Changing the boys’ club

Deborah Harris and Patti Giuffre, both sociology professors at Texas State University, in San Marcos, Texas, confronted the challenges female chefs face in 'Taking the Heat: Women Chefs and Gender Inequality in the Professional Kitchen'. Harris explains how the “boys’ club” is starting to change.

Q. How did female chefs describe their experience in the kitchen?

Deborah: We talked to 33 current and former women chefs in the central Texas area and also analyzed 2200 pieces of food media to see how cultural taste makers were talking about men and women chefs. What we found from talking to the women about their experiences is there were things that you would expect, like discrimination. Women would be told, ‘We don’t hire women for this kitchen,’ or ‘We don’t want to work with a woman.’ Some of the women had experienced that throughout their careers… particularly the women who are older. Younger women still experienced subtle discrimination but once they get their foot in the door, it was up to them to fit in at work. It was very much the culture of the career.  They couldn’t really ask for any sort of special treatment as a woman chef; they had to really prove that they can make it on their own. If the men started teasing them, which happens around the kitchen, they had to learn to put up with it or to throw it back. It really is—as one of the women put it—the idea that you chose to be there. It was really up to you as the woman to acclimate to the culture, not the other way around. 

Related:Three questions: Deborah Harris and Patti Giuffre

Q. Would you say that’s a main difference between women working in the kitchen and working in other male-dominated industries?

Deborah: One of the things is that chefs—both men and women—really pride themselves on being outcasts, these sort of oddballs, so part of this raunchy, raucous workplace fits into that. A lot of the women would roll their eyes and complain about how things could go, but they also would say that they didn’t want a lot of changes to the workplace because they felt like this made them a special breed. For women, once they proved themselves and could take things and dish it back to men, they really felt like they had accomplished something.

[Women] sometimes would go through this hazing period and after that, the men would sort of accept them. Several women said, ‘All of the sudden it was like I had all of these brothers.’ First [male co-workers] kind of test [women] out, but then they are like these good guys who were very protective.

Q. When it came to hazing—where male co-workers would see where you stand—once women get past that could they move up?

Deborah: Sometimes you could be accepted as a peer—if we’re on the same level—but there also are problems when women wanted to move up. When they finally get put in charge of the kitchen, [staff] really tend to talk about women chefs in three different ways. They could be “bitches” and take on a very masculine, stereotypical Gordon Ramsey-style of being angry and loud.  Fellow women were very critical of these chefs, saying that they were not being authentic… doing these same behaviors that are very negative in the kitchen. The other thing that women could do is be a girlie-girl. To try and get people to do things by being nice and friendly, but the problem is people wouldn’t take them seriously. They wouldn’t be seen as a viable, strong leader. The third way, was to take on the role of being a mom or a big sister. It is kind of interesting because that is a woman’s role of authority, but it’s considered natural for a woman. For women who were more of the mom or big sister, they would care about their employees, they would listen to their problems, but at the same time everyone knew that they were in charge. That seemed to be a better strategy for women chefs—to play into those already established gender roles of the mom or big sister. 

Q. What are some of the ways that women can level the playing field?

Deborah: I think women who can come together and do things in organizations can actually help. Women who can come together see that they are not alone, so I think that can help women understand that these are not individual problems. I think by women having these spaces where they can talk about these things, they can deal with them.

The other thing is there’s some anecdotal evidence that when women chefs move to the heads of their kitchens, they may be more willing to hire other women. So as women move up, that’s going to open the doors to thinking that there could be a different type of kitchen.

I think through retirement of older traditional chefs, we’ll see more women who are able to advocate for themselves and to form these networks. That’s really important among chef positions. Once you get more women in the upper echelon they will bring other women into that boys’ club, too.