Kinder, Küche, Kirche
Encyclopedia
Kinder, Küche, Kirche (ˈkɪndɐ ˈkʏçə ˈkɪʁçə), or the 3 K’s, is a German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

 slogan translated as “children, kitchen, church”. At the present time it has a derogative connotation describing an antiquated female role model. The phrase is vaguely equivalent to the English Barefoot and pregnant
Barefoot and pregnant
"Barefoot and pregnant" is a phrase most commonly associated with the controversial idea that women should not work outside the home and should have many children during their reproductive years. It has several other meanings as well. It is a figure of speech....

.

The origins

The first known English-language mention of the phrase appears in a speech given in December 1898 by the then New York Senator Chauncey Depew
Chauncey Depew
Chauncey Mitchell Depew was an attorney for Cornelius Vanderbilt's railroad interests, president of the New York Central Railroad System, and a United States Senator from New York from 1899 to 1911.- Biography:...

 to the college women's club in New York. "When I was in Germany a few years ago its press had just come to the knowledge of our new woman. The German Emperor took up the subject and was reported to have said that the whole duty of women could be condensed into three things – 'the kitchen, the children, and the church'".

In August of 1899 the influential British liberal Westminster Gazette
Westminster Gazette
The Westminster Gazette was an influential Liberal newspaper based in London. It was known for publishing sketches and short stories, including early works by Raymond Chandler, Anthony Hope and Saki, and travel writing by Rupert Brooke. One of its editors was caricaturist and political cartoonist...

elaborated on the story, mentioning, as well, the 4th "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 no business interfering with anything outside the four K's. The four K's are – Kinder, Küche, Kirche, and Kleider: Children, Kitchen, Church, and Clothing".

Chauncey Depew again mentioned "the 3 K's" in a speech given in February 1900 to the 9th continental congress of the Daughters of the American Revolution
Daughters of the American Revolution
The Daughters of the American Revolution is a lineage-based membership organization for women who are descended from a person involved in United States' independence....

 society held in Washington, DC. "The Emperor of Germany, who is always developing ideas on every subject, and claims to be the master of the movements of the men and women of this world – when I was over in Germany not long ago, when the new woman was first heard of – felt he must say something, so he said that the three K's of the German language were the whole mission of women in this world; the kitchen, the children and the church. Now, Daughters, do not agree with him".

Kaiser's 4 K's is encountered again in Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Charlotte Perkins Gilman was a prominent American sociologist, novelist, writer of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction, and a lecturer for social reform...

's 1911 book The man-made world.

There also are reports that these 4 K's were contrasted against the 3 K's for men: Kaiser, Krieg, Kanonen, "emperor, war, cannons".

Third Reich

The phrase was never used by the officials of the Nazi Third Reich. In fact, Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...

 felt scorn for Wilhelm II who, he believed, contributed to Germany's greatest defeat. The English-speaking world, however, transferred its association of the "3 K's" with Germany to the Nazi regime.

When Hitler came to power in 1933, he introduced a Law for the Encouragement of Marriage, which entitled newly married couples to a loan of 1000 marks (around 9 months' average wages at that time). On their first child, they could keep 250 marks. On their second, they could keep another 250. They reclaimed all of the loan by their fourth child.

In a September 1934 speech to the National Socialist Women's Organization, Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...

 argued that for the German woman her “world is her husband, her family, her children, and her home”, a policy which was reinforced by the stress on "Kinder" and "Küche" in propaganda, and the bestowal of the Cross of Honor of the German Mother
Cross of Honor of the German Mother
The Ehrenkreuz der Deutschen Mutter , referred to colloquially as the Mutterehrenkreuz or simply Mutterkreuz , was a state decoration and civil order of merit conferred by the government of the Deutsches Reich to honour a “Reichsdeutsche” mother for...

 on women bearing four or more babies.

During this period, women were discriminated against in employment and forced out or bribed with numerous social benefits. Medicine, the law and civil service were occupations reserved for men alone.

In one of his essays, T.S. Eliott reproduces and then comments upon a column in the Evening Standard
Evening Standard
The Evening Standard, now styled the London Evening Standard, is a free local daily newspaper, published Monday–Friday in tabloid format in London. It is the dominant regional evening paper for London and the surrounding area, with coverage of national and international news and City of London...

of May 10, 1939 headed "'Back to the Kitchen' Creed Denounced":

"Miss Bower of the Ministry of Transport, who moved that the association should take steps to obtain the removal of the ban (i.e. against married women Civil Servants) said it was wise to abolish an institution which embodied one of the main tenets of the Nazi creed – the relegation of women to the sphere of the kitchen, the children and the church.

"The report, by its abbreviation, may do less than justice to Miss Bower, but I do not think that I am unfair to the report, in finding the implication that what is Nazi is wrong, and need not be discussed on its own merits. Incidentally, the term ‘relegation of women’ prejudices the issue. Might one suggest that the kitchen, the children and the church could be considered to have a claim upon the attention of married women? or that no normal married woman would prefer to be a wage-earner if she could help it? What is miserable is a system that makes the dual wage necessary."

During the World War II in Germany women, eventually, were put back in the factories because of the growing losses in the armed forces and the desperate lack of equipment on the front lines.

Post World War II

The phrase continued to be used in the feminist and anti-feminist writing in the English-speaking world in the 50s and 60s. So, notably, the first version of the classic feminist paper by Naomi Weisstein
Naomi Weisstein
Naomi Weisstein is the daughter of Mary Wenk and Samuel Weisstein. She is a Professor of Psychology, neuroscientist, and author. She graduated from Wellesley College, Phi Beta Kappa, in 1961 and received a Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1964. In 1964 she took a post-doctoral fellowship at the...

"Psychology Constructs the Female" was titled "Kinder, Küche, Kirche as Scientific Law: Psychology Constructs the Female".
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