundt pans) that there aren’t any number of cakes and breads, but you’ll be hard pressed to break outside the genre. These are those girls with specific ideas of relationships in mind, who seem in other ways to be versatile but don’t always work well outside their mold.

In the end it boils down to a matter of taste: if you’re willing to eat the same thing over and over again, or you’re just looking for a quick bite, by all means go with specialty. If you’re more adventurous or looking for more substance, skip past outward appearances and take a chance on the functional. You never know when a cookie sheet will surprise you with a new treat.

Sara is a junior in Arts & Sciences. She can be reached via e-mail at [email protected].

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