A Personal Statement by A Hopefully Impartial Male Observer

The Michelin Guide awarded one or more stars to over 100 restaurants in Paris. this year. Thirty restaurants in that city earned three or more toques in the Gault-Millau Guide. Not one of the kitchens in any of these restaurants has a woman as its senior chef.

The French attitude against women in the professional kitchen is not a new one. As historian Lois W. Banner of Rutgers University reminds us, the French attitude against women in the professional kitchen is not new and the great chefs of France have always been men. Although some of the most famous of French dishes have been dedicated to or named after women (peach Melba was named after opera singer Dame Nellie Melba; potatoes Anna was named after the famous courtesan Anna Deslions; duckling Rachel was named after a great star of the Comedie Francaise; and sauce Beauharnais was dedicated to playwright and socialite Fannie de Beauharnais), the chefs who invented those dishes were all men. In fact, Banner writes, the conviction that women cannot be great chefs has become so much a part of French culture that it has even been institutionalized in the French language. Even though the word for cook, le cuisinier has its feminine counterpart, la cuisiniere, there is no feminine counterpart to le chef.

Many astute observers of the French culinary and social scene have noted that although French men, like their counterparts in nearly all other Western societies, expect women to manage their homes, raise their children and produce the food for their families, they expect the creators of great cuisine to be men. In 1950 Fernand Point, the inventor of nouvelle cuisine and the teacher of such notables as Paul Bocuse, Jean Troisgrois and Alain Chapel, was asked why he had never agreed to accept a woman as a student. Point responded that "only men have the technique, discipline and passion that makes cooking consistently an art". In 1954, a year before his death, Point reiterated this idea when he said that "women are meant to decorate professional kitchens. They should not, however, be allowed to cook in them". More recently in 1988, Paul Bocuse, who learned his lessons well from Point, remarked in an interview with the daily newspaper, "Le Figaro", that "the chef who names a dish after a woman is a gentleman and a diplomat. The chef who invites that same woman into his kitchen as a colleague is a fool".

So much a part of the "accepted wisdom" has the male domination of the chef's profession become that even women have been largely convinced of its justice. When Point, who was the owner and chef of the renowned "La Pyramide" in the small city of Vienne died in 1955 his widow refused to take over the cooking. Even though she had always managed the restaurant, served as her husband's sous-chef and was the only person with full knowledge of her husband's creations, she chose to find another man to replace her husband in the kitchen. American journalist Joseph Wechsberg, noted for his male chauvinism, wrote that "the widow Point had too much respect for la grande cuisine to attempt it herself".

Nor is the prejudice against women as chefs merely a French one. In America, for example, where since the 17th century, women have traditionally been the cooks in local taverns and neighborhood restaurants, elegant cooking in fine restaurants and other exclusive kitchens has always been produced by men. Before Thomas Jefferson was elected president in 1801, he lived on a luxurious plantation in Virginia and his food was prepared by female slaves. When he moved to Washington he immediately employed a male French chef to manage the presidential kitchen. Since then many American presidents, including Dwight David Eisenhower, Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy have employed women cooks for their private dining but have hired male chefs to head up the White House kitchens.

In England, where since the 15th century women have traditionally been in charge of the kitchens of the homes of Princesses, Princes, Barons, Earls and Dukes, those in charge of the kitchens of Kings and Queens have been men. Not a single woman has ever been admitted into the ranks of the Royal Society of Chefs.

The Arguments Against Women Becoming Chefs

There are five major arguments, almost always supplied by male chefs, given in an attempt to explain the absence of women at the upper echelons of the profession. The first three of these factors are said to be related to the physiological differences between the sexes and the remaining arguments are almost always phrased in terms of psychology.

- The physical work required of the chef is too difficult for most women.

- Because of their need and desire to have and raise children, women are not suited to the long hours required of the chef.

-Women do not have the same level of taste sensitivity as men and this disqualifies them from the creation of great cuisine.

- Women perceive cooking as personal, while men take pride in food per se and are able to detach it from the eater.

- Women do not have the managerial skills necessary to over- see a large kitchen.

All of this may sound reasonable enough at first glance but on closer examination each of these so-called explanations fails to meet the tests of either logic or reality. The argument, for example that chefs need great physical stamina in order to lift the huge pots in a professional kitchen, to carry heavy cartons of meat, vegetables and fruits, and to stir the sauces in soups in preparation for a large number of diners may have been true during the Middle Ages but has not been true for at least four hundred years. One wonders, for example about those women who had the same problem of long hours and physical labor when they dominated the kitchens of the homes of the well-to-do English, French, Russian and Italian families between the 15th and 19th centuries. Today, while no one would deny that the work of the chef is physically demanding, modern chefs are rarely called upon in a single day to shift four to five tons of furniture, to sweep, mop and vacuum large areas of floors, to clean ceilings, to scrub toilets, or to carry heavy bags of grocery supplies - all tasks that are fulfilled on a daily basis by women who maintain the traditional roles of the housewife.

The second major argument, that chefs are required to invest long, frequently unconventional hours and are often called on to work split-shifts, is a valid one, easily explaining why many people do not advance to the top ranks of the chef's profession. The important (and logical) point, however, is that the argument has no more validity for men than for women and this is demonstrated by the already large and constantly increasing number of women in the professions of medicine, law, nursing, law-enforcement, psychiatry, and journalism, all of which frequently require equally demanding hours in the work place. Also with regard to the question of time commitment, some claim that women do not advance in the ranks of chefdom because the path to success demands a long and difficult apprenticeship. That such an apprenticeship is essential to the development of a fine chef is undeniable, but it is equally a part of becoming a fine surgeon or attorney. Interns and residents in hospitals are often required to be on duty for 48 or more hours, and no distinction is made between married or unmarried men and women when duty rosters are drawn up. Such long and devoted hours are no less a part of earning a doctorate in sociology, anthropology or psychology, professions in which many women are found.

That the marital status of a women or her status as a parent influences her ability to work long and often irregular hours is a valid statement, especially in traditional families where the wife is expected to carry the main burden of maintaining the house, doing the shopping and taking care of the children. It does not, however, reflect on the ability or desire of single women or on those whose partners are willing to share the burdens (and, if one likes, pleasures) of the home.

The third argument, that women are genetically lacking the fine sense of taste discrimination that men are born with is nothing more than nonsense. This bit of fallacious folk-wisdom, which dates back to the days of the Egyptian pharaohs, has simply no basis in reality and many biological research studies have demonstrated unequivocally that sex alone has no impact whatever on taste discrimination. A related and equally frivolous argument, that women are so concerned with their figures that they will never be able to taste enough to develop discriminating palates is equally easy to dismiss. As is evident to anyone with even a basically sound sense of vision, many of the better known male chefs of today (Pierre Gagniere, Jean-Michel Lorain, Jean-Marie Amat, Alain Ducasse and Didier Oudil, for example) are quite slim. There has never been a requirement for great chefs to be fat.

The fourth argument, about the differences in how men and women perceive food is perhaps the most fascinating one. Historian Page Smith, states that "while women may be great cooks, very few are capable of becoming great chefs". As her justification for this statement, Smith writes that "woman's cooking is personal ... she cooks for those she loves and wishes to nurture and her cooking is thus sacramental. A famous chef, on the other hand, is a culinary artist, and this is something quite different, for the male chef takes pride in the food per se and is able to detach it from the eater. Women cook for the people they love. Men cook for the sake of art". There is logic to this argument, but it is a logic based on the fact that for thousands of years women have been assigned the joint roles of nurturers of the family and housekeepers. Sociologist Liora Gvion of Tel Aviv University hypothesizes that because these roles have traditionally been devalued and that because most women still cook at home they will resent the idea of cooking as a career for "as modern as they may conceive themselves, they still perceive cooking as a female domestic task".

The argument that women do not have the managerial skills to supervise a large kitchen is obviously fallacious, and this can be seen by studying the increasingly large number of women who are hospital administrators, senior editors of newspapers and magazines, and corporate executives, positions that frequently require the organization and supervision of staffs far larger than those found at nearly all of the world's great restaurants. The claim that women are not capable of supervising or organizing men can be dismissed in precisely the same manner.

Painful Realities

The truth is that the reasons most often given to explain why women are not great chefs are not valid. The painful reality is that women have not become great chefs largely because men, willingly or not, have chosen to monopolize the field. Many men who encourage or "allow" women to enter the kitchen, often do so only at an entry level and rarely allow them to rise to that point where they will become serious competition for themselves.

From the days of ancient Greece and Rome, when elegant dining became a symbol of social status and economic success, women were excluded from cooking as a profession. As Lois Banner and others indicate, the banning of women in the kitchen was a direct reflection of the male tyranny of Greek and early Roman society in which women, other than courtesans, were excluded from public gatherings, denied entry into any profession whatever and largely confined to their homes. Although female slaves were allowed to bake bread and perform other menial kitchen tasks, it was male slaves who planned the luxurious feasts created the elaborate dishes that were served and receive the applause of the banqueteers.

Because women were seen as inferior creatures, wealthy Romans were convinced that having male servants and chefs added to their status. This attitude passed on to the servants as well and by the time of Julius Caesar it was generally accepted that male servants (including chefs) had a far higher level of status than that of servants who were merely female. In fact, becoming a chef rapidly became a highly accepted way for a man to improve his social status. Taillevent, the cook of King Charles V and writer of the first French cookbook was given both an estate and a title by the king; Francois Pierre de la Varenne made a fortune as the cook of King Henry IV; Vatel, who was the son of a Flemish laborer, made himself world famous as head cook and household manager for the Prince of Conde; Antoinin Careme, the son of an itinerant stonemason, rose as a chef to become the toast of Napoleonic Europe; and the great Escoffier, who was the son of a blacksmith, rose in status to become the best known and most respected chef of Europe and North America.

Because such men wanted to guard their status, they had no desire to let women enter their domain. Partially because they felt that identification of their profession with women would serve to debase it in the world's eyes, men had to prove that they were different than ordinary cooks (women), and that they were not merely artisans or servants (like women) as they were artists and great creators. According to men, women simply had no place in this male world and those same men were in positions of power to ensure that they would not enter it.

To ensure and enhance their status, the guilds that were formed to protect the rights of chefs even invented special emblems - status symbols such as the crown-like hat that contemporary chefs wear that would set themselves aside from more ordinary mortals. From their costumes to their salaries and self images, chefs did everything possible to differentiate themselves from ordinary cooks. In the end, there was simply little place in the profession for women because male chefs exerted their efforts to ensure that women would always be associated with plain, simple home cooking.

The passage of time did not change the situation and during the Victorian era the distance between women and the professional kitchen was widened even more. During this time virtuous women were expected to stay at home, concerning themselves primarily with domestic matters. Nor did Victorian society encourage women to be creative. Even though they were allowed to supervise their own kitchens from a distance, they were not encouraged at all to cook themselves. As philosopher John Stuart Mill wrote in 1867, society did not "allow women to have that ardent desire for celebrity" that was necessary to success in any profession. To the contrary, while men were expected to be powerful and achievement oriented, women were expected to preserve such virtues as modesty, gentility and stability.

These attitudes were carried to such an extreme that women were even barred from the ranks of gourmets. The French, almost always first to lead the ranks of male chauvinists, do not even have a female version for the word "gourmet" and Grimod de la Reyniere, the 19th century author of the "Almanach des Gourmands", agreed with many of countrymen that "women, who are light eaters and invariably become restless sitting at the diner table ... must be banished from gourmet meals".

Anyone who agrees with sociologist Robert Bierstedt, that "genius in any professional endeavor is reserved exclusively to men" is simply deluding themselves. The fact that there have not been more than a few great female chefs, just as their have not been very many great women painters or orchestra conductors has nothing to do with genetics, but is linked to a large variety of complex historical, psychological and sociological reasons. Women have written great cookbooks, have created superb new dishes and have even invented entire new cuisines (Cajun and Creole cuisines, for example, were both created by female slaves in Louisiana). Despite this, however, status-conscious male chefs have continued to deny women access to their prestigious profession.

Nor has there been great progress in our own, more "enlightened times". While it is true that more women have entered the lower ranks of the profession (sous-chefs, conditores, dessert chefs), there has precious little increase in France, England, the United States or Israel in the ranks of women who have risen to the top of the chefs' profession. In 1952, Holiday Magazine released its first annual listing of what they considered the"100 Best Restaurants in America". Only two women were listed as the chefs in those restaurants. In 1992, forty years later, the list included only one women (Alice Waters of "Chez Panisse").

The reason that there are so few great women chefs is not that women are not capable of becoming great chefs. Nor is it that women no longer want to become chefs. The sad but simple truth is that women have not become great chefs is because the role has not been available to them. Whether male chefs are aware of it or not (and whether they are willing to face up to it or not), the vast majority of them have determined that heights of their profession, like football and war, should be an exclusively male domain.

a) Lois W. Banner: "Why Women Have Not Been Great Chefs, The South Atlantic Quarterly, Spring 1991.

b) Joseph Wechsberg, "Hors Concours: Mme. Marie-Louise Point", New Yorker, 5 Oct 63.

c) Daniel Rogov: "Israel Restaurant Guide", in Bazak Guide to Israel, 1994-95.

d) Page Smith: Daughters of the Promised Land: Women in American History, Boston University Press, 1970.

e) In 1989, to the great discomfort of many French gourmets, a group of feminists formed the first "societe des gourmettes", whose charter states that "membership will be open exclusively to women of discriminating palates".

f) Robert Bierstedt: The Social Order, Basic Books, New York, 1957.

© Daniel Rogov