At a well-known upscale steakhouse, Ming often sets his dates here. Because here, not only are the steaks tender and delicious, but you can also see the beautiful chef doing a wonderful fancy teppanyaki in front of you. And every time Amin invited companions, told them here are female chefs, companions will be surprised: "Really?" It's as if they've grown to know better.
Women are rare in Chinese kitchens
When people think of chefs, they subconsciously think of men. Obviously, they can accept the housewife to cook at home, can accept their own mother or grandmother to cook good food, but outside the hear "female chef" three words, but will be surprised. This is illogical but true.
How rare are women in the chef world? According to the 2015 Chef Career Development Survey Report, only 3.6% of chefs in China are women. And in Chinese hot dishes, the proportion of women has to be reduced by half. Even casually asked about male chefs, "Do you have female chef colleagues around you?" The answer is almost always negative.
Chefs are probably one of the most heavily masculinized industries. On the one hand, this may have something to do with the special nature of the chef's work - labor-intensive, fast-paced, physically demanding, and at the same time dangerous. In particular, Chinese food, which emphasizes "heavy cooking," has a higher likelihood of burns and cauterization.
On the other hand, the working environment in the back kitchen is full of "male hegemony" and requires employees to be "masculine". Many female chefs have to "transform themselves" in order to integrate into the back kitchen by working out, cutting their hair short, and picking up non-vegetarian jokes. "Transformation of their own", even so, the female chef's career change rate is much higher than that of men of the same age.
Why are so few Chinese food chefs female?
There is such a hot topic in Zhihu.com. Under the topic, many cooks came out to answer, summarizing the reasons for about four points:
1. Historical legacy
Cooking is historically easy to be regarded as a feminine activity, so male professional chefs will deliberately differentiate their career from home cooking to reflect their professional standard and social status.
2. The profession itself is unpopular with women
Cooking is a physical activity, especially in Chinese food, where kitchen utensils are generally heavier, knife skills and cooking techniques are hazardous, and Chinese kitchens are heavy with grease and smoke, all of which can have a definite impact on a cook's health.
3, society gives women special responsibility
Kitchen work requires long hours and irregular work, and today's social environment still requires women to pay more for the family, which makes it difficult for female chefs to find a balance between work and family.
4, the long-term inherent environment is not favorable to women
Since the kitchen has long been dominated by male chefs, the working environment is more suitable for men, and female chefs may have all kinds of inconvenience in their work, and even suffer from sexual harassment or gender discrimination.
Throughout all these reasons, it is easy to realize that the reason why there are so few women in Chinese kitchens is based on the fact that "women are better suited to delicate, soft, and relaxing work".
But apart from the fact that the job of chef itself is not popular with women, once a woman chooses to become a chef, all the other reasons become more or less influential on her way to become a chef.
Female chef sues catering company
In August 2015, a female chef, Gao Xiao (a pseudonym), sued Guangdong Hui Food Joy Economic Development Co. for gender discrimination, and it wasn't until September 2016, after the second trial, that the court upheld her request for a written apology, making it China's first case of gender discrimination in employment in which the court ruled in favor of an apology.
Gao Xiao, who was y disappointed and frustrated when she was repeatedly refused employment by employers on the basis of her gender, despite having obtained a chef's license, was diagnosed with two-way affective disorder by a hospital. And it was only after more than a year of struggle that Gao Xiao received an apology from the employer. (Click on the blue font to review: The restaurant refused to hire a female chef and was sued by the girl, with unexpected results! （
This is undoubtedly a big step forward for the "chef gender discrimination issue", at least so that employers can not use gender as a recruitment criterion.
But perhaps this discrimination is just a subterfuge from the obvious. Because this stereotype of women "is not supposed to work in the fumes, is not able to turn the pot, is not able to do manual labor ......", still affects women's choice of cooks.
On the day of the trial, Gao Xiao took a simple piece of paper and wrote "I want to be a chef" in front of the court
"He was 1.8 meters tall, and less than 1.6 meters I competed in the pot, and I lost"
The 90-year-old chef who became a hit on the "Tongue 3" movie, was the first to be awarded the title of chef. Jiang Lulu, the 90-year-old pastry chef who became famous on "Tip of the Tongue 3," is a female chef. She hasn't seen any gender discrimination among her peers, but she has seen more than her fair share of parents at culinary schools who discourage their daughters from learning to cook.
"Being a chef is very tiring and hard! How can you have so much strength to toss around as a girl!" "You definitely can't do it, why don't you pick something easier? You'll regret it when the time comes!" ......
Lulu Jiang
Teppanyaki female chef Shinuo Zhang also tacitly recognizes the male-dominated situation in Chinese backstage kitchens: "I think maybe it's because of the different circles, it's probably true that there's a lot of males in Chinese kitchens. It's because they think that girls are not as strong, not as physical, not as fast, and often sweaty in the summer, so it's harder for women."
"The most important thing is, if you are in charge of the spoon, you have to be around the stove, and during the peak dining period, you have to turn the pot for a long time, long frequency, women are afraid that they can't withstand such a big load, and there is really a gender difference, too. So hotel spoons generally do not want to use girls too much."
"In the back of the kitchen, the big grin character of the girl is okay, more popular, no matter what work is assigned to do, but it is inevitable that some girls will sometimes be a little bit pretentious, play a little temper. Probably that's why male chefs don't like working with girls."
Zhang Shinuo
Hu Mia, a female chef who has received high praise on Zhihu, said in her reply, "Regarding the gender of chefs, it's a matter of perception in my opinion. The situation now is that male chefs are in the majority, and a girl's family mixing in there doesn't seem right to many people. I remember when I first told my dad I was going to be a chef, he reacted very strongly! He listed a lot of reasons against it, one of which was, 'People hang around naked in the summer, what do you look like in there!'"
Hu Mia's answer on Zhihuai
While it's true that it's done out of a desire to protect girls, isn't it a biased notion to use gender as a justification?
Before becoming a pastry chef, Lulu Jiang's main focus was actually hot dishes. What does it mean to be a hot chef? It's the physical work that people think women can't do, especially the pot-shaking required to get on the stove.
Frying sand is a basic skill that chefs practice every day. Jiang Lulu also remembers that in school, there was a 1.8-meter tall boy who asked to compete with himself, who was less than 1.6 meters tall, to turn the pan and fry sand, and the result was that the boy lost!
"As long as it is a chef, it requires physical strength, but strength work, women are not necessarily unable to do. Choosing to be a chef means having enough physical strength, so no girl who is a chef is less strong." Even though she doesn't make hot dishes or go on the stove now, Lulu Jiang often has to carry dozens of pounds of flour all by herself as a pastry chef.
Jiang Lulu
Kitchen friend Hu Mia also shared in Zhihu to add value to their physical strength: "I joined the industry for three years, weight added twenty pounds, all muscle ah ~ at the beginning of the time to push insulation trolley can not be pushed, pulling goods to pull a few watermelons can not be moved down, a lot of physical work have to be shamefully cute to ask for help, and then still have the heart in the practice of physical strength, all Physical work are active to do, three years down at least people boys can move, I hold red face make hard also still can handle."
So, girls can't do manual labor? Stop hanging on to such ridiculous words. No matter male or female, if you choose to take the path of cooking, you need to accept the high intensity of workload and big consumption of physical strength; and no matter what job or hobby you are facing, you need to do your best to give your effort and passion before you can reap the rewards.
So it can be feminine to be soft or strong. It's a choice, not a nature.
Hu Mia's answer on Knowing
"In this environment, being verbally molested is the norm"
But beyond this impediment to "being protected" that arises from prejudice, there's also the justified "victimization," which is what makes it most difficult for female chefs to endure.
Jiang Xun, a female chef who learned to cook at Bocuse d'Or, felt this hurt the most, even though she was in a higher culinary school in France.
"I dare not presume to speak of China, but even in France, a country where higher education is widespread and a feminist revolution has taken place, there are still very few chefs in the kitchen who have really completed higher education, and most of the apprentices have been in the kitchen since they were teenagers, lacking the opportunity to get along with the opposite sex, encountering not-so-unattractive female coworkers, yellow jokes and occasional flirting and teasing. The kind of tricks that middle-school boys play can be found on chefs in their late teens. Girls with big hearts are fine, but if they have small hearts and bring their own chastity into the kitchen, I'm not kidding, at least half of the male chefs in European kitchens would be in jail for a few years for sexual harassment if they were in the United States."
She said, "What really pushes female chefs out of the kitchen is the rigid patriarchal social ideology that results from a lack of education." And that is precisely the most entrenched reason why sexism is so prevalent.
French chefs also molest girls
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In addition to this, women's low self-esteem also reinforces this "patriarchal social ideology".
"Worst of all, there's often a great deal of drama between women who **** in the kitchen and work together. These girls, who are usually very defiant and think they are no worse than their heterosexual counterparts, often drum up a breath to prove themselves from the moment they enter the kitchen; they try to make themselves similar to their heterosexual colleagues, remodeling themselves to be very masculine, boasting that they are not afraid of hard work, not afraid of being tired, not afraid of sinking pots, not afraid of the heavy knives, and moreover, not afraid to cry, and carrying a strong competitive streak in them. I'm very afraid of ****ing with such female colleagues, who, as women, usually not only don't realize that she needs to help her cisgender fight for affirmative action when an entire disadvantaged group of people are experiencing injustice, but I'm afraid that they will also climb over each other and fall on each other's throats, eager to get away from their own attributes of female vulnerability." Jiang Xun adds.
In French back kitchens, some female chefs won't help female chefs either
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Why can't back kitchens accommodate women?
With so many chefs in China, only 3.6% are women, is it really true that only 3.6% of girls want to be chefs? Or is there an environment in the chef business that makes it difficult for women to survive and thrive?
Why accept these prejudices in silence? Why can't there be women who show an interest in cooking without someone saying, "Just for fun, don't make it a career, girls can't do it!"
Why can't it be that when a woman enters an all-male backroom, she no longer has to secretly pray, "I hope this is a good kitchen and I can be treated with respect and dignity." Many female chefs, in fact, would like to not have to deal with the stupid, ridiculous faces when they're told they're female after they've made a great dish: "Wow! I can't believe it's a female chef!" ......
Many female chefs, in fact, long to not have to deal with some colored glasses
In fact, those ridiculous scenarios of limiting people based on their gender should never have existed and happened in the first place. I just hope that in the future, everyone will succeed or fail not because of their gender, but because of their hard work and dedication; and that all the stumbling blocks on the road to pursuing their dreams will no longer be gendered.
As Liu Pingping, a famous western chef, said in an interview:
"Chef is a job that requires a combination of mental and physical labor, and there are no shortcuts, only repeated attempts to meet the ideal requirements. And the standard for assessing whether someone can become a chef is never gender, but only their ability and attitude."
At the same time, she also told reporters that, in her opinion, the reason for the notion that women are not suitable for backstage kitchens is that in the past, kitchen equipment was indeed less and the environment was poorer, and many jobs required better physical strength. "But today, with the introduction of all kinds of equipment, the physical strength required in the kitchen is declining, especially in the western food and dim sum departments. And girls have their own advantages in many aspects, such as being more careful and presenting plates more delicately."
Pingping Liu, executive sous chef at Park Hyatt Hangzhou
So stop saying how harsh and grueling the kitchen environment is and how unsuitable it is for women. As technology and the restaurant industry evolve, kitchens may yet need more women in them.
And the unique qualities of women may bring more richness and possibilities to the restaurant.
Is it true that Chinese back-of-house kitchens are not for girls?
What do female chefs think about this situation?
What do they think?
Male chefs,
what do you think?
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Reporter: Mei-Hsien Chang, This is an original article from RedChef.com!
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