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10 Chefs, Brewmasters And Sommeliers Talk Sexism In The Food Industry

Women from across the country share their stories.

10 Chefs, Brewmasters And Sommeliers Talk Sexism In The Food Industry

This month, Toronto will host two awesome women-focused food events: The Dinner Party, hosted by The Drake, and Chatelaine’s The Big Dish, a day-long gathering featuring incredible female talent in the Canadian hospitality industry.

In recent years, women-focused groups and events for food- and drink-obsessives have been popping up across the country, including the Pink Boots Society (for lady beer lovers, with chapters in Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto) and Women Who Whiskey (a women-only whiskey appreciation group with chapters in Toronto and Waterloo). And in 2015, Jen Agg, Toronto restaurateur and author of I Hear She’s a Real Bitch, spearheaded an event called Kitchen Bitches: Smashing the Patriarchy One Plate at a Time in response to allegations of “rampant” and “unrelenting” sexual harassment and abuse at a trendy downtown Toronto restaurant.

While some of these initiatives address sexism and harassment head on, others are creating safe and inclusive places for women to celebrate passions that are traditionally male-dominated. But there’s still more work to be done.

Chatelaine's sister publication, Flare, spoke to 10 diverse women in hospitality to learn more about their experiences with sexism and racism in bars and kitchens across Canada — and what they’re doing to help fellow female colleagues thrive. Their stories range from blatant examples of sexism to less overt instances, but they have one thing in common: these are all women who love their work and won’t let industry misogyny stop them.

sexism in food industry – FLARE repost

“I’ve been called a ‘female chef’ more than an actual chef” — Alexandra Feswick, chef de cuisine at The Drake Hotel in Toronto

10 Chefs, Brewmasters And Sommeliers Talk Sexism In The Food Industry(photo, Alexandra Feswick)

“When I’m one of 100 women at a beer event where there are 4,000 guys, I don’t feel safe.” — Ren Navarro, co-founder of the Society for Beer Drinking Ladies and sales representative for Redline Brewhouse in Kitchener/Barrie, Ont.

“Do you really like drinking beer?” is a question that Ren Navarro would often get asked in her first job in craft beer. It was the early days of the industry and it was rare to see women working at breweries, let alone women of colour leading tours and pouring samples.  

“Male reps weren’t getting asked that,” Navarro says. “It’s a silly question. You don’t go into a bank and start asking math questions.”

Previously, Navarro worked in finance and insurance but made the switch to work in beer approximately five years ago. In that time, she’s seen the industry slowly reflect a more diverse population but thinks there’s still huge room for improvement — especially when it comes to including Black people and women. As one of the founders of the Society for Beer Drinking Ladies, a monthly women-only craft beer event in Toronto, she has seen a real appetite for women-focused beer events, with the biggest SOBDL gathering drawing well over 1,000 people. Still, some men don’t get it.

“SOBDL still gets backlash from guys who are like, ‘Why do you need these events?’ I have to explain that when I’m one of 100 women at a beer event where there are 4,000 guys, I don’t feel safe. This is especially true as a woman of colour and a queer woman.”

Navarro was featured on the cover for NOW Magazine’s beer issue earlier this year. Inside the Toronto weekly, she was photographed wearing a T-shirt saying “Black People Love Beer.” It’s a point that’s close to her. While there are more female-led breweries in Canada, especially on the West Coast, it is people of colour that are often left unseen in the craft beer world. 

“There are bigger problems out there, I know. President 45 is steering us to mass destruction, but at the same time, this is the industry that I love,” she says. “These people in beer are my peers and my family. It’s just like, Why aren’t there more of me here?

10 Chefs, Brewmasters And Sommeliers Talk Sexism In The Food Industry(Photo, Ren Navarro)

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“Being told that, because I had big tits, hair and an ass, it was my duty to sell myself to get tips, had a lasting effect on my sexual identity” — Viktoria Belle, co-founder of Dandelion Initiative in Toronto

Viktoria Belle started working as a bartender in Toronto at 19. Estranged from her family and fending for herself, she was forced to wear revealing clothing to appease male patrons.

“I was treated like an object and put on display for men, just so I could make money and pay rent.” The experience was especially difficult for Belle, who came out as a queer person at the age of 13.

“Being told that, because I had big tits, hair and an ass, it was my duty was to sell myself to get tips, had a lasting effect on my sexual identity,” she says. She felt suffocated and made to feel like her gayness was inherently wrong for almost a decade. “I thought, why fight it? It led me down a path of dating men for 10 years. It was a horrible way to exist.”

Belle eventually left the hospitality industry and now works in public policy. Two years ago, while walking home from her local bar, she was raped. It happened just a block from her house and the incident resurrected the trauma she dealt with as a young bartender.

“I realized all of these experiences are connected, so I started organizing Dandelion Initiative with a partner at the time.”

The Dandelion Initiative is a non-profit, community-led group that wants to put an end to sexual violence by spreading awareness and educating the industry.

One of the Initiative’s early campaigns involved getting Toronto’s College Street Bar’s liquor license revoked after its owner and one of its employees were charged with forcible confinement and sexual assault. Since then, the Initiative launched The Safe Bars Project, which aims to improve the culture at bars and restaurants across Ontario by providing anti-harassment training and helping develop policies to make them inclusive, safe spaces.

“We talk about holding bars accountable but we often forget these are young workers who may be survivors themselves, and they might not have tools to make them safe spaces,” she says. “This is about empowering them, not punishing them.”

The reception to The Safe Bars Project has been incredible, Belle says, and she credits establishments like The Drake Hotel for being early supporters and vocal advocates for the program.

More than a decade after she started working in the industry, Belle recognizes there is a lot of work to be done but is optimistic about Toronto’s bar scene.

“How lucky we are to have bars in the city that celebrate queerness and gayness and create safe spaces for young people to express themselves authentically? I didn’t have that and I’m so proud and grateful that exists for other people,” Belle says. “We get into jobs especially in bars and restaurants, to get us through school. The idea that we have to be attractive to men is so harmful. How do you transform that history of treatment of people? We start by changing education.”

10 Chefs, Brewmasters And Sommeliers Talk Sexism In The Food Industry (Photo, Jessica Laforet Photography)

“This whole #MeToo thing has me re-examining previous experiences” — Julia Hanlon, head brewmaster at Steamworks in Vancouver

Julia Hanlon has always worked in predominantly male industries. As a trained chemical engineer, she worked in pulp and paper, mining and research, before deciding to put her skills toward something she felt more passionate about: beer. She applied to a training program at Molson, which had the only brewery in Vancouver at the time, and stayed there for 10 years as she gained experience in everything from brewing to supply-chain management.

“Despite assumptions you might make about the industry, Molson was actively promoting women,” Hanlon says. “There were and still are by far and away a lot more men in leadership. There still haven’t been any female brewmasters at the Molson or Coors breweries, but there were women in leadership positions.”

Drawn by the opportunity to be more creative with beer, Hanlon joined Vancouver’s Steamworks Brewery two-and-a-half years ago as its head brewmaster. As one of the more prominent women in the Canadian craft beer industry, she is asked about sexism regularly. Hanlon agrees that major beer brands still rely on sexy marketing tactics geared toward straight men, and some beer labels can be sexist, but she says the culture is a lot better in the craft community. While she says she doesn’t feel like she’s experienced serious barriers as a woman, recent events about the prevalence of sexist behaviour in the workplace have her wondering if she, like many women, has become unconsciously used to it.

“This whole #MeToo thing has me re-examining previous experiences,” she says about the hashtag that many women have been using on social media to share their experiences of sexual assault and harassment. “I have been thinking about how many times I had to awkwardly laugh off an inappropriate joke at work. When I think about times I’ve been in those situations earlier in my career and while I was in school, those things happened. Even my husband pointed out a few times when it happened while he was with me. It has made me think a lot.”

10 Chefs, Brewmasters And Sommeliers Talk Sexism In The Food Industry(Photo, Julia Hanlon)

“They would say, ‘Use the white man’s tools. It’s a white man’s world out there.” — Cezin Nottaway, chef and owner at Wawatay Catering in Maniwaki, Q.C.

“I was told in high school by my [white] teacher that I wasn’t going to amount to anything,” says Cezin Nottaway. The chef was raised in the Anishinabe First Nation community in Quebec, the daughter of residential school survivors. The community suffers from a plight of issues including alcohol and drug abuse, and higher rates of sexual assault, she says.

“Where I’m from, it’s pretty much like a third world. We’re not highly educated. We’re rich in culture, but not rich in education.”

Nottaway graduated from the culinary arts and management program at Algonquin College in Ottawa and went on to work at restaurants and a rehab centre that served the Indigenous community. She says wherever she worked, she would always be told she wouldn’t amount to anything — whether it was because she was a woman or because she came from a reserve. Still, Nottaway persevered. She eventually started her own business as a caterer specializing in food with an Anishinabe twist.

Nottaway credits the strong women in her family, her mother and mother-in-law, for keeping her focused and driving her to succeed. Despite her mother’s experience with residential schools, she taught Nottaway the value of education and hard work.

“My mother-in-law and my mom still believed in the education system. They would say, ‘Use the white man’s tools. It’s a white man’s world out there. Use what they teach you to get out of poverty.’”

10 Chefs, Brewmasters And Sommeliers Talk Sexism In The Food Industry(Photo, Alice Beaudoin)

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“I’ve always had a thicker skin because there was always someone treating me differently because of the colour of my skin” — Suzanne Barr, chef and restaurateur in Toronto

Suzanne Barr has lived and worked in Miami, New York, Maui and Paris, but now she calls Toronto home. As a woman of colour, she stands out in the hospitality industry, but she says it has never deterred her from her chosen path.

“I grew up in Florida in a predominantly white neighbourhood. I’ve always had a thicker skin because there was always someone treating me differently because of the colour of my skin,” she says. “So the fact that the culinary industry is predominately white males would never be something that prevented me from pursuing a career in it.”

Her gender hasn’t stopped Barr from moving forward either. She says she’s faced sexism often in the form of extra questioning from other chefs, who may not trust her skills. It it wasn’t just white chefs, either — Black male chefs were just as hard on her, often second-guessing her knowledge or her ability to physically keep up in the kitchen.

“I always had to show them that I could do everything they could,” says Barr. “They could never say that my work ethic is questionable.”

That drive helped Barr open Saturday Dinette — her first restaurant in Toronto — while still relatively new to the city. The day the modern diner opened, she found out she was pregnant.

“As I was going through the restaurant’s early days, my pregnancy made an impact and started a conversation. People were like, ‘Have you heard about this chef on the east end [of] who is running a restaurant while pregnant?’”

With Saturday Dinette, Barr started The Dinettes program, which trains aspiring female chefs. She partnered with the local YMCA to find young women interested in learning skills for the restaurant industry. Many of the program’s graduates now work in the industry. Saturday Dinette has since closed, but Barr wants to a create a more permanent Dinettes program soon. Right now, she’s juggling work as the chef-in-residence at The Gladstone Hotel while opening a new lunch counter and cocktail bar, Kid Chocolate. She is currently looking for an all-in-one facility that combines a classroom environment with a working kitchen and café for a future training program.

10 Chefs, Brewmasters And Sommeliers Talk Sexism In The Food Industry(Photo, Suzanne Barr)

“I want my staff to be able to create a career and build a home of their own” — Jenna Mooers, restaurateur in Halifax

While most chefs and restaurateurs Flare spoke to had to go out of their way to find female mentors early in their early careers, Jenna Mooers got her first taste of running restaurants as a teenager. She remembers painting chairs the night before her mother Jane Wright opened Jane’s On The Common. The restaurant would become a beloved Halifax institution, largely credited with introducing farm-to-table dining to the city.

Although she had spent many years during university working as a server in Montreal, she never thought she would be opening her own restaurant, Edna, a decade later. Mooers credits her mom and Clara Barron, one of her mentors and managers in Montreal, for establishing positive work environments. Thanks to them, she says she has largely avoided the sexist restaurant experiences that many other women report. Today she models her restaurant around what Wright and Barron taught her.

“I was really fortunate because I worked for my mom and Clara and both focused on creating environments of trust. In the industry, there’s the dichotomy of environments of trust versus environments of fear,” says Mooers. “ I had the experience working in an environment of fear. The leaders ruled over staff instead of building them up. I dreaded going to work every day. That experience is something I’ve taken with me. I want to build places where I and my staff want to come to work every day.”

In the spirit of taking care of her staff, Mooers followed her mother’s example.

“My mom put a big importance on organizational culture. From day one she had medical and dental benefits for her staff. This is starting to be more common, but back in 2004, it was unheard of,” Mooers says. “What my mom wanted was for her staff to create a career out of their jobs at her business”

Mooers has carried on with this approach at Edna. There are medical and dental benefits for staff and their families, as well as an equitable tip sharing program.

“When I interview potential hires and tell them about the benefits, their jaws drop,” says Mooers. “But I want my staff to be able to create a career and build a home doing what they’re doing with Edna.”

10 Chefs, Brewmasters And Sommeliers Talk Sexism In The Food Industry(Photo, Riley Smith)

“For the most part, I’m extremely lucky, I’ve never experienced obstacles based on sexism.” — Missy Hui, chef de cuisine at Fabbrica in Toronto

As the chef de cuisine at Fabbrica, Missy Hui participated in Alexandra Feswick’s first-ever The Dinner Party back in 2012, hoping to meet new people — especially other women in the industry. She had female role models when she was coming up as a young chef, but she learned of them through books and television, not IRL mentoring. There weren’t, at the time, many women she could work for. Still, her experience in predominantly corporate properties has ultimately been positive, she says.

The kitchen at Fabbrica, a McEwan Group resto, is 50 percent female and very professional, says Hui, and she suggests that there may even be more transparency because it’s a corporate-owned restaurant. All of her recent interns from culinary schools have been women, with one student even telling her she specifically sought out a female-run kitchen.

All of the McEwan Group’s executive chefs are male, but Hui doesn’t believe that there is a glass ceiling at the company, citing the success of Ivana Raca, who rose through the ranks at North 44, McEwan’s iconic fine-dining destination, and ultimately became the sous chef at McEwan’s ONE, a Toronto hotspot.

“The guys I’ve been surrounded by, for the most part, are stand-up guys. I think it’s ingrained in the new Canadian identity where everyone is equal and progressive,” she says — but she stresses that not all corporate restaurants are the same.

“Other companies have been less focused. I wouldn’t say I had a bad experience because I was a woman, but they were less professional environments,” she says. “[Anthony] Bourdain popularized the idea that most outrageous things happen in kitchens. For the most part, I’m extremely lucky, I’ve never experienced obstacles based on sexism. At the end of the day, this is a skills-based profession. If you can do the job, you get the job.”

10 Chefs, Brewmasters And Sommeliers Talk Sexism In The Food Industry(Photo, Missy Hui)

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“Early on, I did have some challenges, but I took it as a human challenge not a sexism challenge.” — Jessica Harnois, sommelier and owner of Vins au Féminin in Montreal

From a young age, Jessica Harnois’s parents encouraged her to explore wine with small tastes of whatever bottle they were enjoying. She quickly became obsessed with detecting the subtle flavours of each small sip. She says the experience left such an impression that by 14, she knew she wanted a career in wine.

In the years since, Harnois has traveled the world, working at some of the world’s most famous restaurants like Toqué in Montreal, Charlie Trotter’s in Chicago and Tetsuya in Sydney. She has also been a wine buyer for the SAQ (Quebec’s crown corporation for selling alcohol); launched Bu, a wine label; and now runs Vins au Féminin, a wine event-hosting agency with all-female wine experts.

She has been able to accomplish all of this because she has never let anyone in the wine industry intimidate her.

“I know when I first arrived in Bordeaux or Italy — any place that was very macho — they didn’t take me seriously even though I was the customer. I was the buyer selling $20,000 bottles of wine and I had been working in wine my whole life,” says Harnois.

Her treatment could have been due to her gender or her age — or both. Regardless, her ambition never wavered.

“The wine industry is the best job in the world. Early on, I did have some challenges, but I took it as a human challenge not a sexism challenge. That’s super important, we can always say it’s this or that as a reason to not do something but it’s hard for everyone. I think it’s a mindset,” she says. “Yes, it is hard sometimes to be a woman in wine, but if I were a man, there would be other challenges.”

10 Chefs, Brewmasters And Sommeliers Talk Sexism In The Food Industry(Photo, Edouard De Blay)

“You can still follow your dreams and still have a family” — Connie DeSousa, chef and co-owner at Charcut in Calgary

Connie DeSousa — one of the featured keynote speakers at Chatelaine’s The Big Dish — knows she’s lucky to have experienced little sexism in her career.

Her early mentor was chef John Jackson, who is now her co-owner and co-chef at Calgary’s Charcut (they’re also co-owners of the Argentinian-inspired CharBar). Although not intentional, DeSousa says their staff is 75 percent female; what’s more, CharBar is led by a female chef, Jessica Pelland.

When Pelland joined Charcut, she was the first employee with children. “We’re very proud to have bred a culture that is supportive of chefs wanting to start families, whether you’re a woman or a man,” DeSousa says. “When John and his wife Carrie, who is also our business partner, decided to get pregnant, it shifted the whole culture. They showed that they could have a family and balance. Everyone else followed.”

When DeSousa herself became a mother, she found it difficult to overcome the expectations she had for herself as a chef. Everyone, male or female, experiences “chef’s guilt,” she says — the feeling that you have to work at least 12 hours a day to make a name for yourself. 

“You have to overcome that [as]. It’s not going to be the same as my friend who is an accountant that works 9-to-5 and gets to be at home in the evenings with her kids. But I don’t start work until 10 or 11 a.m., so I find different times and different ways to spend time with my family.”

For young women considering a career in kitchens, DeSousa encourages them to just do it. “Don’t be discouraged by things you may have heard. Myself and the female chefs that work for our company are perfect examples, you can still follow your dreams and still have a family.”

10 Chefs, Brewmasters And Sommeliers Talk Sexism In The Food IndustryDeSousa with her business partner and co-chef John Jackson (Photo, Candace Bergman)

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