An annoying job advert, the one that Kassandra from Masterchef published on Instagram: there’s talk of sexism, but this time it’s a woman doing it.
Remember Kassandra from Masterchef 13, the contestant of the latest edition of the cooking talent show, eliminated in the tenth episode? Well, between one collaboration and another she also became a giver: she published a job announcement on their Instagram channel (in stories) regarding an event planned in Milan in a few days. Nothing strange so far, except that the words chosen are strangely very precise and direct: search for “guys”young people, and is recommended for maximum seriousness.
Maybe Kassandra doesn’t know it but in a job ad it is It is forbidden to indicate gender or age: reason should be enough to establish it, but there is also a law on the matter. In addition to this – quite serious given the media coverage of the context and the visibility of the character (as well as the means of looking for personnel, a Social Network) – curiosity is rampant. We imagine Kassandra entering the scene, with the cloche in her hand, supported by two bold young people in the style of Raffaella Carrà or Marilyn Monroe.
That “boys only for a question of presence”
So not only does Kassandra display a job advert on social media that is cryptic to say the least, specifying the gender of the candidates and also the age (young people between 20 and 30 years old), but she also makes matters worse by talking about physical aspect (“question of presence”, difficult to disconnect it from “of good presence” given that it reports nothing else). In short, a pretty good combo that doesn’t make her look good, especially considering the world from which her character was born: Masterchef specifically, but cooking in a broad sense.
On these pages we no longer know how to convey a very specific message: unfortunately cooking is still an all too male realm, almost entirely at high levels and even more so at its infancy. Food is one of the most sexist pretexts when it comes to marketing, between inappropriate signs on customers’ “boobs” or two glasses of wine to simulate a busty cleavage. On television there are female chefs who have to appear like cold dragons to be seen (see Antonia Klugmann, hated on Masterchef a few years ago), or are allowed phrases like “women drink to give themselves a tone“.
And, beyond sexism, there are precise rules to respect, even when offering work. Ads that report age, gender, physical characteristics are discriminatory and no, this is no small thing. In short, it’s tiring, but complaint after complaint, article after article, word after word, we try to point out certain things and change them.
