廚房里的性別歧視正在坍塌

廚房里的性別歧視正在坍塌

Last week at Marea, a New York haunt of the powerful and the polished, Lauren DeSteno moved up from executive sous-chef to chef de cuisine. It may sound like a mere tweak of a title, but in a small way it is revolutionary.

在紐約權(quán)貴們經(jīng)常去的馬雷亞(Marea)餐館，勞倫·德斯特諾(Lauren DeSteno)上周從執(zhí)行副主廚晉升為烹飪主廚。這聽起來好像只是頭銜上稍有不同，但它卻是一場小小的革命。

The promotion puts her in charge of one of the highest-earning kitchens in New York, where four male sous-chefs and 20 other cooks report to her. And though previous generations of female chefs had to fight past widespread sexism and a locker-room work culture to reach the top, at 31 Ms. DeSteno is calm, confident and entirely unsurprised by her success.

晉升之后，她開始掌管紐約最賺錢的一個廚房，四名男性副主廚和另外20名廚師聽命于她。雖然前幾代女主廚必須與普遍存在的性別歧視和一種更衣室工作文化抗爭才能登上頂端，31歲的德斯特諾冷靜、自信，對自己的成功完全沒有感到意外。

“In a good kitchen,” she said (and she has worked at some bad ones), “male and female really doesn’t matter anymore. You get the work done, you handle yourself professionally — because kitchens can still be crazy places — and you go home.”

“在好廚房里，”她說(她曾在一些糟糕的廚房待過)，“是男是女真的無所謂。你把活兒干好，表現(xiàn)出端正的職業(yè)態(tài)度——因為廚房仍然可能是個瘋狂的地方——然后你下班回家。”

Ms. DeSteno is living an idea whose time may have finally come: that one’s sex has nothing to do with the real work of a chef. In baby steps, the American restaurant kitchen, a high-pressure arena that still bears the image of the tough-talking, pot-throwing male cook, is beginning to reflect that idea, especially in the places where the most promising young chefs try to get a foot in the door.

德斯特諾正在實踐一個理念，這個理念得以推行的時機也許終于到來了：那就是性別與主廚真正的工作無關(guān)。美國餐館的廚房是個壓力很大的地方，仍有講話粗魯、扔鍋摔碗的男廚師，不過它已經(jīng)開始初步體現(xiàn)這個理念，特別是在大多數(shù)有前途的年輕主廚們努力想加入的廚房。

A leading kitchen run by a woman is no longer newsworthy. But it is not quite commonplace, either; the tag “female chef” is still applied to Anita Lo, Barbara Lynch, April Bloomfield, Dominique Crenn (the first woman in North America to have a restaurant with two Michelin stars) and dozens of others. Certainly the most visible chefs are men, a fact made clear in November by a Time magazine spread that showcased its choice of the world’s most influential chefs, with not a woman among them.

女人掌管一流廚房已經(jīng)不再是什么新聞。但也并非常見。“女大廚”這個標簽仍被用于稱呼安妮塔·羅(Anita Lo)、芭芭拉·林奇(Barbara Lynch)、阿普麗爾·布魯姆菲爾德(April Bloomfield)、多米尼克·克朗(Dominique Crenn，北美第一個擁有一家米其林二星餐廳的女人)和其他幾十個女人。當然最著名的大廚都是男性，《時代》雜志11月份的一篇橫貫兩版的文章表明了這個事實，在它選出的世界上最有影響力的大廚中沒有一個女性。

But even though male chefs are still more prevalent in professional kitchens, particularly at the highest and lowest rungs of the industry, a new vanguard of American women like Ms. DeSteno is coming up right behind them. More than ever, women are filling the second- or third-tier jobs (chef de cuisine, executive sous-chef) that will produce the next generation of leaders in the nation’s best restaurants, according to statistics and interviews. And more women are entering the pipeline at elite culinary schools.

不過盡管專業(yè)廚房仍以男性大廚們?yōu)橹?，特別是在這個行業(yè)最高檔和最低檔的階層里，但是像德斯特諾這樣的美國新先鋒女性正緊隨其后。根據(jù)數(shù)據(jù)和采訪，女性正在填充第二或第三階層的職位(烹飪主廚、執(zhí)行副主廚)，這些職位將孕育出美國最棒的餐廳的下一代領(lǐng)導(dǎo)者。而且有更多女性正在進入精英烹飪學(xué)校學(xué)習(xí)。

The reasons are many: High-end restaurants, which like others have historically lagged in providing health insurance, paid vacations and competitive wages for their employees, are becoming more corporate and professional; even a T-shirt-wearing, cheerfully profane chef like David Chang has a human resources team and offers paid maternity leave. An exploding food industry has created many new entry points for women, who once were largely limited to the “pink ghetto” of the pastry chef; that part of the business alone has grown so much in prestige and profitability that opportunities there have snowballed. And women themselves are pushing for the jobs, conditions and recognition they want.

原因有很多：高檔餐廳和其他餐廳一樣，過去不愿意給員工提供醫(yī)療保險、帶薪假期和有競爭力的薪水，但是現(xiàn)在它們更像公司，更加職業(yè)化。甚至像大衛(wèi)·常(David Chang)這樣經(jīng)常穿T恤、快樂世俗的大廚都有人力資源團隊，提供帶薪產(chǎn)假。蓬勃發(fā)展的食品行業(yè)為女性提供了很多新的入職點，女性過去大多最高能成為糕點大廚這樣的粉領(lǐng)族。單是糕點業(yè)也在聲譽和盈利能力方面增長了很多，就業(yè)機會隨之暴增。女性本身也在追求她們想要的工作、條件和認可。

“A lot of jobs have tough schedules; a lot of jobs are physically demanding,” Ms. DeSteno said. “Nurses work weird hours. Police officers have hard jobs. You deal with it.”

“很多工作的時間安排很緊張;很多工作對體力的要求很高，”德斯特諾說，“護士們的工作時間很不尋常。警察的工作很艱苦。你得應(yīng)付這些情況。”

Tracking restaurant workers by gender is not easy in a $683 billion industry that employs about one in 10 of all Americans. Many of those are part-time or transient workers, and even the most expensive restaurants have extremely high rates of job turnover, as a new national study showed last week. But recently, some of the country’s fastest-growing and most carefully run restaurant companies — including Union Square Hospitality Group, Barbara Lynch Gruppo, Altamarea Group, the Batali & Bastianich Hospitality Group and Think Food Group — provided a head count of men and women cooking in their restaurants, from line cooks to executive chefs. (Front-of-house employees like waitresses and managers were not included.)

追蹤餐廳工作者的性別不容易，因為這個行業(yè)的產(chǎn)值高達6830億美元，約有十分之一的美國人在這個行業(yè)工作。上周一份新的國情調(diào)查表明，其中很多人是做兼職或者短暫從事該行業(yè)，甚至連最昂貴的餐廳的人員流動率也很高。但是最近，美國發(fā)展最快、經(jīng)營最謹慎的一些餐飲公司，包括聯(lián)合廣場餐飲集團(Union Square Hospitality Group)、芭芭拉·林奇集團(Barbara Lynch Gruppo)、Altamarea集團、Batali & Bastianich餐飲集團和Think Food集團，對自家餐廳的廚師進行了調(diào)查，從一線廚師到執(zhí)行大廚(前廳的員工，比如服務(wù)員和經(jīng)理，不在調(diào)查之列)。

The numbers showed that 30 to 50 percent of the culinary staff in all those groups are women. And those companies run many kitchens where the next generation of chefs most want to work, places like Animal in Los Angeles; Lucques in West Hollywood, Calif.; Gramercy Tavern and Del Posto in New York; Toro and Menton in Boston; Minibar in Washington; Michael Mina in San Francisco; and Le Pigeon in Portland, Ore. One-third may not seem a large proportion, but chefs say it is a quantum leap from even the recent past.

數(shù)據(jù)顯示，這些集團的廚房員工中有30%至50%是女性。這些公司經(jīng)營的很多餐廳是下一代大廚們最想去工作的地方，比如洛杉磯的動物(Animal)餐廳，加利福尼亞州西好萊塢的Lucques餐廳，紐約的謝來喜酒館(Gramercy Tavern)和Del Posto餐廳，波士頓的Toro餐廳和Menton餐廳，華盛頓的迷你吧(Minibar)餐廳，舊金山的邁克爾·米納(Michael Mina)餐廳，以及俄勒岡州波特蘭市的鴿子(Le Pigeon)餐廳。三分之一也許聽起來不是個很大的比例，但是大廚們說甚至和不久前相比，這都是個巨大突破。

“For the first 10 years of my career, I was the only woman in every kitchen I worked in,” said Michelle Bernstein, 44, the chef and owner of Michy’s in Miami, who started out in the 1980s. “And that was true for all the other women I knew.”

“在我從業(yè)的頭十年，我是我工作過的所有廚房里唯一的女性，”44歲的米歇爾·伯恩斯坦(Michelle Bernstein)說。她是邁阿密Michy’s餐廳的大廚兼老板，20世紀80年代開始從業(yè)。“我認識的其他女廚師都是這種情況。”

In culinary schools, women have long made up the majority in pastry courses, but are now entering general culinary programs at unprecedented rates. At the International Culinary Center (formerly the French Culinary Institute), the change has been striking: In 2012, nearly half the graduates of the culinary program were women — 202 of them, up from 41 in 1992. At Johnson & Wales University, the proportion of female graduates more than doubled over those two decades, and in 2012, men were the minority: 820 women and 818 men graduated that year. At the Culinary Institute of America, the percentage of female graduates rose to 36 percent in 2012 from 21 percent in 1992.

在烹飪學(xué)校，長期以來女性是糕點課程的主力軍，但是現(xiàn)在她們以空前的速度加入了綜合烹飪課程。在國際烹飪中心(International Culinary Center，前身是法國烹飪學(xué)院[French Culinary Institute])，這種變化十分顯著：2012年，烹飪項目的畢業(yè)生中差不多有一半是女性，多達202名，1992年這個數(shù)字是41名。在約翰遜&威爾士大學(xué)，女畢業(yè)生的比例在過去20年里翻了一倍多，2012年男性成了少數(shù)——女畢業(yè)生820名，男畢業(yè)生818名。在美國烹飪學(xué)院(Culinary Institute of America)，女畢業(yè)生的比例從1992年的21%增長到了2012年的36%。

Many of these women have been drawn by an industry that seems newly glamorous, lively and creative. And smartly run restaurants are making new efforts to keep them by paying more attention to employees’ needs.

這些女生中有很多被這個似乎煥發(fā)出新的魅力、活力和創(chuàng)造力的行業(yè)吸引住了。善于經(jīng)營的餐館更加關(guān)心員工的需求，努力用新方法留住她們。

Except for union jobs, most of them in hotels, restaurants are notoriously disorganized or worse about providing workers with benefits or even sick days. Staying on the line with a second-degree burn or a sliced-open thumb has been part of the macho culture of the kitchen.

除了有工會保障的工作——這些工作大多在酒店——餐館是眾所周知的混亂，或者說在給員工提供福利甚至病假方面情況更糟。二度燒傷或大拇指割傷仍然在崗已經(jīng)成為廚房男子漢氣概文化的一部分。

“At Lutèce, if you broke your leg, you leaned against a wall and finished your shift,” said Ivan Orkin, 51, the chef and owner of Ivan Ramen Slurp Shop in New York, who as a young chef agonized about whether to stick it out in prestigious kitchens or accept a low-profile job as a corporate chef, with structured hours and benefits. (He chose the latter when his first son arrived.)

“在Lutèce餐館，如果你摔斷了腿，那你就靠在墻上值完班，”51歲的伊萬·奧爾金(Ivan Orkin)說。他是紐約伊萬·拉門餐館(Ivan Ramen Slurp Shop)的大廚兼老板。他年輕時當大廚時，為在有名的廚房堅持到底還是接受公司大廚的低調(diào)工作而極其苦惱，后者的工作時間和福利比較固定(在第一個兒子出生后他選擇了后者)。

“This has been a transient industry, but the best employees are not people who want to live a transient life,” said Ahmass Fakahany, chief executive of the Altamarea Group, where 50 percent of cooks and 44 percent of all employees in its American restaurants are women. Under the culinary guidance of the chef Michael White, the company has opened 13 restaurants in five years. Altamarea employees, like Ms. DeSteno at Marea, get medical, dental and vision insurance and paid holidays.

“很多人只在這個行業(yè)短暫工作，但是最好的員工不是那些只想短暫工作一段時間的人，”Altamarea集團的首席執(zhí)行官阿馬斯·法卡哈尼(Ahmass Fakahany)說。在該集團的美國餐館里，女性占廚師的50%，占所有員工的44%。在大廚邁克爾·懷特(Michael White)的烹飪指導(dǎo)下，該公司在五年內(nèi)開了13家餐館。Altamarea集團的員工，比如馬雷亞餐館的德斯特諾，有普通醫(yī)療保險、牙科和眼科醫(yī)療保險以及帶薪假期。

At the nine branches of Momofuku in New York, employees who remain with the company for one year get free health insurance, paid vacations and maternity and paternity leave.

紐約Momofuku集團九個分店的員工們在公司工作滿一年后能夠得到免費的健康保險、帶薪假期和(陪)產(chǎn)假。

“The restaurant business has to change, to accommodate real life,” said Alice Waters, who cooked full time at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, Calif., until 1983, when her daughter, Fanny, was born. At Chez Panisse — not a typical restaurant, but an influential one — Ms. Waters has pioneered job-sharing programs between parents, instituted a six-months-off furlough system for head chefs and put time and money into building a deep bench of cooks, which allows employees to move in and out of her kitchens as their lives change.

“餐飲業(yè)必須改變，以適應(yīng)現(xiàn)實生活，”愛麗絲·沃特斯(Alice Waters)說。1983年女兒范妮(Fanny)出生前，她在加州伯克利的潘尼斯之家(Chez Panisse)做全職廚師。潘尼斯之家餐廳不是很典型，但是很有影響力。在那里，沃特斯在有孩子的員工中推行輪班制，創(chuàng)立了主廚六個月停職系統(tǒng)，花時間和金錢找了很多高水平的后備廚師，這樣員工們在生活發(fā)生變化時能夠離開或返回她的廚房。

Still, in most restaurants, benefits are a pipe dream and pay is meager. Entry-level jobs, even for chefs with culinary degrees, can pay as little as $15 an hour, once 80-hour workweeks are factored in. Last week, the first in-depth study of business practices in the American restaurant industry confirmed that low pay and job insecurity have led to an exceedingly high turnover rate, compared with other businesses. This is costly for restaurateurs and chef-owners, who contend that they cannot afford to offer higher wages or benefits.

然而，在大多數(shù)餐館，福利是白日夢，薪水很微薄。初級職位的時薪只有15美元，而且一周要工作80個小時，即使是有烹飪證書的大廚也不例外。上周，美國餐飲業(yè)的第一份商業(yè)行為深度調(diào)查證實，薪水低、缺乏安全感導(dǎo)致餐飲業(yè)的人員流動率遠遠高于其他行業(yè)。這對餐館老板或大廚兼老板來說代價很高，他們爭辯說自己付不起更高的薪水和福利。

“Women are disproportionately affected by these problems that plague the industry as a whole,” said Saru Jayaraman, co-director of Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, an employee advocacy group that conducted the study along with Cornell University, with money from the Rockefeller and Ford foundations.

“這些困擾整個行業(yè)的問題對女性的影響更大，”餐館就業(yè)機會聯(lián)合中心(Restaurant Opportunities Centers United)的聯(lián)合主任薩魯·加雅拉曼(Saru Jayaraman)說。該中心是一個員工倡議組織，它和康奈爾大學(xué)依靠洛克菲勒和福特基金會的資金一起進行了這項調(diào)查。

Hand-wringing about the low status and low numbers of women in the culinary world has been constant since professional cooking changed from a menial trade to a respectable career, beginning in the 1980s. (Today, the lack of gender diversity is not the only concern: All groups except for white men are underrepresented at the top of the profession.)

自從20世紀80年代起職業(yè)烹飪從卑微的工作變成受人尊敬的事業(yè)以來，關(guān)于廚房里女性地位低、人數(shù)少的文章絡(luò)繹不絕(如今，缺乏性別多樣性不是人們唯一關(guān)注的問題。還有個問題是在這個職業(yè)的頂尖人物中，除了白人男性，其他人種的代表不足)。

For decades, chefs of both sexes believed that inequality was inevitable. The same stereotypes used to keep women out of armed combat, off the judicial bench and out of medical school were invoked to explain why women didn’t stick it out in the kitchen. The work, it was said, is too physically demanding and psychologically grueling; the hours were too incompatible with family life.

幾十年來，男女大廚都認為這種不公平是不可避免的。曾讓女人遠離戰(zhàn)場、法庭和醫(yī)學(xué)院的成見被用來解釋為什么女人在廚房堅持不下去。這種成見認為廚師工作要求體力好，心理承受能力強，而且廚師的工作時間與家庭生活無法協(xié)調(diào)。

But a younger generation isn’t having it.

但是年輕一代不這么認為。

“Leaving was not an option for me,” said Alex Raij, 44, who owns three popular Spanish restaurants in New York with her husband, Eder Montero; the couple have two children under age 5. “I don’t know how to do anything else.” Like many of her contemporaries, she carved out a niche where she could be in charge of her own hours and her own food.

“離開不是我的選項，”44歲的亞歷克斯·拉伊(Alex Raij)說。她和丈夫埃德爾·蒙特羅(Eder Montero)在紐約擁有三家很受歡迎的西班牙餐館。他們有兩個孩子，都不到五歲。“因為我不會做別的事情。”像她的很多同齡人一樣，她開創(chuàng)了一個合適的職業(yè)，讓她既能掌控自己的時間，也能掌控自己的食物。

Many female pioneers — Jody Adams, Suzanne Goin, Odessa Piper, Lydia Shire and, until her death last year, Judy Rodgers — also stayed in their kitchens though children and divorces, fires and floods. Yet for every successful empire-builder like Barbara Lynch, who runs seven restaurants in Boston, there are a dozen Michelle Bernsteins, women who might have become the next Mario Batali or Andrew Carmellini but retreated under the pressure of being a multitasking modern chef and mother at the same time.

很多女性先鋒不管生孩子、離婚或者經(jīng)歷任何風(fēng)雨，都仍然留在廚房，比如喬迪·亞當斯(Jody Adams)、蘇珊娜·戈因(Suzanne Goin)、敖德薩·派珀(Odessa Piper)、莉迪亞·夏爾(Lydia Shire)和喬迪·羅杰斯(Judy Rodgers)。最后這位直到去年去世前一直在廚房工作。但是有一個芭芭拉·林奇，就有十多個米歇爾·伯恩斯坦——前者成功地創(chuàng)立了一個集團，在波士頓經(jīng)營七家餐館;后者本可能成為下一個馬利歐·巴塔利(Mario Batali)或安德魯·卡梅里尼(Andrew Carmellini)，但是因為既要擔當有多重任務(wù)的現(xiàn)代大廚，又要承擔母親的責任，壓力太大所以隱退了。

When her son was born, “I made a decision to pull back on restaurants and expand on other things,” said Ms. Bernstein, who at one point was in charge of four restaurants. Now she has one, Michy’s; two bakeries; and several consulting gigs that have flexible hours. “To run a restaurant with the perfectionism of a Thomas Keller is a job that takes 18 to 20 hours a day, and I’m just not going to do that.” (Many men don’t want to, either.)

伯恩斯坦曾執(zhí)掌四家餐廳。她說，兒子出生后，“我決定縮減餐館，開拓其他事業(yè)”?，F(xiàn)在她擁有一家餐館——Michy’s;兩個面包房;幾份時間靈活的咨詢工作。“經(jīng)營餐館若要像托馬斯·凱勒[Thomas Keller]那樣追求完美，每天需要工作18至20個小時，我不想那樣。”(很多男人也不想那樣。)

One big question — why even women who make it to the top rank of chefs struggle for recognition — has often been posed, and never fully answered.

有個大問題經(jīng)常被提出，卻從未得到完滿的答案：為什么連頂級女大廚也要努力爭取知名度?

It’s true that male chefs get more media attention than their female colleagues — especially on the global stage, now dominated by clubby events like Cook It Raw and power lists like the World’s 50 Best, where female chefs are still a tiny minority. There have been conferences and doctoral dissertations on the subject; support networks like Women Chefs and Restaurateurs, and Les Dames d’Escoffier; and a flash mob of female chefs in Boston who showed up at a food festival in October just to demonstrate their sheer numbers.

男大廚的確比女大廚得到更多的媒體關(guān)注，特別是在全球舞臺上，這個舞臺現(xiàn)在被Cook It Raw這樣的小圈子活動和全球50佳(the World’s 50 Best)這樣的權(quán)力排行榜所主導(dǎo)，在這個榜單上女大廚是極少數(shù)。有些會議和博士論文是關(guān)于這個主題的;像Women Chefs and Restaurateurs和Les Dames d’Escoffier這樣的組織在支持女大廚;波士頓還有女大廚快閃族，10月份她們在一個美食節(jié)上突然現(xiàn)身，只是為了展示她們?nèi)藬?shù)眾多。

Many others were galvanized by the recent Time magazine spread, which arrived in American restaurant kitchens like a blast of ice water, chilling the women who have seen real change.

還有其他很多人受到了《時代》雜志上那篇文章的刺激，它像一盆冰水，潑到了美國餐館的廚房，涼透了那些看到真實改變的女大廚們的心。

“It simply did not reflect the reality that we see in the industry every day,” said Amanda Cohen, the chef and owner of Dirt Candy in New York, who wrote a scathing riposte on the food blog Eater.

“它沒有反映出我們每天在這個行業(yè)看到的事實，”紐約Dirt Candy餐館的大廚兼老板阿曼達·科恩(Amanda Cohen)說。她在美食博客Eater上寫了一篇尖銳的反駁文章。

“It was a turning point,” said Kerry Diamond, a founder of the female-focused food magazine Cherry Bombe, which had published its first issue, financed by a successful Kickstarter campaign, when the Time article appeared. “And now food is definitely having a feminist moment.”

“它是個轉(zhuǎn)折點，”凱莉·戴蒙德(Kerry Diamond)說。她是面向女性的美食雜志《Cherry Bombe》的創(chuàng)始人之一?！稌r代》雜志的文章刊登后，《Cherry Bombe》通過Kickstarter成功籌資出版了第一期。“現(xiàn)在美食無疑正在經(jīng)歷一個女權(quán)主義時刻。”

One example is the recent founding of the Toklas Society, a network for women who work in the restaurant industry including some chefs, but also many women whose jobs are high on glamour but low on pay and job security: chefs’ assistants, publicity managers, event planners and administrators. As cooking has become a more creative field, more educated women have flooded into the business, looking not for a job but for a career; the Toklas Society aims to help them find a way in.

其中一個例子是最近成立的托克拉斯協(xié)會(Toklas Society)，該協(xié)會服務(wù)于在餐飲業(yè)工作的女性，不僅包括大廚，還包括其他一些女人，她們從事那些看起來光鮮但是薪水低、沒有保障的工作：大廚助理、公關(guān)經(jīng)理、活動策劃人和行政主管。烹飪已變成一個更有創(chuàng)造力的領(lǐng)域，所以更多受過教育的女性涌入這個行業(yè)，不是為了找一份工作，而是為了獲得一個事業(yè)。托克拉斯協(xié)會旨在幫助她們找到入門路徑。

“No matter how much of a strong feminist you are, it is hard to work in such a male-dominated industry,” said Sue Chan, the group’s founder, who has worked in the Momofuku group since 2004. She decided to name the group after Alice B. Toklas, the woman who cooked and kept house while her partner, the writer Gertrude Stein, received the world’s accolades.

“不管你是個多么堅決的女權(quán)主義者，都很難在這個男性主導(dǎo)的行業(yè)工作，”該協(xié)會的創(chuàng)始人休·陳(Sue Chan)說。她從2004年起在Momofuku集團工作。她決定用愛麗絲·B·托克拉斯(Alice B. Toklas)的名字給協(xié)會命名。托克拉斯負責做飯、整理家務(wù)，而她的伴侶、作家格特魯?shù)?middot;斯泰因(Gertrude Stein)卻受到了全世界的贊美。

“We are the quiet power behind the throne,” Ms. Chan said. “But sometimes everyone gets tired of being quiet.”

“我們是默默無聞的幕后者，”陳說，“但是有時誰都會厭倦默默無聞。”