This Takes the Cake

For me, Medusa is a symbol of the inner strength and resilience it takes to set boundaries and remember my own worth when others try to strip it away. In my related post, Medusa at the Threshold, I wrote about never wanting to relive my 20s. I sometimes wish I could return to that decade as my inner‑Medusa and offer that younger self some assurances and support. Luckily, she had a mother‑Medusa.

Still, there are moments I replay—times when I was completely unprepared for what transpired. Hard to imagine today (at least I hope so), but in 1983, in a male‑dominated profession, it was all too common.

Here is one short story I’d like to "get off my chest".

The “Cake”

Back in the previous century, hotels employed Food & Beverage cost controllers and analysts. We worked closely with chefs and costed out recipes, helped determine menu pricing, conducted butcher tests, did monthly inventories, calculated potential food and beverage costs—functions that have since been “value‑engineered” out of most org charts and are now on the chef's "plate". 

I was very good at this. Believe it or not, even though this position no longer exists, I have found these now-uncommon skills to be a professional plus over the decades.

At 24, my role required working with European chefs who, at the time, were known to be prima donnas. It was a true boys’ club. Chefs demanded your respect. If you dared to walk through their kitchen without permission, you might get yelled at—or have a knife waved in your direction. Kitchens were sacred ground.

One month in 1983, the costs were “controlled.” The chefs and assistant F&B director decided to have a celebratory lunch. As the female cost controller, I was not invited to lunch—but they called me afterward and invited me for dessert.

“What an honor,” I thought. No lunch, but I get to share in the pastry chef’s dessert.  When I arrived in the chef’s dining room, the dirty dishes had been cleared and coffee service was ready. Then the cake arrived.

It was a life‑size, marzipan‑covered pair of breasts, decorated with blue ribbons, expertly crafted and presented to me as some kind of prize for a job well done.

Another Medusa moment.

I was flooded with choices:  Do I show my indignation and risk damaging the fragile working relationship with these chef egos?  Or do I prove I can “handle” the boys’ club tribute?

In the culture of that hotel in 1983, I chose the latter. I’m not even sure HR would have known what to do with a sexual harassment claim back then. There was no awareness, no training, no visible resources.

It was a test I passed in their eyes—but I’m not sure I passed it in my own. I shrank to make them feel comfortable with the choices they made.

What This Reveals About Power and Culture

This story isn’t about a cake. It’s about:

• Power: Who feels entitled to turn a colleague into a joke, and who is expected to laugh along.

• Culture: What a workplace normalizes as “just how things are done,” especially when no one names the harm.

• Survival: The quiet calculations many women and marginalized people make: What will it cost me to say no? To speak up? To walk away?

In that moment, my inner Medusa was still forming. I didn’t yet have the language of “boundaries,” “psychological safety,” or “hostile work environment.” I just knew something was wrong—and that I didn’t feel safe enough to say so.

Experiences like this went into the soup of who I am. They strengthened my inner Medusa over time, even as they left a residue of anger and grief. They also shaped how I later led teams, mentored others, and tried to create spaces where no one would be asked to swallow humiliation as the price of belonging.

Thought Leadership: What We Can Do Differently Now

Looking back with a stronger inner Medusa, here’s what I know now:

• Silence is not consent. When people laugh along, it often means they’re calculating risk, not enjoying the joke.

• “Tradition” is not an excuse. Kitchen culture has changed.  “That’s just how kitchens are” or “that’s just how this industry works” is a story that has evolved into more inclusive spaces.

• Leaders set the threshold. If you have power—title, tenure, influence—you are the one standing at the door. You decide what gets waved through and what gets turned away.

• Boundaries are culture‑shaping. Every time someone says, “That’s not okay here,” they are quietly rewriting the rules for everyone who comes after.

Medusa, as a symbol, invites us to become guardians at the threshold of our workplaces: to protect dignity, to name harm, and to refuse to turn people into props for someone else’s amusement.

Your Turn: Strengthening Your Inner Medusa

If any part of this story stirs something in you, I invite you to pause and reflect: If I have power today, how can I use it to protect, not to test, the people around me?