Go build me a table!

I find these comments about the past hypocritical either way.

"Men went to war" to defend against other men

"Men were the breadwinners" because men made laws so that only men could own property so as a woman you could only be a servant or a wife which is also a servant

Women didn't stay in the kitchen, women worked in the fields too, this is evident when you look at less developed areas of the world where agriculture is still done by hand. I mean I get that migrant workers coming from South America to pick vegetables in California are mostly men but that's migrant workers. Go to rural areas in third world countries and look who's picking peppers and tea leaves all day under the burning sun with a baby on their back and two more running about picking stuff too. Women always did work. It's just that at the end of the day when the sun went down and the work day was over, the women would then be in the kitchen cooking all evening and serving the men who sat in the living room enjoying their beer and gambling their money.

There's also the principle that men do more "risky" and "demanding" work that pays more, but may be more sporadic, like getting hired for contractual work or migrant work or stuff like fishing or grazing animals or stuff like carrying stuff with pack animals if they have some. The men might be gone for 3 days or 3 months and come back with a pack of money. Meanwhile the women do more "easy" work that never stops and that pays less, such as menial work in the fields, washing the clothes, cooking the meals, while still being with the kids. There used to be artisanal work too that is less prevalent now that they can buy stuff manufactured in sweatshops, but women used to make clothes and other objects, and if they made a surplus they could sell that.

Speaking of sweatshops, when it transitioned from subsistence agriculture to industrialization, women started working in sweatshops too so there was not really a time where women "didn't work" unless we're speaking about rich people and the start of the modern workplace.