Paid Parental Leave and the Restaurant Gender Gap

Recently, at a “hip” bar in Toronto (I’m still learning what qualifies as hip in Toronto, give me time), I was served a teacup of mulled wine by an 8-months pregnant bartender. My friend informed me that the bartender and her husband owned the place; they live upstairs, and she plans to continue working for as long as she’s physically able, despite her doctor’s stern orders to rest. She seemed happy, though, and the bar was full, the mulled wine was great, and I tipped her extra and refrained from rubbing her belly.

It was cool to see a woman running a hip bar, is the thing, just as it is rare and exciting to find a female chef heading a heralded restaurant. The issue of paid, federally-mandated maternity leave is America’s least-loved and most-discussed specter, but Amanda Kludt over at Eater just published a killer feature on issues endemic to the restaurant and service industry, and you should go read it right now if you are a woman or any other member of the human race.

“We would have more top female chefs if they were able to come back into the business [after having kids],” Momofuku chef and founder Dave Chang told me recently. We were discussing the difficulties in offering paid leave at his restaurant group and the challenges facing female chefs in general. “And the reality is, taking months off as a cook — it’s hard to do. I don’t know if the restaurant industry has ever created an environment that encourages it,” he continued, adding that many of the female chefs he’s worked with eventually chose not to return to their positions after having kids, because they knew restaurant life was, in Chang’s words, “not conducive for them going forward.”

As Kludt rightfully acknowledges, there are any number of reasons why the restaurant industry, and in particular fine-dining, is dominated by men, but do the notoriously miserable labor laws and unstructured, frenetic climates that constitute the norm work against women in particular — especially those considering starting a family? Could federally-mandated paid family leave help diners discover the next Gabrielle Hamilton, and the next, and the next, and the next? Read the rest of the feature here.

Meghan Nesmith is a writer living in un-hip Toronto. Follow her on Twitter @megjnesmith

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