‘Because She’s Pretty?’ Gender Relations and Young Workers

As we have illustrated throughout this book, much of Jamie Oliver’s appeal as a celebrity chef and social entrepreneur can be attributed to his laddishness — contrived, manufactured, authentic or otherwise. This laddishness is, by definition, gendered. He’s a lad! His apparent (to some) boyish charms, his appeal, his brand is gendered. The trainees we see in both series of Jamie’s Kitchen are also gendered, as are the trainees in additional, ongoing intakes. In many accounts of the restaurant and hospitality industries the largely male celebrity chefs provide accounts of an industry that is also gendered and intensely hierarchical. Often this results in female employees occupying lower ranks in the food chain, and in bullying and harassment by macho male chefs further up the food chain. In this chapter we will discuss the complexity of gender relations, young workers, training and this industry. As we indicated in the Introduction to this book, this discussion has its origins in the following exchange from the very first episode of the original Jamie’s Kitchen.