Sex in the Kitchen: Changing Gender Roles in a Female-Dominated Occupation

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to provide a gender entrepreneurship slant to the revolving landscape in the 'culinary underbelly'. The primary aim of this conceptual study is to extend the boundaries of the identified female-dominated occupations beyond the usual suspects – i.e., social work, nursing, elementary school teacher, etc., to the kitchen as the identity of chef life is brought into the discourse. While the study arguably heeds the call to explore occupational segregation in the light of gender and ethnicity, its main emphasis has been towards building upon prior studies on occupational sex-segregation rather than the ethnicity dimension, which was not explored in this study. While this might be a limitation, it does provide the right foundation for future research in the explored area.

Keywords: chef identity, occupational segregation, gender entrepreneurship, celebrity chefs, glass escalator, male chefs, men, women, sexes, kitchens, cooking, cookery, culinary aspects, changing roles, gender roles, female-dominated occupations, ethnicity, sex-segregation, catering, United Kingdom

JEL Classification: J710, J790, J820, O520