A kitchen is a room or area where food is stored, prepared, and cooked. It usually contains appliances like a stove, oven, sink, and refrigerator.
From Old English “cycene”, from Latin “coquina” meaning “kitchen, cooking place”, from “coquere” meaning “to cook”. The word has long been tied to cooking and food preparation.
The kitchen has shifted from a hidden workroom to the social center of many homes, where people gather as well as cook. It’s both a factory for energy and a stage for family life. The word names a place, but the place often shapes the day’s rhythm.
The kitchen has historically been coded as a feminine domestic space, with women expected to perform unpaid cooking and housework. Phrases like 'a woman’s place is in the kitchen' have reinforced restrictive gender roles, even as professional kitchens have often been male-dominated.
Avoid jokes or comments that tie kitchen work to women specifically; describe cooking and domestic labor as responsibilities that can be shared by all genders.
Women’s expertise in kitchens—both domestic and professional—has underpinned culinary traditions and industries, often without equal recognition or pay.
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