You Should Have a Blowtorch Too

This week we focused on chefs, cooking, and how it relates to gender in this world. Only 7% of world chefs are female. This was a statistic that I learned about when I was reading the article "Fine Line" this weekend. When I was younger I would always watch cooking shows and would wonder why there were not more girls represented or why it was all men and perhaps just one woman - in this statistic, it is clear to me the reasoning behind this. A quote that stood out for me was when Gresser was describing how drastic the food industry has changed throughout the years but how small the change has been in terms of more women in the field. It seems as though a lot of things have changed, different types of foods, different restaurants but the gender part still remains the same. In the night class, we learned more about chef Julia Childs and her life and how she was the first woman to ever have a cooking show in America and how it ran for 10 years. I also learned how proud Paul Childs was to allow his wife to be the breadwinner, something rare at that time when most husbands would be embarrassed. "Women are great cooks, men are great chefs", Julia Childs shot this quotation down and demonstrated a new way to cook and enjoy it and also make fancier meals. She didn't see cooking as an obligation to women but rather a way of living rather than a necessity and a way to empower women and uplift them. With this empowerment, she wrote a successful cookbook in hopes of changing women's perspectives with life in their kitchen, ran a 10 year TV show, and got the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2003. Her confidence convinced women all around the world that they should have a blowtorch too.