30 SPECIALTY FOOD SPECIALTYFOOD.COM
Co-located event
BARCELONA
April 20th - 23rd, 2020
Gran Via Venue
www.alimentaria.com
A unique
Food, Drinks and
Gastronomy
Experience
International Food, Drinks & Food Service Exhibition
Q&A
Where do you see the connection
between more opportunities for
women and the issues around
harassment in the industry?
When there is a long-ingrained culture, and
if a back-of-house staff is majority male and
is supporting that kind of culture, then one
woman in that kitchen may feel intimidated
or may not feel there's an opening to speak
up, especially if this is a job and an income
that she needs. By shifting the balance to
put more women in the back of house,
something comes from having a group
of people that are seeing what's going on
and shining a brighter light on it. Some
empowerment comes from just having a
stronger presence. If a kitchen does have an
issue with the back-of-house boys' culture,
breaking that up by including more females
on the staff can have a big impact.
"Oh, just let the guys do that job"—and that sort of thing. When it's
less obvious, it's probably slower to change because it feels like that's
just the way that things are.
On a broader scale, for instance, only five of the top 50
restaurants are owned by women. If you look at chefs and the
way they're portrayed on TV, we tend to think of men as chefs
and women as cooks. There's a much larger cultural norm around
kitchens and restaurant management and leadership that is
ingrained. We're hoping to be a small piece of moving that forward.
Mark Hamstra is a regular contributor to
Specialty Food.
PHOTO: TOM HUYNH
