Creativity and Gender in the Cooking World: A Sociological Overview of (Un)creative Media Representation of Professional Chefs

The best-known binary model of creativity based on the division into ‘Big C’ and ‘little C’ creativity has been applied to the sphere of cooking, which is defined as a gendered activity. The chapter describes the tendency for hierarchical and value-based interpretation of Big C and little c creativity, and presenting gender analyses highlights the historical exclusion of women from the Big C domain, which is also reflected in the sphere of cooking. Domestic cooking traditionally performed by women is culturally positioned in the sphere of little c creativity, while professional and paid cooking is positioned in the sphere of ingenious Big C creativity. The world of cooking is gendered, and the dynamics of power and gender inequalities are evident at the level of everyday life, at the level of the culinary profession, and in media (self) representations of male and female chefs. Changes in gender relations and power dynamics open up space for the creation of new masculinities and femininities, new feminist readings of cooking and the kitchen as traditional places of female oppression and exploitation. The world of professional cooking is a (hyper)masculine world, which maintains gender segregation by insisting on masculinisation. The gendered structure of the cooking world as a masculine domain is reflected in the (food) media. Gendered media representation of the chefs’ world perpetuates numerous gender stereotypes, maintains the gender status quo and hierarchical divisions between little c and Big C creativity, and reproduces the gendered distinction between male and female cooking.