Montreal’s Phi Centre agrees that a woman’s place is in the kitchen — and its Women with Knives series spotlights the culinary artistry these chefs are performing there.

The four-day series starts Monday and includes conversations and demonstrations at the multipurpose arts venue the Phi Centre as well as a gastronomic dinner at nearby Candide restaurant, both in Old Montreal.

Organizers at the multipurpose arts venue said the “timing was right” to showcase women who are leaders in the male-dominated field.

“We’re doing this type of event because for us, culinary art is as much a form of art as music, as cinema, as an exhibition,” said Phi Centre spokesperson Myriam Achard.

• ‘Kitchens can be locker rooms’ restaurateur Jen Agg tells Andrew Coppolino

Quebec’s Colombe Saint-Pierre, the owner of Chez Saint-Pierre in Rimouski, said that the province is unique when it comes to kitchen sexism.

“Quebec is not a place where you can say, ‘I feel like a woman in the kitchen,'” she said.

She said that it wasn’t always easy and there are “macho men” in some kitchens, but she didn’t let it get to her.

“I could say, ‘stop.'”

‘You’ve worked like a man’

For 10 years Saint-Pierre travelled the world, cooking in restaurants from Australia to Peru.

In her globetrotting, she found that different countries are at different places when it comes how female chefs are treated.