@Stephen Deegan: Well done. You beat all the other idiots to make the tediously predictable comment first.

@Stephen Deegan: I’d rather they had a woman only category than a token woman in the line up. Female chefs struggle to compete with the men as the hours are appalling, great stamina required to stand in a hot kitchen all day. and the dedication involved means no family life.

@Derek Walsh Ⓥ: More tedious than his comment, was the nature of the article and award.

@fintolini: This award suggests that there was a Best Male Chef award too. Who’s to say the Male award wasn’t the token prize? Silly stupid comments!

I’m confused, am I sexist for thinking there shouldnt be a female only award or am I more sexist for thinking the women should have their own award.

@Stephen Deegan:

It’s a male dominated profession, not because of sexism, because it’s a job that generally suits the stamina and ability to deal with stress that suits men much better.
I’ve worked with many female Chefs over the last 32 years, I’ve hired both males and females, however I’ve found by enlarge men are usually just better. Fair play to her, achieving a Michelin star is a massive achievement, the majority of Michelin star restaurants are ran by men

@Derek Walsh Ⓥ: your comment is tedious … note the definition

@White Rabbit: excellent!!!
To misquote the character in Fr. Ted, “Sure we’re all sexists now Father”

@David Grey: “I’ve found by enlarge men are usually just better”

I think that putting male chefs on a pedal stool is jut a damp squid.

@Ooby Dooby: by the looks of it, they feel the world of chefs is dominated by male chefs in part because of the perception that you’ve to be male, hence having a female award, to promote the alternative view.

Currently, there’s a massive shortage of chefs both globally and in Ireland as a result of so many people moving to a model where food is prepared by chefs instead of cooked at home.

To solve it, more chefs are needed. Women being underrepresented are an understandable target market.

I’m running out of characters but I’m going to give an example of a similar environment in which I’ve worked and how this breaks down.

Your welcome to engage with the idea of dismiss it, but sure, we’ll see.

@Ooby Dooby: I’ve worked in Dealing/trading rooms which historically are male dominated, like kitchens. Explanations for this have often been that it’s super competitive and male traits are better suited.

Studies show this to be true, with male traders returning marginally higher profits on average than female traders. Recently I was sat in on a meeting with a senior MD discussing the need for more women in trading rooms, the reason being that while male traders outperformed women in Bull markets because of their aggression, female traders had far smaller losses/less volatility in bear markets and outperformed men. The stability of that performance was now of much greater value to shareholder and dealing rooms needed more women.

@Ooby Dooby: Now, the problem with that is they’ve realised you can’t just say, we want more female traders and boom, problem solved, it turns out, there’s tonnes of barriers which lads have crafted which deterred women from wanting to go into these high paying jobs.

So now, they’re looking at how to accommodate wfh for traders who want to better balance family life, they’re looking at changing how they meet with and interact with clients so it’s not just young blokes going to bars until 11pm.

Dealing rooms didn’t need to be make dominated, but they were allowed to develop that way and so every facet became that extra small barrier to women, unintentionally by and large, but that’s how it panned out.

Me, I see the same with chefs.

@Ciarán Ó Fallúin: To repeat an important point: the world of chefs is dominated by men because more men choose to be chefs and either apply to culinary school or initiate a career in cooking. Also there is no perception that you must be male to be a chef. If you perceive it that way that is your opinion and not evidence of societal perception, personally I do not perceive it that way.

If women are underrepresented, fair enough, you can consider them a target labour force but you will be faced with the undeniable fact that more men want to be chefs.

I am not accepting or dismissing your idea I am simply making an observation based on the empirical data.

@Ooby Dooby: Correlation does not imply causation. Your conflating the reality that a majority of chefs are male to mean more males want to be chefs than females, naturally. Unless we think men are significantly better cooks or better at managing a kitchen, then there’s other factors at play.

Your observing empirical data that more chefs are men and assuming it’s because women don’t want to be chefs all things being equal. That’s not a jump I’m willing to assume. For me, it’s really similar to the “equality” of trading rooms and how an established system doesn’t mean it’s ideal just because it’s developed that way.

@Ciarán Ó Fallúin: More men apply for culinary school than women. That is a fact. How can that be construed as me saying men are better chefs? What I am saying is that a job as a chef is more desirable to a man than a woman and this reality reflects the choices men and women make.

Does your logic apply to teachers? or to psychologists? or to vets? All female dominated professions, are there “barriers” in all these professions blocking men from a majority? No! it’s a myth. The main reason certain professions display gender imbalance is because of the freedom in an egalitarian society to CHOOSE our career.

And in fact countries that endorse complete gender equality of opportunity in the workplace and in education more than anywhere else (like Sweden) experience the gap in traditional male vs female dominated areas INCREASE!

@Ooby Dooby: pointing out the “fact” that more men apply as a defence of your point makes no sense. I would present that as a defence of mine!?

I could become a nurse, there are no barriers to my entry, however, I might hold an opinion that nursing is a female dominated environment and my career won’t progress as quickly as it would if I was female. So I’m not going to bother applying to be a nurse and deal with years of people saying, “oh, you’re a nurse, but you’re a guy”.

Does the fact that there’s no barriers to entry mean it’s equally accomodating, no. Are my concerns misplaced? Possibly.

You know what they need to do, promote the image of successful male nurses getting the job done and enjoying it. I’d be more inclined to consider breaking the mold as a result.

@Ciarán Ó Fallúin: To address your points individually Cíaran I’ll start by pointing out that more men apply for, enrol in, and complete bachelor in culinary arts degrees than women. This is a fact.

If you want to be a nurse but you’re afraid someone will say “oh, you’re a nurse, but you’re a guy” that is a individual problem and not a societal one and should be treated as such. I could argue that if that eventually is scaring you than you should not apply for nursing at all because the real tribulations of that career far outweigh someone being surprised at your gender.

Does no barriers mean a career is equally accommodating? Certainly not and I never argued it was. Some careers always have and always will be more desireable for one gender or the other, this is a result of men and women being different.

People are not so naive that some cynical promotion of male nursing will convince them that their evaluation of a job has been wrong up to now. You can’t make people want to do something regardless of how strong your misguided sense of social injustice compels them.

@Ooby Dooby: To address your points individually I’ll start by pointing out that more men apply for, enrol in and complete bachelor in culinary arts degrees than women. This is a fact.

You do understand that my argument is that women, in assessing career paths either decide cooking in a professional kitchen wouldn’t be enjoyable because they don’t suit the work (which you’re arguing) or because they perceive barriers to their ability to succeed in or enjoy working in a pro kitchen (my argument).

Neither of us have data or facts to confirm our opinions on this. I’m not right, you’re not right.

My belief, which seems to match that of the Awards group above, is that there’s a need to promote female chefs to counteract some existing perception that’s a factor in women pursuing this career.

@Ooby Dooby: On the nurse front, as studies in Sweden show, nursing which involves having more traditionally female associated traits, like compassion and empathy, continue to be female dominated in a more “equal society”. Ireland compared to Sweden shows roughly 8% male nurses Vs 12% in Sweden. A gap, but not enormous either.

The question becomes, what traits would a chef need that are male to make sense of the split we currently see. Is it the hours, stress levels… are they gendered things… I mean, nursing has crap hours, and tonnes of stress with nights etc and yet women do it in spades. Why not become chefs?

I don’t have the answers, but I’ve got enough questions and doubts to feel like just saying, lads like it more, just doesn’t make sense to me.

@Ciarán Ó Fallúin: Percieved barriers and actual barriers are different things. If someone doesn’t bother to attempt a career because of “percieved barriers” then they dont deserve success.

What are you suggesting? That we force women to be chefs?? That we put forward an inaccurate portayal of the career in the media in order to trick more women into being chefs so that chefs are equally represented. That is totally dishonest. Are you then going to do the same for all careers dominated by women? What a load of utter nonsense. People will pick and choose they own jobs based on their opinion and you can’t, and shouldn’t tell them otherwise.

@Ooby Dooby: You’re a tough cookie to argue with. You keep imagining outlandish things then rubbishing them and acting as if that destroys my argument, quit doing that.

We promote STEM careers to kids that they might not otherwise consider because we need more STEM graduates. If they have false perceptions about such careers, we inform them of otherwise.

What am I suggesting, the Restaurants association of Ireland should investigate why there are so few females applying to become chefs. If they find barriers like concern around hours or flexibility to balance work and home. Assess whether they need to change the style of shifts they run, more shifts for shorter hours, with more chefs meaning greater flexibility for staff. If they want more chefs, they gotta do something to entice women.

@Ooby Dooby: crucially, let’s not assume we know why women don’t apply to become chefs e.g. they wouldn’t enjoy it or they’d be relatively bad at it.

We have a nurses shortage in Ireland, they’d do well reviewing potential barriers to men joining.

Same as my first example. They want female traders, but can’t get many candidates because women felt unwelcome in that space historically. So you look at why that is and you change stuff. Or stay the same and fall behind your peers who are evolving passed you.

Want to run a successful restaurant concept in Dublin, hire female chefs and run a female oriented menu.

@Ciarán Ó Fallúin: I’d say you think me a tough cookie because you find it hard to address what I am saying and you probably dont understand the full ramifications of the idiology you’re presenting. When I follow your arguments through they result in outlandish things, that is not my doing.

I think you are trying to achieve equal representation of men and women in all fields, or at least in cooking and nursing. I am saying this is very very bad and is not desirable or achievable. That has been tried before by the radical left and resulted in catastrophic results.

You cant change certain jobs to suit specific genders, jobs are dictated by the market. All you can do is provide equal opportunity and let people decide what they wan’t to do.

I don’t accept your argument that certain sectors are underrepresented because of “perceived barriers” There is imbalance because of the free will of men and women who are DIFFERENT. It is in our power to choose our career REGARDLESS OF WHY WE CHOOSE IT, the choice is still ours. If you take away that choice no matter how well meaning you are, you will end up with a society resembling Mao’s China or Stalins Soviet Union, because that is exactly what they did.

@Ooby Dooby: I am 100% not looking for equal representation in either nursing or cooking. I’ve never made anything close to such a statement. I’ve made like 10 comments and never said anything near that.

I am arguing that you can change jobs to ensure a broader diversity of gender (like my trader/dealer example above). It’s been done in corporate environments over the last 60 years, think Mad Men style offices and the move away from that. Changes were made, like maternity leave to better facilitate women having careers, so to act like you can’t make changes to influence people’s decisions doesn’t stack with history.

Equating me suggesting the restaurants association of Ireland look into factors behind women choosing not to pursue careers in cooking with “the radical left”… Come on.

@Ciarán Ó Fallúin: So do you think that all jobs that exhibit gender imbalance should be “changed” to ensure a broader diversity?

Off shore oil drilling for example, that is 99.5% staffed by men. How would one go about facilitating that career for women? Or does this logic just apply to certain fields?