Where art thou female chefs?

A tired me at the end of a hectic day turned to hubby dearest for serving a post-dinner goodie. Nothing extravagant, just asked for some cherry-filled sweet buns which needed to be taken out of the refrigerator, cut into two pieces, heated on the stove and smeared with butter. Simple enough, right! So after a couple of rounds of gentle coaxing and repeating the aforementioned steps thrice, did my hubby dare to enter the kitchen. And as he did, my four-old son turns around and says, "Mom, boys don't cook, girls do!" My husband immediately corrected him by saying, "but you see some of the best chefs are boys (read men). Do you remember when we went to Hotel X, the chef uncle had come over to ask us how the food was.. do you remember his big white cap...". As I sat there listening to the two of them, I actually wondered why is it that I haven't seen any lady chefs in any of those fancy hotels and restuarants. Why are men dominating this field which according to even a four-year old is a woman's domain? Of course, we have Tarla Dalal, Nigella Lawson and Kylie Kwong as celebrity chefs but what about in the field (a colloquial term for a revenue officer)? Husband reasons it is because of what the job demands: a very high level of commitment and dedication, odd hours, that you can't suddenly say that you can't come for work on a day when a big banquet is to be held. But that is far from convincing when you see women dominating just about every other field, be it the corporate sector or the services sector like the airlines industry. Last year, the World's 50 Best Restaurant Awards – one of the culinary world's most prestigious honours - featured only three female head chefs or owners and no restaurant on the list had a solo female head chef, with each of the three female chefs working with a male partner – their husband, boyfriend, or father! Pity indeed. This, mind you, is less that the number of female CEOs in the world! One is still clueless about this skewed reality. However, the next time my husband rolls his eyes when after telling him that I downloaded a new recipe and shall be making that dish over the weekend and then I don't, I shall have hard facts come to my rescue and support my claim that as it is, the world over, many women don't.