The metaphorical semantics of knives, especially kitchen knives, opens up the following possible interpretation: On the one hand, knives are essential tools in the kitchen, whose function is sometimes indispensable and with which culinary masterpieces are created. On the other hand, they can potentially lead to acts of violence. Similarly, a double-edged dynamic manifests itself in the activity of kitchen work.Care work in the kitchen can likewise be characterised as very ambivalent. Care work is often exclusively seen as an expression of affection and love and is devalued in contrast to activity as „real work“ defined activities. It is not uncommon for people, especially women, to appreciate the act of cooking, but over time develop an emotional aversion to enforced expectations within conventional and heteronormative family constructs. Even if not many people realise it, care work and therefore cooking is still predominantly the responsibility of women. The downgrading of this and the resulting wage inequalities contribute to the fact that women often remain in precarious living conditions or are affected by poverty in old age. From this perspective, the care work of cooking is transformed into a form of violence that is mediated by social expectations of mothers. Thus, the act of cooking - under autonomous control - functions as a manifestation of love and can simultaneously become a burden. Similar to carelessly handled knives, people who are solely responsible for this care work tend to become emotionally dulled.

pictures: Kushtrim Memeti