NPR

Women Chefs Still Walk 'A Fine Line' In The Kitchen

While there have been big changes in the restaurant business in the last few decades, a new documentary on female chefs and work-life balance explores how little it has changed for women.
Chef Val James inspired her daughter to create a documentary about the challenges female chefs face, including access to capital, sexual harassment, and family time off.

Less than 7 percent of restaurants in the United States are led by female chefs.

This statistic from a 2014 Bloomberg study came as a huge surprise to Joanna James, a journalist-turned-filmmaker who is also the daughter of a female restaurateur. When she decided to make her first documentary feature film about her mother's journey as a chef, restaurant owner and single mother, she had no idea that her mother's struggles to establish herself in the restaurant industry were commonplace among women.

That film, began as a love letter to her mom, chronicling the difficulties Val James overcame — from finding bank loans to babysitters — as she established her own restaurant in the early

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