Author(s): Emine KESK?N ?smail KIZILIRMAK
Women, who make up about half of the societies, have certain equal rights with men in terms of education, social, cultural and political aspects, but they often remain in the background in work life. The reasons such as the existence of a masculine dominance in the social structure, social roles, the learned helplessness of women and the level of development of the country may cause the number of women not to increase in work life. In particular, the responsibilities brought along by social gender roles as well as spouse and mother roles in women's private life make family-work life balance challenging. Generally, the fact that the person who takes care of the child is the woman and the kitchen and cleaning work is done by the women in the family life can make life difficult for the women in the work life. The perception of the cooking activity, which is perceived as the role of women in family life, mostly as the role of men in businesses reveals a contradictory situation. It is known that the kitchen department generally has a male-dominated structure in accommodation and food and beverage establishments. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate the difficulties that women working in industrial kitchens are faced with in this field which is characterized by masculine dominance. In this study, it is aimed to identify the gender discrimination problem faced by female employess in industrial kitchens and to reveal the problems they face. In line with this purpose, face to face interview technique was applied to female employees in various establishments operating in ?stanbul, between the dates of April and May 2019. The results obtained through the semi-structured interview form were analyzed by the phenomenological analysis method. According to the research results, it was determined that female employees in the kitchen departments face with various gender discrimination practices such as harassment, lower wages, background assignments, etc.