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"I was told women were only hired to work the counter. My hands were too small to cut hundreds of steaks. I physically wouldn't be able to lift boxes of primals because of my size. They said this was a tough industry that I couldn't handle."

Etana began her career as a pastry chef and a line cook in fine dining. After discovering that pastry wasn't her passion and being turned off by the culture and the aggression of her male colleagues, she found her true love for butchery. Etana was constantly told she was too pretty, too small or too weak to cut meat by every butcher shop in Seattle, but refused to take no for an answer until finally someone gave her a shot. Etana proves that her passion and drive outweigh her size and gender. She approaches meat cutting with creativity, ethics and knowledge and is proud to be one badass "Lady Butcher."

"I went to school thinking I want to be a masterchef. I think that's so important because you cultivate this idea that you belong in a manicured profession. I wanted to defy that stereotype."

Marielle grew up in a traditional Filipino immigrant household. As a child, she cooked with her mother and grandmother in the kitchen and helped her father with his food truck. Even though her father's livelihood was cooking, her own parents discouraged her from pursuing her culinary ambitions, refusing to see it as a worthy/serious career for a woman. She defied her parents' wishes of being a nurse, leaving school to follow her dream of working in the culinary industry. Today Marielle is a chef de cuisine at the successful Ramen Shop, where she leads a team of mostly women.

"I have to be faster, more effective, more straightforward, and more tenacious [than a man]."

Karyn Tomlinson, who graduated from Le Cordon Bleu in France, but was told on her first day on the job as a cook to go to the front of house for service. While her interest was in savory cuisine, she began working her way up through opportunities in pastry, where she grew creatively. None of it discouraged her from pursuing her dream of becoming a head chef, and eventually she found herself at the helm of a kitchen. In 2018 she became the first solo woman to win Grand Cochon, a national whole hog cook-off, and even competed against some of her old chefs. Today, she faces a real challenge as a woman chef, and is currently in the middle of the complex process of opening Myriel, her first restaurant, during a pandemic.