A conference to address patriarchy in restaurants
August 7, 2015
by Lindsay Hutton
The glass ceiling in restaurant kitchens took a solid clog stomping in June when Kate Burnham, a Toronto pastry chef, filed a complaint with the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal against her former employers at Weslodge, a trendy, “casually refined saloon” located in Toronto.
Burnham’s application cites homophobic slurs, verbal abuse and sexual assault from her coworkers and higher-ups, including a male coworker regularly spraying hollandaise sauce in her face during Sunday brunch service, noting its similarities to male ejaculation. Hardly the vision of casual refinement.
Within days, noted Toronto-based restaurateur Jen Agg took to her weapon of choice, with a flurry of tweets resulting in the organization of Kitchen Bitches: Smashing the Patriarchy One Plate at a Time, a conference “conceived to address the suffocating patriarchy we must all endure in the world and in the world of restaurants.”
Set for September 3 in Toronto, the panels include both working chefs and a who’s-who of food writers and editors, including Peter Meehan, editor of Lucky Peach and Helen Rosner of Eater. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to a women’s shelter choosing to remain anonymous.
Statistics Canada’s most recent data pegs the male to female ratio of chefs working in Canada at 3:1. But this isn’t just about parity by numbers—woman-identified chefs are fighting to address the misogyny, heterosexism, and shitty behaviour embedded in their chosen profession.
Tickets to the conference can be purchased here. Evidently, they’re going fast.
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Lindsay Hutton lives and works in Hamilton, Ontario.
