PAPER
PROJECT
Kitchen Talks 01
In recent weeks, I have been talking with my mother over food. Not about food - well, also about food, mainly congratulating ourselves on how well we cooked and how beautiful it looks. But apart from the shared joy of preparing a meal with intention and love, we also tend to philosophise. About everything. It’s random in a way, yet often sparked by current events, comments on the radio - the old-school kind with its sensitive antenna that tends to spark white noise crackling whenever we stand in the wrong place. Not a pleasant sound, but I enjoy the technical glitch between body and radio wave frequency - which includes a small portion of the cosmic microwave background, a leftover radiation from the Big Bang. A technological connection to the universe, many Gen Zers probably only know from old movies.
I am really glad to belong to multiple worlds - old enough to relate and remember, young enough to participate and belong. My mom, born in 1959, is now more of a then when compared to the hyper-contemporary. Our worldviews use different languages, definitions, and relations - however slight or intense they might be - which makes for an exciting engagement and a continuous reminder that these perspectives are not static. The world, our views, and our ideas are in constant flux and always contextual.
This morning, the radio reported on femicide. Not a happy topic, but for a slow Sunday morning, one we can dive into. As the first signs of spring appear - the shy sun and the cold wind still carrying the smell of snow from the mountains to the sleepy village - except for the churchgoers, there is not much movement. Thus, we sit in the warmth of the domestic, indulging in our food.
"Femicide," the radio voice states, "is rising. Almost every day, a woman is killed in Germany." Mostly, these murders are committed by their male partners, even though the women have often alerted authorities - warnings that are categorically ignored. After the system's failure to act, these high numbers of murders become inevitable statistics. Now, the report says, politicians have found a solution. And sadly, we have to acknowledge that at least this long-standing issue has finally made it onto the political and social agenda (the radio). That women die because they are women/womxn, killed by the hands of men - trusted, loved, and feared partners - is nothing new. It is not a tragedy of this time but a systemic problem of both past and present. But in this time, we have a word for it, and we are using it.
And the “great” solution politicians are presenting is to introduce electronic tags for these not yet but almost and somehow already perpetrators. From an occasionally violent (physically, emotionally, financially, or systemically) partner to a murderer seems like a long way - until she, the woman, walks away. Most of these killings happen after a breakup instigated by her.
So, on this Sunday morning, we ask: Why are men seemingly unable to deal with their own pain, emotional hurt, and feelings? At this table, it is difficult to comprehend why rejection and heartbreak would lead to murder instead of enduring the pain it undoubtedly causes.
We have all (presumably) been heartbroken in our lives. Yet (again, presumably), we have somehow made it through the deep abyss of agony and self-loathing and emerged, healed - not untouched, but whole enough that life made sense without the other again. And ideally, without harming anyone in the process.
Where does this inability or the resistance come from? Since this is not an impossibility rather than a formed difficulty? What is it about this binary thinking and the rigid attributions of men and women - man vs. woman? In this shared room, my mothers kitchen, we wander into a thought experiment: we go way back - to a time when life was about immediate survival, no accuracy in historical facts but trying to imagine a world beyond our experience.
My mom shared her idea of the ‘magic unity’ as in its symbolism of love and unity between woman and man in the sense of a connection between human beings - the notion that, intrinsically, there must be differences in their qualities, leading to the belief that they complete one another. One, nurturing and in need of protection. The other, a provider in need of nurturing. A simplified version of the complex web that is human relationships. I like the idealism, the softness of two parts completing each other, as she describes.
If we imagine a time when unity (community) was primarily guided by survival, where existence was shaped by proximity to daily life, I wonder: was fulfilling the binary of finding one’s other half maybe secondary? Was one’s position within a community - rather than a two-part entity - not more important? I believe people were nurturers or providers according to their skills rather than their physical gender. Survival seems more urgent than classification, norms, and control.
Fast forward within our thought experiment's timeline. I presume humanity has, in its development, destroyed this idea of positionality within a community (dare I say religion and the obsession with productivity aka industrialisation are to blame, among others). For an extra measure of control, it introduced binary genders - along with all other binaries: good and bad, weak and strong, woman and man. And it did so through signifiers in language. I’m not saying language was invented then, but maybe a certain way of using it was - one that favoured one over the other.
And very successfully so. It made us understand, without ambiguity, that as a woman, there is not much you can do by yourself - you are, by nature, inadequate to survive without your provider (later, your prince - aka Pretty Woman, the 1990 movie I love and hate). Thus, you better stand pretty and ready for your prince to come around the corner and select you. Yes, you! Congratulations, you have won! You have been chosen. And now, your purpose is to bear children because, apparently, fulfilment for a woman can only be found in motherhood. Even before motherhood, the way you give birth to these children is not something you and your body can handle naturally - there must be rules and guidelines, defined by male doctors and scientists, while the woman, the nurse, may only assist.
Not so long ago, science finally started researching whether it might be better to give the baby - bloody, slimy as it is - to the mother’s breast because, apparently, they both know what to do best. And, it turns out, it’s actually really good for both. Oh well.
And while we are at it, female sexual pleasure has been nonexistent in medical and social discourse for most of history. In the 21st century - where states and billionaires are busy flying to the moon, Mars, and beyond, preparing to colonise the universe - we are only now trying to understand the vagina and the wonderful things one can do with its geographic markers. A universe in itself, the vulva is fascinating and crucial for, yes, life on Earth.
Meanwhile, men have spent centuries oppressing the "weaker sex." And thanks to generational trauma, we have all inherited and perpetuated this legacy in some way. Although it was not developed in a sinister back room by all these horrible men and unleashed into the world - rather it worked slowly and with complacency, but damn, it has worked geniusly. One could be bitter and say, Nothing has changed! Look at femicide, continuous inequality, the oppression of women around the world. But a lot has changed. We fought. We developed a language to name and define these inequalities. In many geographical contexts, we had feminism — the emancipation movement for women’s rights and self-determination. Over time, we developed greater awareness and created more space for it and us in society. We have our foremothers and foresisters to thank for their hard work, fight, and resilience as well for the men who stood alongside them.
And yet, two women, sitting here on that Sunday morning, are deeply saddened — not shocked, because nothing new - by the ongoing femicide. We ask: Why? Why is this still happening?
We wonder if part of the answer lies in the fact that men never had their own emancipation. They never had to fight for what they wanted - to define who they are. They were always considered to be in positions of power - true - but not every man wants the massive burden and pressure of being a provider, of always having to be the strong one. Yes, this role comes with a lot of freedom and self-determination - privileges that have long been denied to women - but the point is that men never redefined their manhood - personhood. They are still not allowed to have feelings, to cry, to be weak, to feel pain and to articulate it. That is still considered women’s business. And to be honest, it’s a great business - it is fantastic to feel and to be able to share those feelings.
What if we allowed men to define themselves and in turn opens up an understanding of self that can include women as part and not as other? What if we, as a society, gave them non-judgmental space to express who they are? Maybe more of us would still be alive. Maybe a recurring regression and resurgence of dominance could be avoided?
It seems that, despite all our achievements in technology and medicine, human interpersonal development has stagnated. It remains trapped in tiny steps - moving back and forth - so vulnerable to changes in government, belief systems, and laws. The simple act of deciding about your own body - sexual preferences, gender identities or abortion.
Here, I think the queer lens can help dismantle the constraints of binary thinking - both in language and in the very fabric of society - allowing for a more nuanced and relational understanding of life, rather than a “god-given” hierarchy. The humanness, the being off the earth and thus connected to its divine body - where is it? And again, if we allow for this, maybe more of us would still be alive.