Professionalism vs Motherhood: The Double Standard for Female Chefs.

A fine dining magazine published earlier this year conducted two interviews and profiles about two different Paris-based chefs. When summarising the two different approaches, the female chef was said to evoke authenticity and human warmth in her lively restaurant, while the male chef was understood to embody precision and relentlessly pursue perfection in his Parisian restaurant.

A little while ago, when a male chef was trained on a new section at a restaurant by one of the female chefs, he thanked her for making him feel looked after and nurtured during the training.

In a recent interview in the context of International Women’s Day, a female head chef and restaurant founder was interviewed about her career journey. The third question she was asked in the interview video was whether she felt like a mother figure to the team.

These are just a few examples of how men and women in the hospitality industry get depicted differently.

Narratives about male chefs tend to focus on their challenges in search of perfection. The professionalism of male chefs is measured by a variety of factors, be it their sense of innovation, thinking outside the box, strict commitment to their work, the ability to revive old traditions, their continued flow of new creative output, or even just their individual personality.

Narratives about female chefs are different. Different factors of professionalism and skill get pushed into the background as the food of women gets more frequently associated with the supposed warmth, care, and nostalgia it evokes. You may be doing the exact same work as your male counterparts, work hard, commit to perfection, creativity and innovation, and there will still be critics who specifically point out how they can taste the true love and warmth that has been put into making the food.

In these narratives, it appears that men cook great, unapologetic to share their personal vision. The purpose of women chefs appears to be to imitate generations of mothers cooking for their families and to provide comfort and care for the customers and the team around them. This rhetorical nuance is still very prevalent when we talk about men and women in the restaurant industry today. Largely speaking, it appears that male chefs are professionals and female chefs are mothers.

Or to put it even more simply: Male chefs cook. Female chefs feed.

I can’t speak for every woman working in kitchens. But I - and I’m sure many other female chefs working in restaurants these days - don’t do it to fulfil their maternal instincts. Neither is the point of women working in kitchens to fulfil other people’s need for a mother figure. Constantly connecting a woman’s professionalism and career ethic to her caring abilities suggests that the only true career we can envision for a woman is that of a caring mother and that a woman’s peak level of professionalism is to be a full-time mum taking care of her children. It suggests that all her other endeavours are being measured by her ability or inability to showcase her maternal qualities.

It is the same for many other professions, unfortunately. Think of Angela Merkel, former Chancellor of Germany, one of the most powerful politicians during her tenure, who was given the supposedly affectionate nickname of “Mutti”, a German expression for “mummy”, a term even newspapers employed in what is considered serious and professional journalism. Imagine the disbelief and laughter we would erupt into if we were to refer to male politicians in such a way and The New York Times or Le Monde would report about Daddy Biden and Papa Putin.

A woman’s career in cheffing should not be inherently tied up with her maternal instincts or the supposed warmth and care she provides for her environment. Most male chefs don’t have to answer the question of whether they feel like a father figure to their team so why do the women need to think of their relationship with the team to involve anything other than professional respect? And why does their cooking so often end up being associated with the act of a mother cooking for her family instead of being simply seen as the job they have chosen to do?

Don’t get me wrong, being a mother or caretaker is great, important, and difficult work. However, not every woman is a mother or a caretaker, and our work and careers should not be constantly judged by the supposed warmth, care, and love we can or should project. So I hope that the rhetoric will improve, that we will move away from these narrow and old-fashioned perspectives, that the work of women in the industry will be appreciated for what it is, and their work is not required to fulfil a maternal responsibility to society.