In Russia, there is a stereotype that the best chefs are men.

Main stereotypical arguments against female chefs:

• Physically hard work.

• The most important thing for women is family.

• Women have low gustatory sensitivity.

• Women have less developed managerial skills.

The goal of our project was to draw public attention to the problem of disrespectful treatment of female

chefs in Russia.

The mission of our project was to dispel the stereotype that the best chefs are only men.

To influence the attitude towards female chefs, we conducted a vote on the Usachevsky market for the

best restaurant concept using a mobile application. The visitors were asked right at the spot to vote. The voting was carried out among the visitors of the who tried the dishes in our restaurants. The result of the vote helped determine the winners, who were mostly female chefs. So, we were able to dispel the myth that the only professionals in the kitchen are male.

As the results were published, the story took off, and grabbed both positive and negative attitudes from

different audiences. But stopping the sexism in the kitchen was never easy.

During the first campaign stage, our audience were the guests of the market. As the voting results came in, we had two main target audiendces – the general population and the professional community.

In order to influence the situation, we organized a tasting for restaurant visitors at the

Usachevsky market. The call to action was to vote for the most delicious restaurant using a

mobile application. Moreover, we contacted online dictionaries and added a new gender for the

Russian word Chef.

We defied the stereotype that the best chefs are men.We got a lot of media and public attention. The total number of impressions of The Chef project amounts to more than 87 million throughout Russia.

And for the first time ever, the LARGEST online dictionary of Contemporary Russian has announced

officially that the word “chef” can be used both in the masculine and feminine genders.

The number of visitors to the Usachevsky Market has doubled and the revenues of restaurants with

female chefs has, in turn, increased by 230%.