Sexual Harassment in the Kitchen/Restaurant world

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Kitchens can be like locker rooms sometimes in that it's a team atmosphere and everyone usually tries to stay loose and have fun...I've seen some actions between kitchen staff that in any other industry would be regarded as inappropriate but in the kitchen it's just another immature joke which nobody seems to mind.

I don't want to detract from the legitimacy of the claim vs Batali but I wouldn't be surprised if it was something taken out of context.

Note..ive never seen so much ass slapping and derogatory name-calling (in the most loving sense, among and between both men and women) than the few times I've helped friends out at their restaurants. In high pressure environments people do whatever to stay loose.

Batali does come off a little bit creepy tho
 
No excuses if there are REPEATED issues. But, he must remain innocent until proven guilty.

I get that we can make mistakes from time to time, we are human. But mistakes mean that the person was in the wrong. Worse still repeated mistakes is bad behaviour and wrong in many more ways; including intent which makes a mistake become malicious.

He shall remain innocent until proven guilty. Without real information, we cannot judge.
 
Never really cared too much about Batali due to his personality. That said, I've always respected the food he did. Will say that the apology as quoted in the article was probably one of the better one's yet.
 
Yea china I thought it was a good apology, especially compared to Franken's - which was a mess. I am a bit worried that we are going overboard with the guilty until proven innocent mentality, although so far it seems to be balanced against the number of people coming forward. I always had the impression he was a "real" chef albeit a celebrity chef at the same time.
 
I hope that I'm right in saying that this isn't an industry affected by sexual abuse and misconduct over and above any other. That said, it's important to recognise ways in which the restaurant industry (and any industry for that matter) specifically legitimises such behaviour. Certainly in old school kitchens (but not exclusively), where the intensity, pressure, aggression etc is extremely high, there exists a strong hierarchy. Chefs, who happen to be predominantly male, are seniors in stature and command a certain power, or so they like to think, over lower chefs and front of house. I wouldn't be surprised if this perceived dominance results in cases of sexual abuse, not at all. In addition to this ours is an industry with high levels of alcoholism and drug use, which can exacerbate the above, and is a serious problem in its own right.
 
It's definitely a very sensitive issue right now... Batali is screwed because he's a Chef/restaurateur & a TV personality - two industries going through upheaval because of sexual harassment.

A lot of this sort of behavior is kind of openly known within the restaurant industry. Batali is old-school and a lot has basically been openly written about hard-partying ways. Bill Buford's "Heat" paints a pretty clear picture that Mario like(d) to drink and party a lot. Hell, he even had a falling out with Marco Pierre White in London pre-Harveys -- dumping salt in all the sauces before walking out right before service -- and it was implied that it was because he was doing too much cocaine and partying.

John Besh is another example. He is widely known for being a grade A a-hole and a bit of a pig. I personally know women who have worked events with him & his team and got solicited to "go back to the hotel" - so it's not surprising he got the axe but this sort of behavior has been common in these environments for a long time.

So mixed feelings. The behavior definitely shouldn't be encouraged and I think kitchen environments are generally very different than they were back in the day - but there is a bit of a witch hunt going on right now. I worked for a Chef that is very talented, young, and all around not a bad guy - and he recently became a sacrificial lamb so to speak for a large, well known restaurant group because he didn't take direct action about sexual misconduct and was also on his way out from the company... I'm not saying he is or was a saint, but I also don't think it was right for the restaurant group (which he's done a whole lot for) to make him the fall guy and drag his name through the mud in order to make themselves look good.
 
Hollywood sleaze vs kitchen sleaze is not even in the same league, IMHO.
Incomprehensibly worse **** happens in hollywood.

its a simple fact of life you can corrupt people, with
$$ millions alot easier than you can @ $20/hr.

Where Batali ranks on this god only knows.
 
HRC_64 said:
Hollywood sleaze vs kitchen sleaze is not even in the same league, IMHO.
Incomprehensibly worse **** happens in hollywood.

its a simple fact of life you can corrupt people, with
$$ millions alot easier than you can @ $20/hr.

Where Batali ranks on this god only knows.
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As someone on the receiving end, NO - just no. It doesn't matter if you're going for a job that pays minimum wage (as mine did plus commissions) or for a high paying job. Being treated differently, or sexually objectified, simply because you're a woman is ****** no matter where it happens.

Which is why my friends, we have so much of this stuff still happening. Most still don't get it.

And I'm not sure so much that's it's the money that corrupts, as it is whenever someone gets in a position of power.
 
fatboylim said:
No excuses if there are REPEATED issues. But, he must remain innocent until proven guilty.

I get that we can make mistakes from time to time, we are human. But mistakes mean that the person was in the wrong. Worse still repeated mistakes is bad behaviour and wrong in many more ways; including intent which makes a mistake become malicious.

He shall remain innocent until proven guilty. Without real information, we cannot judge.
Click to expand...


Nah. He already admitted it, apologized and stepped back from his business.

“I apologize to the people I have mistreated and hurt. Although the identities of most of the individuals mentioned in these stories have not been revealed to me, much of the behavior described does, in fact, match up with ways I have acted," Batali said. "That behavior was wrong and there are no excuses. I take full responsibility and am deeply sorry for any pain, humiliation or discomfort I have caused to my peers, employees, customers, friends and family."
 
why does this all have to go public and not handled internally? for example, someone does somethiing inappropriate and the person on the receiving end doesnt like it, confront the guilty party, get management/ownership/HR involved, etc. if it becomes a repeat issue and the same steps dont work then isnt that when it gets escalated to police?? i mean, why is this even news?
 
Because news outlets are all clawing for any sensationalistic headline. Journalism is dead. Today it's all about the lefties trying to make everyone else look evil, making the world seem like a scary place. This kind of stuff didn't used to be news but now everyone is so hypersensitive that when something happens that they don't like they have to turn it into some sort of a quasi social-movement with catchy hashtags instead of facing the issue head on at a personal level.
 
Which, once again goes to my point that people are still missing the point.

Have you even been paying attention to any of the details being reported, or is that too much work. In a LOT of these cases the bad behavior was previously reported and swept under the rug because the STONE (figure it out) doing the harassing was deemed more valuable than the accuser. Taught them a lesson, hmmm?

Now things have reached a critical mass and FINALLY action is being taken because we've reached a point where there are a lot of voices standing together (thanks - yes! to social media which makes it more difficult to hide) and saying enough. This isn't right and this has to stop.

and, AND in the past you knew that if you even dared to accuse a superior it was career suicide. So yea, sometimes you kept quiet if you wanted to be able to pay the rent.

But is must be nice to live in a world where you never were demeaned or objectified or made to feel like less of a person. After all, no big deal - right? Racism doesn't exist if you're white, and sexual harassment doesn't exist if you're a dude.
 
panda said:
why does this all have to go public and not handled internally? ....
Click to expand...

Because internally hasn't worked, consistently and reliably, for decades and probably longer. Typical response has been rich powerful guy is protected and the complaints were either quashed or covered up, sometimes with payoffs, which has allowed the "dirty little secret" to continue and proliferate.

They say there is no disinfectant like sunshine, in this case all the publicity is the sunshine. It clearly has provided the support needed to empower the victims and encourage the intimidated to come forward. I hope this triggers a cultural change that makes this behavior an exception and allows the quiet private go to HR option to be emphatic and effective and all that is necessary in the future. But we aren't there today.

PS- I suspect the mass cleansing has caused some uneven results and some of the punishments have been disproportionate. But with some more egregious examples still unpunished, I'm happy to live with a few of the creeps getting extreme punishments for their misbehavior.
 
panda said:
why does this all have to go public and not handled internally? for example, someone does somethiing inappropriate and the person on the receiving end doesnt like it, confront the guilty party, get management/ownership/HR involved, etc. if it becomes a repeat issue and the same steps dont work then isnt that when it gets escalated to police?? i mean, why is this even news?
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What’s crazy is that the Besh Restaurant group didn’t even have an HR department. He has hundreds of employees in NOLA alone.
 
I'm afraid this is a situation that we've brought on ourselves, by creating an environment where sexual harrassment is either acceptable, or any possible action against it logistically impossible - as has been the case for years. So yes, there may be some unfortunate scapegoats along the way, some people hung out to dry etc, but if this is the cost of equality, then we should all be welcoming it. Some of you should take a long hard look at yourselves and think about what's really at stake here.
 
if the guility animal is top of the food chain, then simply go work somewhere else. why would one want to stick around in that environment, no one is forcing them to stay.
 
TheCaptain said:
As someone on the receiving end, NO - just no. It doesn't matter if you're going for a job that pays minimum wage (as mine did plus commissions) or for a high paying job. Being treated differently, or sexually objectified, simply because you're a woman is ****** no matter where it happens.

Which is why my friends, we have so much of this stuff still happening. Most still don't get it.

And I'm not sure so much that's it's the money that corrupts, as it is whenever someone gets in a position of power.
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Exactly. Just not on. And it has nothing to do with money it is about power and chefs, especially top ones wield a lot of power in their kitchen.

The whole locker room thing about actions is BS... i can excuse it to a degree when it is just talk. But actions are a totally different business... plus just cause a person allows it doesn't mean they are comfortable with it... more likely they gotta pay the rent.
 
I read an article a couple of weeks ago (that I now can not find) about a chef being harassed by another chef. After a couple "I'm not interested" didn't seem to work the next time they were in the walk-in for inventory and he tried to make a move she stabbed him with a fork in the thigh. She said he screamed in pain, cursed at her, left the walk in, and never bothered her again.
 
People need to take matters into their own hands...that's great to hear
 
TheCaptain said:
:bashhead:

I think some folks truly don't realize how widespread this nonsense is.
Click to expand...

The term casting couch first appeared in Variety on Nov. 24, 1937, in a story poking fun at a Chicago Tribune reporter for misusing it because he wasn’t cool enough to already know what it meant.
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>Harvey Weinstein scandal: A complete list of the 83 accusers.
>Harvey Weinstein hired ex-Mossad agents to suppress allegations.
>Harvey Weinstein's political donations since 2000
>Report: Clinton Was Warned About Weinstein by Lena Dunham

"Vice President Joe Biden, who has been outspoken on the issue of sexual assault, also has not appeared to make any public statements about Weinstein since the report came out."

>As Democrats denounce Weinstein, Clintons and Obama stay mum
>Harvey Weinstein's Complicity Machine - The New York Times.
Click to expand...

Seems like a lot of people have known alot of things for a long tim. :(
 
Vice President Joe Biden, who has been outspoken on the issue of sexual assault, also has not appeared to make any public statements about Weinstein since the report came out."
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Yeah because Uncle Joe is one of the biggest creeps going.

:whistling:
 
StonedEdge said:
People need to take matters into their own hands...that's great to hear
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Unfotunately people do need to take matters into their own hands. That's what they are doing on social media, which seems like a much more civilized way to deal with it than physical assault.

Nobody should have to put up with this behaviour at work or anywhere else.
 
panda said:
if the guility animal is top of the food chain, then simply go work somewhere else. why would one want to stick around in that environment, no one is forcing them to stay.
Click to expand...

You've never felt pressured to stay in a kitchen/restaurant that you didn't enjoy working at?

Just saying. I can only speak from the perspective for working in kitchens, but I think there are lots & lots of reasons why people stick out unpleasant environments and situations. It doesn't matter where you're working (city wise), the restaurant industry is a small pool and word goes around quickly. I can see why lots of people choose to suffer in silence. The fact is that if you leave a restaurant before the year mark, you're often viewed as a flaky and unstable candidate for other jobs. Often people also feel that they're making the best choice career wise staying and working for certain people - "it opens up so many doors" - and they're lured with the opportunity of promotion within the restaurant(s) too. Never mind kicking up dust and making a scene, which can burn even more bridges and have you painted as emotionally unstable to other perspective employers.

I think the issue gets even more complicated because the working conditions for cooks (regardless of gender) is often so brutal and tough. That's why you see the stupid macho attitude always popping its head up. I know we've all seen ridiculous behavior. I've seen a female Chef hump and humiliate cooks. I've seen lots of sh*t getting thrown, cooks getting hit, all sorts of yelling, and plenty of people breaking down crying and/or disappearing (sometimes right before service starts) because the pressure is so much. It's often long, long hours, almost no social life, tons of stress, being treated like garbage, and all for generally measly pay. We wear this often as a badge of pride - making it through the fire - and generally we're better, stronger cooks because of it. But that doesn't necessarily make it right.
 
StonedEdge said:
Because news outlets are all clawing for any sensationalistic headline. Journalism is dead. Today it's all about the lefties trying to make everyone else look evil, making the world seem like a scary place. This kind of stuff didn't used to be news but now everyone is so hypersensitive that when something happens that they don't like they have to turn it into some sort of a quasi social-movement with catchy hashtags instead of facing the issue head on at a personal level.
Click to expand...
I love that to you sexual assault and rape is a leftist liberal issue to create a "quasi-social movement with catchy hashtags"...
 
Yet-Another-Dave said:
Because internally hasn't worked, consistently and reliably, for decades and probably longer. Typical response has been rich powerful guy is protected and the complaints were either quashed or covered up, sometimes with payoffs, which has allowed the "dirty little secret" to continue and proliferate.

They say there is no disinfectant like sunshine, in this case all the publicity is the sunshine. It clearly has provided the support needed to empower the victims and encourage the intimidated to come forward. I hope this triggers a cultural change that makes this behavior an exception and allows the quiet private go to HR option to be emphatic and effective and all that is necessary in the future. But we aren't there today.

PS- I suspect the mass cleansing has caused some uneven results and some of the punishments have been disproportionate. But with some more egregious examples still unpunished, I'm happy to live with a few of the creeps getting extreme punishments for their misbehavior.
Click to expand...
+1 to both.
TheCaptain said:
Which, once again goes to my point that people are still missing the point.

Have you even been paying attention to any of the details being reported, or is that too much work. In a LOT of these cases the bad behavior was previously reported and swept under the rug because the STONE (figure it out) doing the harassing was deemed more valuable than the accuser. Taught them a lesson, hmmm?

Now things have reached a critical mass and FINALLY action is being taken because we've reached a point where there are a lot of voices standing together (thanks - yes! to social media which makes it more difficult to hide) and saying enough. This isn't right and this has to stop.

and, AND in the past you knew that if you even dared to accuse a superior it was career suicide. So yea, sometimes you kept quiet if you wanted to be able to pay the rent.

But is must be nice to live in a world where you never were demeaned or objectified or made to feel like less of a person. After all, no big deal - right? Racism doesn't exist if you're white, and sexual harassment doesn't exist if you're a dude.
Click to expand...
 
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