From Time Magazine to animation: female chefs go missing

Time Magazine’s “Gods of Food” of story features zero women. That’s right, ZERO. Here are the gods.


Now, take a look at these chefs from the children’s movie “Ratatouille.” Do you notice any similarity in the pictures?


The photo above is actually missing the two male costar chefs of the movie: the rat, Remy, and his BFF, Linguini. Here they are.


Oh, wait. There’s another male chef featured prominently in this children’s movie, Remy’s idol, Auguste Gusteau.


The Daily Beast comments on Time’s sexism:

If aliens landed on our planet and picked up a copy of Time magazine, they would think that men do all the cooking in the world.


Here’s the thing: children are kind of like aliens. They’ve just landed on earth, and this is the world grown-ups show them? A fantasy world, created with children in mind, no less, where females go missing. “Look, honey, you can grow up to be invisible! That’s right, daughter, it’s more likely that a talking rat can become a world class chef than a female human child.”

You think I’m exaggerating the lesson kids are learning here? See that one female chef in the second picture, looking sad in the background? Her name is Colette, and she actually has a monologue in the movie where she bemoans the sexism of French kitchens. Parents are supposed to hear that speech, smile, and think: “You see, there’s a feminist in the movie! Isn’t that great?”

I call Colette’s character the Minority Feisty, and there are clones of her in most children’s movies made today. She is a “strong female character,” and there can be more than one in a film, but she’s always in the minority compared to male characters. Her role is usually to help the male on his quest. Like a First Lady, she cheers him on and gets to give him a kiss. Still, when parents see the Minority Feisty, they’re grateful and somehow miss that instead of teaching a 4 year old all about sexism, it would be much cooler, and more effective, to show kids females actually doing stuff– having adventures, taking risks, solving problems, and being heroic. Like, for example, instead of Colette’s 2 minute talk, why not make a movie starring a female chef and her female rat BFF with a female mentor, cooking in a room of females? Or at least, a room half full of females? Because, believe it or not, girls are one half of the kid population, but if you were an alien and you saw the G movies on earth– whether they featured humans, animals, toys, fish, robots, cars– you would think girls were a tiny minority on this planet.

Another thing drives me absolutely crazy about this cooking sexism. In kidworld, rumor has it that cooking is a girlie thing. “Girl” toys and dolls involve cooking, while “boy” toys and dolls– whoops, I mean action figures—  involve fighting and stuff. So how come everything shifts and cooking becomes a guy thing? Seems like if cooking earns money and acclaim, then abracadabra, it’s for the opposite gender. The same is true for all kinds of gender stereotypes that dominate kidworld, for example, the belief that girls are artsy and verbal (the latter referring to reading and writing, not actually speaking.) But how come female writers get designated to chicklit? if girls are so artsy, why are the “great” artists are mostly men? Check out this image from the Guerrilla Girls.


The truth about this stereotype is that we prefer our girl children quiet, with a nose in a book, coloring, or doing something “girlie” like that. While, you know, boys will be boys, loud and misbehaving, with all their “boy energy.”

Gender stereotypes of kidworld have nothing to do with innate ability and everything to do with social status. Sadly, we perpetuate those made up differences in movies made for kids and brainwash a new generation. Take a look at this video from the Geena Davis Institute on Gender and Media.

12 thoughts on “From Time Magazine to animation: female chefs go missing

  1. How does anyone feel about how girls are portrayed in Miyazaki movies? I’ve only seen My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away, Kiki’s Delivery Service so far but they seem to let girls shine, be front and center in the movie.

  2. Here is the list of fictional works wih female animal protagonists.

    1) Maggie, Grace, and Mrs. Calloway the cows (Home on the Range)
    2) Mrs. Brisby the fieldmouse (The Secret of NIMH)
    3) Ginger the hen (Chicken Run)
    4) Olive the dog (Olive the Other Reindeer)

    TV Shows
    1) Blue the dog (Blue’s Clues)
    2) Twilight Sparkle, Rarity, Apple Jack, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, and Rainbow Dash (The Mane Six from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic)

    1) Mrs. Frisby the fieldmouse (Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH)
    2) Sagwa (Sagwa the Chinese Siamese Cat); adapted into a TV series
    3) Jemima Puddle-Duck (The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck)
    4) Miss Moppet (The Story of Miss Moppet)
    5) Frances the badger (Frances the Badger); adapted into a TV series called Frances
    6) Maisy the mouse (Maisy Mouse); adapted into a TV series called Maisy
    7) Poppy Cat (Poppy Cat); adapted into a TV series
    8) Olivia the pig (Olivia); adapted into a TV series
    9) Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle the hedgehog (The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy Winkle)
    10) Martha the dog (Martha Speaks); adapted into a TV series

    Anime and Manga
    1) Chi the kitten (Chi’s Sweet Home manga and anime)

    1) Digger the wombat (Digger)

    Female animal characters and protagonists seem to be more common in children’s books, than in movies, TV shows, and other works of fiction. The TV shows that female animal protagonists are most commonly in seem to be those that have been adapted from children’s books.

  3. I’ve noticed this for years (not just in representation of chefs but also in EVERYTHING; artists, writers, main characters in fiction etc etc etc) and I’ve always said – “follow the money and you’ll find men”. I did all I could to counter it while raising my daughter. She is now 23. What sickens me is that it is not much better now (and even a little worse, I think), 23 years later.
    Also, just for the heck of it, I’d like to add – Disney movies are evil when it comes to sapping the soul out of girls. Ex: Beauty and the Beast, or as I like to call it, – Domestic Violence indoctrination 101.

    • I feel you however I believe that there are areas where things are much better that 25 years ago.One of them is rock music.When I was a teenager in the 80s there were so few bands lead by female singers/musicians/songwriters around that a band like The Pretenders (lead by the talented chrissie hynde ) was considered an oddity ,smth completely unusual .It was that bad.Things started changing rapidly during the 90s and today there are dozens of rock bands in US and Europe,lead by strong and talented women,playing pretty much any style of rock music from indie to metal to pop/rock.

      • I’m glad to know things are better. I’m not as informed about the music scene as I once was. I graduated high school in mid 70’s. There were a lot of female singer/songwriters – Linda Rondstat, Joni Mitchell, Aretha Franklin, Carol King, Carly Simon, but I can only remember a few rock bands where woman were prominent – Grace Slick/Jefferson Airplane/Starship, Heart, Joan Jett (altho I think she was late 70’s).

  4. I just watched a French movie the other day. The English title is Romantics Anonymous. The story is about a nervous young woman with a gift for making chocolates who is too shy to admit it because the attention and admiration lead to her having a panic attack/fainting. Anyway, I’m planning to watch Haute Cuisine, which is also on Netflix, about a female chef. I’ll let you know how it goes.

    • OK, I just watched Haute Cuisine. I liked the way the female character was portrayed. It was subtle. She was neither frigid nor hysterical. She wasn’t overly feminine or adopting masculine traits to try and compete. She felt like a person. Hortense is hired by the French president to cook home-cooked meals. They call it something with translates to “mother’s food.” This doesn’t mean that she is “just” a home chef. She is definitely capable and she has training but she is able to put aside pretension and cook simple, good food. She battles a bit with the male chefs of the Main Kitchen but that’s not really the focus of the movie and really, Hortense can take them. The ending is interesting. I won’t spoil it for you. It’s worth a watch. You could probably let your daughters watch it as aside from a little bit of language in a handful of scenes, there’s nothing inappropriate though I’m not sure if they want to watch a French film with English subtitles.

  5. I’ve often wondered if the “princess problem” in our culture is not in fact caused by the princess movies… but instead by the way women are portrayed as in the minority in children’s movies. Maybe it’s not aspiring to be like Belle that makes women think they are “special snowflakes”, but the illusion that women are rare.

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