We can all picture this: a tyrannical chef screaming and throwing plates at a militant yet loyal brigade of chef “bros” who drink and drug their meager pay cheques away after service. It’s Gordon Ramsay’s Hell’s Kitchen and the memoirs of Anthony Bourdain and Marco Pierre White; the stereotypical male chef rages in his pursuit of perfection. By contract, female chefs are “nurturing”, “supportive”, and “homey”. They’re Nigella Lawson and stories of learning from mothers. They cook for the love of it, not for the prestige. Kitchens have long been considered a male domain more out of misconception than truth.
As a young, female cook, I didn’t see myself represented in the kitchen. I was the only woman on the line and conversations around me often contained graphic descriptions sexual fantasies. Discussions about who was the “hottest waitress” in the restaurant transitioned to attacks on my “femaleness” and why that made me a “bad fit”. I thought that if I really wanted it enough – the creativity, the ambition of a career as a chef - I would have to put up with “the boys”. It was after almost a decade in the hospitality industry that I began to meet female chefs who were flipping the stereotypical kitchen on its head. They’re proving kitchens can be Michelin-star without all of the misogynistic mania.
On my first day at pastry school,the director of the school threw out a statistic that within five years only one in five of us would remain in the industry. The zeitgeist of food culture we have experienced in the last decade has seen enrolments at most culinary schools surge. According to numbers put out by Le Cordon Bleu and the Culinary Institute of America, female enrollees are now matching or outnumbering the male enrollees, but then workplace analysis (such as the 2011 study put out by the American Culinary Foundation) still show women making up only about 20% of kitchens.
Christine Beard, a Pastry Chef Instructor at Southern Alberta Institute of Tehnology in Calgary, calls them “Lord of the Flies” kitchens. The machismo, “broculture” mentality has in many cases devolved into a regressive, “no adult supervision” working environment. Women leave for the exclusion they feel and for the sexual harassment they face. The only way to survive and rise the ranks is to play party to your own abuse. Culture like this wouldn’t be able to survive if it were for a larger representation of women in kitchens, and it takes the chef at the top to enforce what behavior does and does not fly. Erin Vickars, a private chef on a sailing charter Passing Cloud in the Haida Gwaii, was put through her paces in fine dining kitchens. “I’ve been treated poorly in kitchens working with boys. I’ve had sous chefs throw me into walls, bang up my knives, try to light my stove on fire, sabotage my station... I’ve seen it all.”
But is this a male versus female issue? I’ve worked with misogynists of both genders and have had mentors and inspirational leaders from either side as well. It’s not fair to place too much pressure on women to make change, to be something “as a woman”, instead of just allowing them to pursue their a profession like men can. But a good leader is a conscious leader and it is hard not to be conscious of how you are coming across when you are the only woman in a kitchen. Erin Vickars described her approach, “You’re gender neutral. I would lower my voice. I would speak in a more succinct way. Approach the guys in the kitchen in a different way than I would approach the women. Which I think is normal. But I thought why can’t I just be me? Why’s that not okay?”
When Ana Roš addressed the annual backlash against the World’s 50 Best Restaurants award for “Best Female Chef in the World”, which she won in December of 2016, she suggested that ‘female chef’ acknowledges the complexity of what it means to be a wife and mother in the restaurant industry. Women are not only up against a barrage of sexism and misogyny or at the very least, “bro culture”, they are also often wives and mothers. How do you cook for 14-16 hours and then head home to your other full-time job, of raising your children, and caring for aging parents? Christine Beard believes that the ‘female’ chef label is important. “I think being a recognized female chef is higher recognition than just being a man chef. I think the biggest reason why is how much harder you have to work because things don’t come as easily as they would. You’re always being watched. If you cry once, awwww. Or if you can’t handle it, you should just leave.” Erin Vickars asks, “It’s the question of what is your motivation? Are you removing the female label because you believe that chefs should be chefs or are you removing a label because you have a filter that you are unaware of? Because as an individual of your standing, I could understand why removing that would be easy.” As a female chef, your experience is different from that of a male chef. You have to push that much harder and compromise that much faster. It shouldn’t be a discount to call yourself a female chef.
Kitchen culture shouldn’t have to be – but certainly can be – changed by women. We are underrepresented in kitchens and that environment is therefore underdeveloped. No industry can reach its fullest potential if it lacks diversity. Les Dames d’Escoffier is a society of professional women in the hospitality industry who seek to “promote the understanding, appreciation and knowledge of food, wine, hospitality, nutrition, food technology, and the arts of the table.” They have a scholarship that they give out once a year to women in the industry who are either just starting out in their industry or are looking to further refine their skills or further their expertise. They have gone on to work in Michelin-Starred kitchens, write for nationally syndicated food columns, and start award-winning wineries in the Okanagan with the education that they received from the scholarship. Christine Beard maintains a similarly long-term perspective with her students. “We are trying to train them to be chefs not cooks. You’re going to be a leader someday. If you are going to be a leader, you need to be a good one.” And if you want a change, you have to lead by example.
In talking to all these women I have come away understanding that it’s not only the woman that you look up to that are important to your career satisfaction and longevity, but also the women you work alongside. It’s the representation you experience – or don’t’ – that is, in some ways, more redemptive. Women can and do change the culture of a kitchen, but just as it takes an entire kitchen to put together a plate, it takes an entire kitchen to change a culture. Then perhaps, one day, diverse kitchens might also in turn change our culture.
As a young, female cook, I didn’t see myself represented in the kitchen. I was the only woman on the line and conversations around me often contained graphic descriptions sexual fantasies. Discussions about who was the “hottest waitress” in the restaurant transitioned to attacks on my “femaleness” and why that made me a “bad fit”. I thought that if I really wanted it enough – the creativity, the ambition of a career as a chef - I would have to put up with “the boys”. It was after almost a decade in the hospitality industry that I began to meet female chefs who were flipping the stereotypical kitchen on its head. They’re proving kitchens can be Michelin-star without all of the misogynistic mania.
On my first day at pastry school,the director of the school threw out a statistic that within five years only one in five of us would remain in the industry. The zeitgeist of food culture we have experienced in the last decade has seen enrolments at most culinary schools surge. According to numbers put out by Le Cordon Bleu and the Culinary Institute of America, female enrollees are now matching or outnumbering the male enrollees, but then workplace analysis (such as the 2011 study put out by the American Culinary Foundation) still show women making up only about 20% of kitchens.
Christine Beard, a Pastry Chef Instructor at Southern Alberta Institute of Tehnology in Calgary, calls them “Lord of the Flies” kitchens. The machismo, “broculture” mentality has in many cases devolved into a regressive, “no adult supervision” working environment. Women leave for the exclusion they feel and for the sexual harassment they face. The only way to survive and rise the ranks is to play party to your own abuse. Culture like this wouldn’t be able to survive if it were for a larger representation of women in kitchens, and it takes the chef at the top to enforce what behavior does and does not fly. Erin Vickars, a private chef on a sailing charter Passing Cloud in the Haida Gwaii, was put through her paces in fine dining kitchens. “I’ve been treated poorly in kitchens working with boys. I’ve had sous chefs throw me into walls, bang up my knives, try to light my stove on fire, sabotage my station... I’ve seen it all.”
But is this a male versus female issue? I’ve worked with misogynists of both genders and have had mentors and inspirational leaders from either side as well. It’s not fair to place too much pressure on women to make change, to be something “as a woman”, instead of just allowing them to pursue their a profession like men can. But a good leader is a conscious leader and it is hard not to be conscious of how you are coming across when you are the only woman in a kitchen. Erin Vickars described her approach, “You’re gender neutral. I would lower my voice. I would speak in a more succinct way. Approach the guys in the kitchen in a different way than I would approach the women. Which I think is normal. But I thought why can’t I just be me? Why’s that not okay?”
When Ana Roš addressed the annual backlash against the World’s 50 Best Restaurants award for “Best Female Chef in the World”, which she won in December of 2016, she suggested that ‘female chef’ acknowledges the complexity of what it means to be a wife and mother in the restaurant industry. Women are not only up against a barrage of sexism and misogyny or at the very least, “bro culture”, they are also often wives and mothers. How do you cook for 14-16 hours and then head home to your other full-time job, of raising your children, and caring for aging parents? Christine Beard believes that the ‘female’ chef label is important. “I think being a recognized female chef is higher recognition than just being a man chef. I think the biggest reason why is how much harder you have to work because things don’t come as easily as they would. You’re always being watched. If you cry once, awwww. Or if you can’t handle it, you should just leave.” Erin Vickars asks, “It’s the question of what is your motivation? Are you removing the female label because you believe that chefs should be chefs or are you removing a label because you have a filter that you are unaware of? Because as an individual of your standing, I could understand why removing that would be easy.” As a female chef, your experience is different from that of a male chef. You have to push that much harder and compromise that much faster. It shouldn’t be a discount to call yourself a female chef.
Kitchen culture shouldn’t have to be – but certainly can be – changed by women. We are underrepresented in kitchens and that environment is therefore underdeveloped. No industry can reach its fullest potential if it lacks diversity. Les Dames d’Escoffier is a society of professional women in the hospitality industry who seek to “promote the understanding, appreciation and knowledge of food, wine, hospitality, nutrition, food technology, and the arts of the table.” They have a scholarship that they give out once a year to women in the industry who are either just starting out in their industry or are looking to further refine their skills or further their expertise. They have gone on to work in Michelin-Starred kitchens, write for nationally syndicated food columns, and start award-winning wineries in the Okanagan with the education that they received from the scholarship. Christine Beard maintains a similarly long-term perspective with her students. “We are trying to train them to be chefs not cooks. You’re going to be a leader someday. If you are going to be a leader, you need to be a good one.” And if you want a change, you have to lead by example.
In talking to all these women I have come away understanding that it’s not only the woman that you look up to that are important to your career satisfaction and longevity, but also the women you work alongside. It’s the representation you experience – or don’t’ – that is, in some ways, more redemptive. Women can and do change the culture of a kitchen, but just as it takes an entire kitchen to put together a plate, it takes an entire kitchen to change a culture. Then perhaps, one day, diverse kitchens might also in turn change our culture.