Went out to dinner at the teppanyaki restaurant* last night with my relatives visiting from abroad. (At a teppanyaki restaurant, the eating surface surrounds a large griddle, and the chef cooks your food in front of you.)
*Often called in the U.S. a hibachi restaurant or Japanese steakhouse.
Nowadays, teppanyaki is a mixture of cookery and performance art. The chef prepares the food, but also juggles utensils, tosses eggs with his spatula-thing, stacks rings of an onion into a volcano shape and sets it on fire, catches things in his hat or pocket, things like that. It's really pretty neat.
But something I noticed this time: teppanyaki chefs* are exclusively male. The restaurant employs women, but they're the ones who bring your soup and drinks and take away your dirty plates - in short, waitresses; the waitstaff is all female. Women don't get to do the cool stuff.
*that I have seen. googling brings up a few female chefs.
And I wondered:
Why are there no female teppanyaki chefs? Is there some kind of licensing body that won't let women in? Is it just that societal pressure is such that women are discouraged from entering the profession, or are forced out of it if they begin? Does it have something to do with the restaurants wanting a uniform image among their chefs and waitstaff? (According to Wikipedia teppanyaki is much more popular in the West than in Japan, and I suspect the "all Asian men look the same" and "all Asian women look the same" might be at work here.)
It's funny because cooking is thought of as such a feminine thing. Though maybe not professional cookery, I guess.
Forgive me, this entry is very niche indeed.
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Perhaps it was just that restaurant.
This is the difficulty with anecdote, and since so much of feminism depends upon it a problem with the movement.
Thanks for this! I went to a restaurant like this a few weeks ago and found myself thinking the exact same thing. Glad that you are questioning things instead of taking them for granted.
Mystery Dyke Squadron, except that it's not just that restaurant. There are two such restaurants in my city, both of which I've been to. I've also been to such restaurants in various other cities.
I've been to Hibachi restaurants in 3 states (a few in each one) and I've never seen a female chef. However, most of the restaurants don't always hire only Asian workers, probably due to location/ownership.
I also hate the flirting/teasing aspect of Hibachi restaurants. It makes me extremely uncomfortable. I actually really don't like Hibachi restaurants, but my boyfriend's family loves them for some reason. Having a guy leering at me, then flicking a pea down my shirt and laughing does not equal a fun experience. Had that happen to me at two different restaurants.
AgnesScottie, your experience is exactly what I THOUGHT this post was going to be about when I saw the title. I had one of my birthdays at one of these restaurants and will never go again. One of my friends was basically harassed by the chef. There was the (obligatory?) trying to flick foodstuffs into her shirt in addition to him trying desperately to get her to accidentally get a piece of meat in her mouth upon being informed that she is a vegetarian. My cleavage was spared...well, I think because I don't really have any. Although it would have been easier for him to succeed in that case! I didn't know that going to these restaurants meant automatically being amused by such antics. And I would wager that it comes from the fact that the chefs are almost always exclusively male.
The Benihana in Pittsburgh, Pa has a couple female chefs and mixed gender waitstaff.
Kinda: That's what I thought reading the title too! Probably why I mentioned it in comment. My first thought was, oh! other people have had horrible sexist experiences at Hibachi places. You never see them try and knock it into men's shirts. And when I was complaining about it to my bf afterword, he said something about my low-cut shirt/cleavage. With DDs a lot of shirts look low-cut and show cleavage. That was a very grrr moment.
Naked Feminist: Glad to hear that there are some lady Hibachi knife twirlers.
Ugh, that's awful. I'm glad that none of the places I've been to have done that.
Naked Feminist: I'll try to check it out...if I'm ever in Pittsburgh...which is unlikely...but that's cool!
In my experience (twice!) the waitstaff was mixed gender, but the hibachi chefs were all-male. Neither tried to flick food down women's shirts though. Just into men AND women's mouths. I would've made a scene if they tried!
Well, it seems like in general most chefs are male. On TV shows, in movies, in novels, and in person, I'd guesstimate about 90% of the chefs I've seen have been male. It's like people think that women are supposed to cook in the home, but we aren't actually good enough to get paid for it.
i've just recently spoken to several people about male chefs. i'd watched a couple episodes of hell's kitchen (last season, i think). i don't normally watch reality t.v., but i got sucked into it because i was so fascinated by the blatant sexism. (it was the season where they separated the men and woman onto separate teams) it occured to me how repulsively unfair it is that cooking at home has been "women's work" since forever, yet cooking professionally, for money, for respect, etc. is for men. how the hell did that happen?
i've only been to a japanese steakhouse twice in the past - both times i saw only male chefs & both times i was digusted by the flirting.
Wow, I guess I really got lucky in avoiding the flirting. I agree with Kinda, it's probably exacerbated by the usual all-male chef corps.
Maybe since Benihana is a national(?) chain they are better about it? Admittedly up here I have only seen independent hibachi restaurants.
AgnesScottie: I'm sorry that *that* was your bfs response. Mine's response upon reading my comment was "2 things.
1. The cooking world is unintentionally chauvinistic. I have my theories about that, but no time to go into them now.
1:50 PM 2. if we ever went to a restaurant like that (god forbid) and anyone tried anything like that with you I'd pitch a fit with the manager and not stay OR pay."
I don't know if I agree with him about the "unintentionally" part. And I regret not reacting the way he described in defense of my friend. It was 6 years ago, and I would like to think I would react differently now.