Redefining Leadership for Gender Equity in International Culinary Networks

We critique the capacity of conventional leadership discourse to address gender equity in the context of an international network formed to strengthen the influence of women in the culinary industry. Drawing on participant observations and interviews with 25 network stakeholders, our analysis shows how these culinary and hospitality workers employ a hyper-individualized and hierarchical vocabulary to define leadership but struggle to render this vocabulary relevant to mobilizing actions that promote gender equity. Instead, they adopt discourses of collaboration, solidarity, feminism, and systems change to redefine leadership in relational terms. We therefore question the capacity of conventional, leader-centered concepts to inform research on industry change and conclude that both networks and tourism and hospitality scholars aiming for industry reform need to redefine the traditional vocabulary of leadership in favor of more relational perspectives to pursue their collective agendas.