tabouleh - you raised a lot of interesting issues in your post @ 11.46 (and later) and some of which were floating around in my mind too as I posted. I dont feel attacked and would like to add a bit to your comments. 
The issue of how the role of women rapidly changed in the national crisis of WWII working in factories, on the land and in combat too but then suddenly thrown back into homemaker and childcarer roles as soon as the war ended is a good historical example of how society changes its attitudes much more slowly than real life practical circumstances sometimes require.
Your reference to home working by women in preindustral agraian society is interesting too. My own mother, a farmer's wife, was a SAHM but also telephone receptionist, shepherd, tractor driver, and bookkeeper too. I live in a city now that had a vibrant preindustrial economy based on micro craft industry consisting of thousands of families (men and women) making high value items of clothing and later in the industrial revolution it became a major centre for high craft mass production of homewares which emloyed and valued thousands of women for their dexterity.
I have my family tree back to about 1740 and beginning with itinerant tinkers, smiths, then butchers and then farmers the women were undoubtedly a silent resource in all those businesses. The men though were always named as 'tinker', 'smith', butcher, 'farmer'. It is clear what they did. The women in my family tree don't have professions except 'wife'. Society for hundreds of years had the roles mapped out for men quite clearly - now its not so clear what the role of men is and hence the source of confusion some men feel. Of course, many women are no longer just a wife either.
My own marriage certficate is an example. It says my profession 'shipping clerk' and my wife is 'stockbroker'. That is the first time in my family tree the woman in a marriage had a named profession.