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Kitchen manager criticised for 'sexist' job advert asking men to apply first

The employee defended her comments claiming she needed a man to do 'heavy lifting'

Saturday 15 September 2018 13:45 BST

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A female kitchen manager has been criticised for posting a job advert asking for only male candidates to apply.

Posting to the ‘Jobs in Bristol and Surrounding Areas’ Facebook page, Angela Borsi, who works at the Bristol Harbourside branch of Slug and Lettuce wrote: “'Chef job! In Slug and Lettuce Bristol Harbourside. Boys first, if possible.”

The post, which called for male applicants to to apply for an £8-an-hour chef role requiring 40-45 hours work per week, was quickly flooded with comments by people branding it as “sexist.”

“Boy’s first!? What?” one person wrote.

Another added: “Wow, if this isn't the most sexist post I've seen today.”

However, Borsi has since defended her use of language claiming that the job requires a candidate who can do heavy lifting.

“I don't think it's nothing bad - the people are thinking bad about that, I didn't want a boyfriend,” she told the Bristol Post.

“I have two girls in the kitchen already, one is me and the other is pregnant and we need a man for the heavy lifting, when we do an oil change, it is 20 litre containers and they are heavy - that's the reason I put 'boys first'.”

The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood

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1/12The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood

The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood

Anne Hathaway

The 32-year-old actress said she has already experiences job rejections because of her age. “Now I'm in my early thirties and I'm like, 'Why did that 24-year-old get that part? I was that 24-year-old once. I can't be upset about it, it's the way things are,” she told Glamour.

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The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood

Helen Mirren

On news that Maggie Gyllenhaal had been turned down for being ‘too old’, aged 37, to play a 55-year-old man’s partner: “It’s f***ing outrageous. It’s ridiculous. Honestly, it’s so annoying. And ’twas ever thus. We all watched James Bond as he got more and more geriatric, and his girlfriends got younger and younger. It’s so annoying.”

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The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood

Maggie Gyllenhaal

Gyllenhaal revealed she was told by a Hollywood producer that she was too old, aged 37, to play the love interest of a 55-year-old man. “It was astonishing to me. It made me feel bad, and then it made feel angry, and then it made me laugh,” she said at the time.

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The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood

Meryl Streep

Meryl Streep has helped fund an all-female screenwriters group called The Writer’s Lab to encourage more women to pen Hollywood scripts. She previously told Vogue in 2011: “Once women pass childbearing age they could only be seen as grotesque on some level.”

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The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood

Emma Thompson

The actress said she thought Hollywood is “still completely s***” when it comes to treating women equally to men. ““When I was younger, I really did think we were on our way to a better world. And when I look at it now, it is in a worse state than I have known it, particularly for women, and I find that very disturbing and sad.”

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The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood

Elizabeth Banks

Banks said she was driven from acting to directing due to the lack of roles for older women in Hollywood. “"[Industry sexism] drove me to direct for sure. I definitely was feeling that I was unfulfilled and a little bit bored by the things that were coming across my desk. I mean look at Gwyneth Paltrow who has her Oscar [for Shakespeare in Love] and played fifth banana to Iron Man,” she told Deadline.

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The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood

Viola Davis

“I had never seen a 49-year-old, dark-skinned woman who is not a size 2 be a sexualised role in TV or film. I'm a sexual woman, but nothing in my career has ever identified me as a sexualised woman. I was the prototype of the ‘mommified’ role,” she told The Hollywood Reporter.

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The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood

Liv Tyler

The Lord of the Rings actress said she only get cast in roles where she is treated as a “second class citizen” at the age of 38. “When you’re in your teens or twenties, there is an abundance of ingenue parts which are exciting to play. But at [my age], you’re usually the wife or the girlfriend - a sort of second-class citizen. There are more interesting roles for women when they get a bit older,” she told More magazine.

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The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood

Cate Blanchett

The actress famously called out sexism on the red carpet at the 2014 Screen Actors Guild Awards. When a camera operator scanned her up and down, she said: “Do you do this to the guys?” In her Oscar acceptance speech for Blue Jasmine, she reminded the film industry that movies with leading women can still be successful. “And thank you to... those of us in the industry who are still foolishly clinging to the idea that female films, with women at the centre, are niche experiences. They are not -- audiences want to see them and, in fact, they earn money. The world is round, people.”

Gareth Cattermole/Getty

The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood

Ellen Page

Asked if she had ever encountered sexism in Hollywood, Page told The Guardian: ‘Oh my God, yeah! It's constant! It's how you're treated, it's how you're looked at, how you're expected to look in a photoshoot, it's how you're expected to shut up and not have an opinion, it's how you... If you're a girl and you don't fit the very specific vision of what a girl should be, which is always from a man's perspective, then you're a little bit at a loss.”

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The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood

Zoe Saldana

The actress says she refuses roles where she has to play the generic girlfriend, wife or sexy bombshell. "It's very hard being a woman in a man's world, and I recognised it was a man's world even when I was a kid. It's an inequality and injustice that drove me crazy, and which I always spoke out against — and I've always been outspoken,” she told Manhattan magazine.

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The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood

Charlize Theron

The actress spoke to ELLE about negotiating equal pay for the Snow White and the Huntsman sequel: "This is a good time for us to bring this to a place of fairness, and girls need to know that being a feminist is a good thing. It doesn't mean that you hate men. It means equal rights. If you're doing the same job, you should be compensated and treated in the same way."

Andreas Rentz/Getty Images

According to UK law, employers must not show any form of gender discrimination within job adverts or job descriptions themselves.

“An employer cannot show a preference to hire someone of a particular gender without a genuine occupational requirement,” employment agency Reed states.

“Without one, any language in the job advert relating to gender preference could be viewed as discriminatory.

“Even with seemingly good intentions from a recruiter (such as trying to even up the gender split in the office, for example), favouring a man or woman for a particular role is generally not acceptable.”

A spokesperson for Slug and Lettuce told The Independent: “Whilst this individual is a team member she does not handle our recruitment.

“The post was done proactively on a personal feed in her own time and certainly does not reflect company policy.

“We would like to apologise for any offence caused and reassure all applicants that our management team handles all recruitment to ensure the correct procedures are adhered to and it will be no different with this vacancy.“

The Independent has contacted Angela Borsi for comment.

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