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Naramata Inn's all-women collaboration dinner highlights female chefs amidst the ongoing sexism the industry faces

A continued lack of equality

Casey Richardson

An upcoming all-women chef collaboration dinner event at the Naramata Inn hopes to help highlight the creativity and prominence of female chefs in the restaurant industry, amidst the continuation of gender disparity.

The event, titled ‘The Future is Female,’ features well-known Vancouver chef Andrea Carlson, alongside the Naramata Inn’s female kitchen leadership team; Chef de Cuisine Stacy Johnston, Pastry Chef Liz Stevenson and Kitchen Purchaser and Forager Minette Lotz.

“The event is about female collaboration and female visibility and we're here as female chefs in the Okanagan. We have a point of view,” Johnston said.

“Well, for us to do these events, it gives us a chance to be creative in a one-off kind of way. And so we get to do things that maybe we can't always execute day in and day out in the restaurant. So I find these menus tend to push me a little bit more,” Lotz added.

Even with increasing numbers in the culinary workforce, that hasn’t necessarily translated into an increase in female representation.

A report on women in the workforce by Statistics Canada in 2017 showed that 70 per cent of women in the food industry were employed in lower-ranking jobs, with men taking the lead in chef positions.

“It's very important because I would say traditionally, women in our business do not get the same media coverage as men. And so this is an opportunity for us to do something that brings us some visibility,” she said.

“It's still a challenge. It's gotten much better than it was. I think gender parity in hospitality is still a little bit behind other industries. But we are making strides, we are doing what we can, I think fundamentally, at this point. It's not that women are not in kitchens, it's just that we lacked the visibility of our male peers.

Lotz added that the inequality goes deeper for the BIPOC community.

“We obviously could do a better job of representing everyone equally. But these types of events, I hope and think are gaining popularity and they're really important. They give a chance for females of all ages in the industry to show their point of view,” she said.

“I think that there are hundreds of years of history of oppression in the kitchen and so that's going to take more than a few dinners to overcome, but we're on the right path.”

The career history of these leaders shows why they've been able to reach where they are today, despite being in a kitchen or an industry that wasn’t as supportive.

“Not only are the women that we're working with for this dinner, extremely talented, but they have a very specific voice. We all focus intensely on food sustainability, the food systems, and working with farmers. I think that's a voice that needs to be amplified specifically when our food system coming out of COVID has become so fragile,” Johnston said.

All three shared that they hoped that putting on events like these and gaining a spotlight will empower young females to choose to enter this industry.

“We're hoping that doing things like this, showing that we are here and that we're visible, and that we are a very important part of not just the kitchen identity, but the Canadian culinary identity. It's just so important to be that visibility for the younger generation,” Johnston said.

The Naramata Inn team encourages others to continue to uplift women in the industry.

“I would love to not be a female chef, I would just love to be a chef. And as my lovely wife would say, ‘Food has no gender.’ What we put on the plate, whether it's a male chef, a female chef, [or] a non-binary chef, the customer doesn't experience that any differently. I would love to just be able to stand as a chef, not as just a female chef. So I hope the future of the industry is equity,” Lotz said.

“For that to happen, we need allies, we need our peers to support us and showcase us,” Stevenson added.

“It's really about creating a platform for women and hospitality, that is what is needed.”

There are still a few tickets available to The Future is Female event on Monday, Oc. 3, which can be found online here.



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