Kinder, Küche, Kirche (), or the 3 Ks, is a German slogan translated as "children, kitchen, church" used under the German Empire to describe a woman's role in society. It now has a mostly derogatory connotation, describing what is seen as an antiquated female role model in contemporary Western society. The phrase is vaguely equivalent to the American "barefoot and pregnant", the British Victorian era "A woman's place is in the home" or the phrase "Good Wife, Wise Mother" from Meiji Japan. The origins The origins of the phrase are normally attributed to either the last German Emperor Wilhelm II, or to his first wife, Empress Augusta Victoria. She is likely to have adopted it from one of several similar German "sayings by number". The most suggestive of these is listed in the second volume of German proverbs Glossary: A Treasury for the German People published in 1870 by Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Wander: "Four K's are requisite of a pious woman, namely, that she keeps regard for church, chamber, kitchen, children." Wander refers for the origins of this saying to a 16th-century commentary on Sirach by Johannes Mathesius. He also lists another similar phrase: "A good housewife has to take care of five K: chamber, kids, kitchen, cellar, clothes," which appeared first in the 1810 collection of German proverbs. by Johann Michael Sailer. In 1844 "The newspaper for the German Nobility" published this latter saying in its traditional last page "feature" short statements. The phrase started to appear in its current form in writing in the early 1890s. "After Germany, where women apparently take no interest in public affairs, and seem to obey to the letter the young emperor's injunction 'Let women devote themselves to the three K's,' (kitchen, church, and children), the active interest and influence of English women on all great questions were refreshing." wrote Marie C. Remick in A Woman's Travel-notes on England in 1892. The phrase then was used multiple times throughout the 1890s in liberal writing and speeches. In August 1899 the influential British liberal Westminster Gazette elaborated on the story, mentioning, as well, the fourth "K". A story titled "The American Lady and the Kaiser. The Empress's four K's" describes an audience given by the Kaiser to two American suffragettes. After hearing them out, the Kaiser replies: "I agree with my wife. And do you know what she says? She says that women have