By LIBBY MIDDLEBROOK
Gordon Ramsey is the sort of guy you'd like to gag with a rancid dishmop.
But you'd have to catch his flapping foul-mouth first.
The British chef who featured on the Ramsey's Boiling Point TV show dished out so much abuse to kitchen workers that you wondered why he had any staff at all.
It's the sort of intimidating behaviour being blamed for the high drop-out rate of women from the New Zealand food service industry.
Talented women chefs are also being prevented from moving up the ranks of commercial kitchens because of the macho, boys-club culture, said Judith Tabron, general manager of Auckland restaurant Mikano.
"The lack of achievement and the drop-out rate of women is just getting ridiculous, we're losing a huge pool of talent."
While women comprise more than half of the nation's thousands of hospitality students, they have only a pinch of the head-chef and senior management positions in restaurants, cafes and hotel and conference kitchens.
More than 90 per cent of senior jobs, some with salaries of $100,000-plus, are filled by men, leaving the majority of women's careers routinely undercooked.
Ms Tabron, who raised the issue at the New Zealand Chefs' and Foodwriters' Conference last month, said many female chefs had little patience for the trade's chauvinistic culture and left the industry within a few years of their training. "When I was an apprentice I used to arrive at work each day and a guy used to tweak my nipples," said Ms Tabron, who has 23 years' experience in the industry.
"Another common one is while you're bending, you're told, 'while you're down there ... ' It's sexism, there gets a point where women just can't be bothered."
Aucklander Angela Upchurch is just one female chef who recently opted to leave the commercial kitchen. The 27-year-old now lectures part-time at the Manukau Institute of Technology after around ten years in the industry.
Ms Upchurch, who has missed out a head-chef position because of her gender, said education presented better career opportunities, improved pay and hours and a more professional working environment.
"They [male chefs] are very vulgar. The stuff that goes on is just unbelievable. I've always taken that with a grain of salt, but I don't think it's necessary."
Macho, sexist behaviour of male chefs is accepted in commercial kitchens around the globe, says Martin Harrap, the president of the New Zealand Chefs Association.
Women had to behave "more like men" to achieve. Some of his head-chef colleagues believed females were capable only of scrubbing dishes.
"It can be pretty terrible. Some say women suffer from a problem every month as well."
Sky City executive chef Warren Bias, who manages more than 70 chefs, is trying to shift away from old-school kitchen behaviour.
Mr Bias, who employs no management-level female chefs, said talented cooks were becoming harder to find and abusive behaviour was not tolerated in his kitchen.
"I've worked under that regime to know you can manage people with a carrot or a stick, and a carrot's often better."
Not all female chefs, however, are bothered by discriminatory remarks or stroppy chefs.
"I think a lot of it is people going along with this PC [politically correct] thing," said junior Sky City chef Cherie Thomas.
"There are jokes like 'what shall we do if the lights go out? Let the bitch do the dishes.' You just give it back to them."
But Ms Tabron said the largest challenge was convincing trainee chefs, both male and female, that sexism, abuse and temperamental behaviour was unacceptable.
She believed television programmes such as AUT's Service with a Smile and the Gordon Ramsey show highlighted some of the main reasons behind women's dropping out of the hospitality industry.
"The degrading of trainees as a teaching method is outdated and reeks of the attitudes present in the commercial kitchens of my apprenticeship in the 70s."
Ted Bryant, head of AUT's School of Hospitality and Restaurant Studies, said lecturers did not endorse sexist behaviour or threatening language.
Too many macho chefs spoil broth for women
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