Women Professional Progress to Chef’s Position: Results of an International Survey

ABSTRACT

Many researchers argue that gender is a cultural construction rather a natural one. Haute Cuisine and the culinary field is a good illustration to how gender influenced the evaluation and the recognition of the cooking task in two different spaces, the professional and domestic. To analyze the reasons behind the low number of women chefs, we run a survey that targeted professionals in the cooking field. It included both gender and participants from Europe and USA. The survey results confirm the main argument that women are under-represented due to the masculine culture of kitchen work and culinary industry. Women therefore need to deal with it and to keep developing themselves professionally in order to achieve their place. A change in the industry dynamics will assess the barriers encountered in general by all professionals. The same change should impact household arrangements to facilitate women’s evolution in the professional sphere.

KEYWORDS:

• Entrepreneurship
• leadership
• learning process
• women chefs

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank various professionals in the Haute Cuisine field for their support in carrying out this study at international level. Among all of them, Dr. Robert Harrington from Washington State University Tri-Cities was a key support in obtaining data from the USA. The Association des Maîtres Cuisiniers de France was a strong collaborator as well as Xavier Allirot from the Basque Culinary Center in Spain.