Housewife status as in, “Marriage is like a workshop: the man works, the woman shops”? Back then women had to break their backs doing housework because of lack of technology, but not today–today it would really be like the “man works, woman shops” model if we go back to traditional gender roles. The world of work that women protested and demanded to be allowed entry wasn’t as glamorous as they thought it would be. Men weren’t going on vacation while women were oppressed by her twirl-mustached husbands who gave her his money after he came home. Working was an obligation for men. And men were also held accountable for their wives’ actions (his wife screwed up, he assumed the consequences) responsible for his family, responsible for the provision of food and resources for the children. Men, however, were compensated for their enormous responsibilities by getting bigger rewards than women, while women, who were sheltered from the real world to a large extent and didn’t have to deal with the risks and stresses of men’s world, a.k.a. the world of paradise where men made their money and refused to allow women entry and 99.99% of men showed up 15 minutes early for work because it was so fine and dandy, were “rewarded” accordingly by their lack of power in society.
In other words, men had all the responsibilities and took most of the risks in society including war (lots of wars back then), therefore, they reaped the biggest rewards as well. Women had lots of responsibilities and were rewarded accordingly by the man who gave her money, shelter, clothes, food, etc. but assumed very little of the risks, so the power they had in society were also small. Women also had to raise the children–and weren’t “paid labor” because the man was already “paying” her with money, shelter, clothes, food, luxuries, etc., or at least in theory.
I’m not advocating for traditional gender roles, by the way. It worked long ago for survival but now, with the abundance of food and resources, we don’t need it anymore–if we ever even needed it to begin with. The problem is that all you hear today are the advantages men had and the disadvantages women had, while ignoring the other half of the picture: the disadvantages and enormous responsibilities, risks, and obligations men were subjected to and expected to uphold, as well as the advantages women enjoyed.