> women are hired for only 19 percent of chef positions, for example, even though traditionally most women are more likely to do a majority of the cooking at home.

This is a ridiculous statement. Cooking at home has zero to do with going to culinary school and becoming a chef. If you visit most restaurant kitchens -- the line cooks and dishwashers are almost always men (or at least 80%+ of them,) based on my experience in working in probably 10 different restaurants in my life.

Working as a line cook is often part of the career progression of becoming a chef. At the finer restuarants, the line cooks are often "staging" while they're in culinary school. If anyone has ever worked as a line cook in a real restaurant, one would know that it's pretty brutal work -- lots of dirty cleaning, standing in front of hell-fire ovens and grills for entire shifts -- at a pretty pitiful level of pay. Certainly, women do it, but even remotely comparing that career with making lasagna in a home kitchen is like suggesting that I should be a race car driver simply because I drive a car every day or that I should be a stand up comedian just because I can make my kids laugh.

> Women and workers of color are often pushed into the lowest-paying jobs in the food service industry, according to a report from the Restaurant Opportunities Center United, a labor advocacy group.

At the beginning of the comment, we just were discussing how only 19% of chefs are women, but then we complain that women are pushed into the "lowest-paying jobs" -- such as the kitchen. The kitchen is where you start if you want to be a chef. And, most kitchens I've ever worked in had few women. Most of the women were in the front of the house making real money, while those of us in the back were cutting and burning ourselves for $10 per hour with the goal of moving up in the kitchen brigade at some point. The dishwashers are almost always men. I don't think I've ever seen a female dishwasher at any fine dining restaurant I've ever worked at. Obviously there are women dishwashers, but there are a heck of a lot more front-of-the-house women than there are in the back of the house. I've seen very few female busboys. I can't remember a single one. I've seen many men barbacks -- but can't remember seeing a single female barback. In fact, the pretty women are typically in the highest paying position in the resturant (aside from the general manager) -- bartenders. I've been denied many jobs as a bartender because the bar "only hired women bartenders." Although I had no problems getting a job as a doorman or a barback.

> ..people of color are channeled toward even lower-paying jobs such as bussing and kitchen positions.

Chefs didn't start in the kitchen as chefs. Managers typically didn't start as managers. Almost universally chefs started by working on the line. Managers often started as waitstaff or even busboys. Whoever is providing this "data" seems like they've never actually worked in a restaurant, nor experienced how the business works and how people move up in the industry. Also, a non-trivial number of back-of-the-house workers are illegal aliens who are both "of color" and willing to work for far lower wages.

It isn't that people "of color" are being sent to the kitchen as punishment -- but often those with limited English proficiency aren't generally going to be front-of-the-house. In my anecdotal experience working in a variety of restaurants in Houston, black people and white/Hispanic women were typically working as waitstaff -- and making far more money than the white/Hispanic males working in the kitchen. Bartenders trended female, general managers trended white male, kitchen managers were black, white/Hispanic and male. Sous chefs were commonly white male or female. Pasty chefs were generally white or black female, dishwashers were older hispanic men, busboys and barbacks were young Hispanic men. Line cooks were white or Hispanic men. Executive Chefs -- typically white or black males. Completely anecdotal for sure -- but, at least in Houston, restaurant racism was something I don't think I ever saw; and I worked in a lot of places, especially in the high end. I was a manager of a few places, mostly at the bar, so I saw the nightly tip declarations -- anyone making the claim that women make less in tips than men or that certain races make lower tips than others -- I would have to doubt their experience in the business. Women often made more. People of color made just as much as anyone else.

Here's an article from a Houston magazine about black chefs in Houston: http://www.outsmartmagazine.com/2017/02/in-praise-of-color-i...

Key quote: "I see many African Americans [chefs] in good restaurant kitchens in Houston—too many, in fact to cover in this article.."

One of the most exclusive restaurants in Houston, Tony's has a female chef. The 2017 Houston James Beard semi-finalists were an extremely diverse group: https://www.visithoustontexas.com/culinary-tours/culinary-bl...

There might have been only 2 white males among all those nominees.