Women Upscale Restaurant

Women Upscale Restaurant

Women Upscale Restaurant

Introduction

It was only 25 years ago, but the world was a different place, says Chef Ann Cooper. Women were an anomaly among restaurant professionals in 1977 when she entered The Culinary Institute of America (CIA) in Hyde Park, N.Y., at age 24. “It was really sort of shocking for me,” says Cooper. “All the male chef/instructors were European and brought with them biases about women in the kitchen.” (Kagan 2002 41)There were only about five other women in her class, and she had no female culinary instructors.

When Cooper went to interview for jobs prior to graduating in 1978, she faced more discrimination from potential employers. “They said, 'We don't interview women. We don't hire women for the kitchen.'” She eventually landed a job with Holland America Cruise Line as one of its first female cooks. With no housing set aside for female cooks, Holland America had to make special arrangements for Cooper.

“That was a long time ago. It's very, very different now,” says Cooper, executive chef of The Ross School in East Hampton, N.Y., and consulting chef for The Putney Inn in Putney, Vt. She also serves as president of Women Chefs and Restaurateurs—a Louisville, Ky.-based organization that promotes the advancement of women in the industry. “The discrimination is waning and in many places doesn't exist anymore,” says Cooper, author of the book A Woman's Place Is in the Kitchen: The Evolution of Women Chefs. (Kagan 2002 53)

National Restaurant Association Board Member Barbara Timm-Brock agrees the industry has become more inclusive during the past decade. “Early in my career, I saw all sorts of traditional discrimination,” says Timm-Brock, chief operating officer for Church's Chicken, a division of Atlanta-based AFC Enterprises, Inc. (Kagan 2002 59)Timm-Brock is also chairman emeritus of the Women's Foodservice Forum (WFF), a Chicago-based organization dedicated to increasing the presence of women in senior-level industry positions. When she started in the industry 10 years ago at Dallas-based Pizza Hut, she was responsible for developing global programs and improving product quality.

Today women comprise more than half of the industry's employees. Fifty-eight percent of food-preparation and -service employees are women, according to a 1999 report by New York City-based Catalyst, a nonprofit research-and-advisory organization that works to advance women in business. Nevertheless, women are still underrepresented in the industry's top spheres, reports Catalyst. Women make up only 14 percent of the industry's corporate officers, 8 percent of its board of directors and 4 percent of its highest titles, according to the Catalyst report A Census of Women in Foodservice.

But thanks to the hard work of female and male pioneers, the ranks of women restaurant professionals are growing and many companies are actively helping women climb the career ladder.

Place for Women

It's partly a matter of time before women work their way up the ranks, says Kris Horacek, regional vice president for extended-stay lodging for Marriott International's Northeast region. There are a lot of men in leadership positions, “and most aren't going to retire any time soon,” ...