Gender Bias-sharing the experience of my friend



Cooking is one important part that women have been incorporated in and women have long been connected with being in the kitchen. Ethnically, women are expected to cook in the kitchen. They are responsible for giving their family a good diet by serving hot meals on the dining table. For so many years one question pushes my mind. May be a kind of argument too.  My question-“is that a woman’s only “biological role,” is to nurture the family through her cooking”.



To the contradictory I have also observed that professional kitchens in today scenario are male dominated. I have visited numerous restaurants in India and abroad. Mostly 95% I have seen male chefs rather than finding a female chef, hardly in a few restaurants.



I believe that possibly it is due to the gender gap. It is because the world still recognizes more male chefs.



I met one of my school friend in the beginning of 2020, who is working in a famous beach restaurant in the coastal area of south part of Kerala. She told me that “in a high quality kitchen, gender is not a matter at all”. It is how we get our work done and how we handle our self professionally.



She also shared that it is a highly male-dominated space and to large extent gender discrimination prevail in the commercial kitchen. It took 7 years for her to establish in the culinary industry competing with her fellow male chefs.



She expressed her in-depth opinion saying that \"traditionally, women have forever made the cooking at home which has been viewed as domestic work and not an authentic occupation”.



Yes, obviously that is true.



In our culture, perceptions on gender serve as hindrances to women’s progress in the professional and developing world.



Still, a lot of changes can take place in all the fields when our society changes its stereotype understanding and labelling on gender. Not only in culinary field, in all other fields too.

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