By- Prachi Agarwal
Abstract
Cooking is one of the most basic life skills a person can learn to survive, yet somehow the value assigned to it by society depends on the person and place. Inside the comfort of the house, this skill is treated as an expression of love and duty a woman has towards her family. Economically, this is unpaid labor and is left out of official calculations. However, when the same act becomes a prestigious work space or a professional kitchen, it is dominated by men. This article, aims to examine why the same act of cooking is treated as an instrument to assign gender roles.
Introduction
Imagine two people cooking. One is in the home kitchen with two kids waiting for food. The other is in a fancy kitchen, plating a tasting menu that can cost more than a month’s salary for some. The task itself is the same in both situations. Yet, the social meaning is much different, the first one is expected to be a woman providing for her family and the other situation is expected to be a man in the place of remuneration and prestige. .
This shows how the economies assign gender roles and shapes opportunity. The article aims to argue that this gap is not just about food but also is concerned with who is acknowledged, who is compensated, and why gender is a major factor in both.
The Historical Gendering of the Kitchen
The idea of the home as a separate, non-economic sphere and of cooking as a gendered role is surprisingly modern. Before industrialisation, the family was both a social and an economic unit with couples and children often working side by side on a farm or in a shop. Thus, the line between “home” and “workplace” barely existed. The new industrialisation created a situation wherein it required the wage earners, mostly men, to leave their homes to go earn wages. However, the women were left behind handling the unpaid domestic work, which was later termed as the role of the ‘housewife’.
Feminist scholar Silvia Federici elaborated on how the system has fabricated domestic work as an act of love to extract the labor for free. She insists that this work is not simply unpaid but also taken for granted such that it is alienated from the purview of “work”.
The Economics of Invisible Labor
The essential question then becomes – if this labor is so essential then why does it count for nothing in economic terms? The Gross Domestic Product is the standard calculation accounting for transactions in the market. Unpaid work, by definition, does not involve any transaction and is thus left out. Marilyn Waring exposed this blind spot in her landmark book If Women Counted, showing how national accounting systems treat the work that sustains life as economically worthless. She argues that using this logic, mundane tasks of the household make one economically unproductive, even as they hold society together.
The ILO estimates that 16.4 billion hours of unpaid care work are done globally each day, with women doing over three-quarters of it. UN Women adds that if this labour were assigned a monetary value, it could exceed 40 per cent of GDP in some countries. The consequences reach far beyond the kitchen, the ILO estimates that some 708 million women are outside the paid labour force specifically because of unpaid care responsibilities. Work is not recognised because it is essential; it is recognised because it is paid. Essential and valued turn out to be two very different things.
Professional Kitchens and Prestige
The moment cooking is paid for, it suddenly becomes serious work, seen as demanding, creative, and worthy of awards and appreciation. Yet, the moment it turns prestigious, women begin to disappear from the top. This can be traced back to the rise of European haute cuisine, which established the professional kitchen as a strict, almost military hierarchy known as the ‘brigade’ system, with a single head chef commanding from the top. This role was, historically coded as male. The French term for the executive chef carries a masculine grammatical form, quietly signalling who is expected to hold authority in the kitchen.
The numbers make this pattern hard to miss. A 2022 report found that out of roughly 2,286 Michelin-starred restaurants across the world, only about 6 per cent were led by women. The top of the profession is simply guarded by barriers that have very little to do with skill. Sociologists Deborah Harris and Patti Giuffre, in their study Taking the Heat, show how women chefs are constantly treated as out of place in a kitchen that is imagined as male territory. Many female chefs describe a macho culture of long hours, harassment, and blocked promotions. In Britain, for instance, seventy women chefs signed an open letter speaking out against what they called a culture of fear. So the prestige that home cooking never receives is, at the very top, quietly defended as male turf.
When the Same Labour Changes Meaning
The mother and the chef are both planning meals, working under pressure, and creating something meant to nourish the people eating it. The work in itself is not separating them, but it is the society’s doing. When a woman cooks at home, her skill becomes invisible because it is simply expected of her. Care is understood as something a woman gives by default and is in her nature by birth. It is assumed to flow freely, without training, without hours, and without a price.
However, when a man cooks in a restaurant, the same skill is celebrated, mainly because it is a paid and public profession that he has chosen. Cooking at home is seen as care, whereas at the same time in a restaurant it is seen as a craft. Skills like this, especially flowing from a man, makes it celebrated and respected. Thus, the difference does not lie in the skill, but in the story the society tells about the person doing it. The same act is treated as a natural duty when women do it for free, and as a rare talent when men are paid for it. The act does not change. Only its name does, and its name decides its worth.
Is the Divide Beginning to Change?
In recent years, there have been some real signs of change. However, it would be too early to call it a victory. Chefs like Dominique Crenn, who became the first woman in the US to be awarded three Michelin stars, are great examples. The industry has also been pushed to acknowledge the problem, through awards for female chefs and open letters demanding a change in the kitchen culture. Interestingly, social media has opened another route, one where home cooks can build an audience and a business directly, without waiting for a restaurant hierarchy to accept them.
However, the deeper structure of the industry has not really changed. The fact that a separate “best female chef” award even exists shows that the main categories are still not neutral. The barriers that keep women from reaching the top such as the long working hours and the expectation of caregiving at home, are the same forces that made domestic cooking invisible in the first place. A woman who is still expected to handle most of the unpaid work at home is essentially working a second job before her professional day even begins. Thus, any real progress will be made when the actual act of acknowledging unpaid work is undertaken.
Conclusion
In the end, cooking reveals an uncomfortable truth about the thought process of society. We celebrate work only when it becomes profitable. The mother’s meal and the chef’s tasting menu require the same skill, yet only one is paid and praised. The value of work is not natural or fixed, it is a decision made by markets and reinforced by culture.
That decision is slowly being questioned, through efforts to measure unpaid care work and the entry of more women into the profession’s top ranks. In my view, the lesson is to question the word ‘natural’ whenever it describes someone else’s unpaid effort. If the same act can be worthless at home and worthy of a Michelin star in a restaurant, the value was never about the cooking. It was about who was doing it, and that is something we can change.
About the Author
Prachi Agarwal is a fourth-year student at Jindal Global Law School, O.P. Jindal Global University, pursuing an integrated B.Com LL.B. (Hons.) degree. She is drawn towards research that deals with law, culture, religion and how they shape society and everyday life. Outside her studies, she is passionate about music.
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