A woman’s place is in the kitchen… unless she’s getting paid. A study of the social and structural dynamics impeding gender equity in the culinary industry

Abstract

While the graduation rate of individuals identifying as female continues to rise dramatically in the culinary world, the top restaurants and hotels are still predominately run by men. Due to this imbalance, this study explores the role of hierarchal and organizations structures in the curation of career identities of which stratify the population by upholding and reifying detrimental working conditions, limiting occupational mobility, and at times, foster environments conducive to abuse and harassment. This research focuses on the top Edmonton, Alberta, Canada based restaurants, bakeries and pastry shops and the Department of Culinary Arts and Professional Food Studies at the Northern Alberta Institution of Technology. The disconnect between the enrolment and graduation rates of female identifying chefs and their procurement of gainful and sustainable employment begs the question, what are the social and structural dynamics impeding gender equity in the professional kitchen? By borrowing from the work done by social order theorist, this research aims to extract commonalities in way of personal attributes, beliefs and strategies from five case studies of prominent female chefs who have climbed the ranks, become agents of change and who have made the professional kitchen a little bit healthier for everyone to work in.