Why Most Top Chefs are Male?

Few days ago I was watching the movie English Vinglish. During a conversation between Sridevi and her classmate, she said something like “If a man cooks, it’s art; While, if a woman cooks it’s routine, it’s a duty”.

Though a very small point, it’s a valid one. How many of our household kitchens are run by our husbands or fathers? Hardly any, I guess. And how many hotel kitchens are owned by female staff? 

[1]Michelin Red Guide is considered to be the best-known and oldest reference guide for restaurants and hotels throughout Europe. In the 2012 Michelin guide, there was only one female that was on the list of the best 106 restaurant chefs that have been awarded three stars, the first one to be rated a 3-star after 1968. Interestingly, out of the 2500 restaurants rated by Michelin only 10 had female chefs and only one percent of Michelin starred chefs are female. Michelin is not the only one facing flak. Few years back Time magazine suffered lot of criticism as out of 15 chefs profiled for “Gods of food” section only 3 were female. Coming to the famous Indian show – MasterChef, it has already been through 4 seasons; still none of its judges has ever been a female.

It is not that there is huge disparity between number of males and females entering culinary schools. In fact, compared to the number few years ago, there has been drastic increase in the female count.

However, according to 2012 numbers out of out of 403,000 people employed as chefs or head cooks in the U.S., only 21.5 percent were women.

It seemed a weird correlation, so I tried to dig in and find out real reasons through both primary and secondary research.

Listed below are some excerpts from chef interviews conducted around the world and their views on gender disparity in this industry. Though I hate to separate male and female views in general but keeping in mind the subject in question, it will be more interesting to look at their views separately:

Male views

• Master chef Fernand Point: “Only men have the technique, discipline and passion that makes cooking consistently an art”
• Tom Kerridge: “women don’t have a lot of that fire in a chef’s belly you need”
• Celebrity chef John Burton Race: “men are the best cooks because they are more passionate and take cooking more seriously."
• MasterChef judge John Torode: "Females are far better….they have a feel, a touch, a natural love for food and they don't show off.”

Female Views

• Katherine Miller: “They’re (female chefs) all super supportive of one another, and talk about gender politics in the kitchen and how it’s changed,” 
• Milliken interviewed for one of her first jobs, the would-be employer told her, “you’re too pretty and you’ll cause havoc”
• Daksha Mistry of Dakshta Fine Dining: "Most restaurateurs are more likely to hire a young man because they can run around the kitchen faster with heavy pans and create more business. Men have greater muscle power, yet women are calmer in the kitchen."
• Stacie Stewart: "It's a high-pressure environment. Hard work and long hours, late into the night. If you want to have kids and start a family, I don't see how you can do that and be a chef.”
• Susan Feniger: “We felt the best way to navigate a male-dominated field was to own our own restaurant and work for ourselves, rather than keep working for men.”

Well, as we can see most of the male chefs believe that professional cooking is not females’ cup of tea; while there are chefs like John Torode whose views reflect lot of confidence in female cooking. At the same time, there are female chefs, most of who are of the view that there has been discrimination against female chefs in the industry. While, some women chefs agree with the fact that handling restaurant kitchens does require lot of hard work and dedication, which probably becomes difficult for married women.

In order to be double sure of the reasons, I tried collecting first-hand information from a friend who did graduation in culinary art but eventually switched to marketing filed. Some of her batchmates have opened their own restaurants/bakeries and some have shifted to teaching. She agreed that being a chef requires good amount of physical stamina and long hours, and this fact might be pulling females back. However, she also acknowledged the steply behavior of some male chefs towards female staff. She also mentioned that not all chefs come from recognised culinary schools. In fact, many of the apprentices belong to semi-urban areas and, therefore, lack basic urban etiquettes which might leave women co-workers feeling awkward or even unsafe. After all, there is a thin line between what is considered acceptable behavior for women in a male-dominated environment.

Finally, a couple of tips based on the research –

For females: Agreed that women are not less creative or hard-working than anyone, but there is no harm in accepting the fact that at some point in life one has to keep core occupation on the back seat and modify career strategies in accordance with time demands. After all, no child care center will be open at midnight when you are busy cooking in the restaurant. So, if you can’t cope up, you just can’t. Simple!

For males: Yes, it has been your territory for decades. But, it’s high-time you quit using excuses just to keep them out. Women are working crazy hours and doing justice to grueling jobs already in the form of nurses, police officers, doctors and what not; So why not chefs?

Give them a chance, and they’ll learn to deal with it.