This role can be toxic and lead to problematic behaviours that can worsen a person's personal life and mental health, regardless of their gender identity.

it's like the beard, it's traditionally something that, in general, men have and women don't.

that doesn't mean that things can't change in the future and that the change won't be for the better.

That would be women born in the 1880's, 1900's and early 1920's.

While few women had the privilege required to focus on their career, it was still present. At what point should we mark something as "tradition"?

Remember that the Equal Credit Opportunity Act was not a thing until 1974. Until then, banks required single, widowed or divorced women to bring a man along to cosign any credit application, regardless of their income.

I also think that traditions in USA is used to mean inertia ("things have always been done that way" etc.), but US are a very bad country for female workers for reasons that go beyond traditions.

My country has its share of remarkable women, Miuccia Prada is one of them and she's still alive and well, Fabiola Giannotti is Italian and the first female director of CERN, Maria Montessori (1870) the inventor of the Montessori educational method was Italian,Grazia Deledda was the second woman in history to win a Nobel price in 1926 and the first Italian woman and the list could go on, the fact is that until not long ago men and women had different jobs because it was required by the job.

See construction for example, you don't see women in construction.

Traditionally, if we talk about the entire World, means since at least hominids have settled down and started farming.

Luckily things are changing, but there's still the question: do really women want that?

I'm not questioning their abilited here, but the idea that having the choice they would chose to be part of something that men have built in their image at their rules.

For example in Scandinavia where gender equality is higher than everywhere else in the western World, women are less keen to attend STEM faculties because they are too hard for too little reward. They can make more money working as lawyers or for the government, having also more time to do what they like, including spending it raising their kids and with their families. Once they reached equality (same opportunities) they started to chose because they don't have to prove anything to the others.

EDIT: if you think about it we Italians are usually laughed of because we live with our "mamma" and talk a lot about the "famiglia", we are " those lazy Italians" but that's the reason why being a housewife here it's not a stigma. Housewives are not rewarded enough in Italy, but being one it's not the end of your social life. On the contrary in USA (in particular) not working to death is frowned upon, free time is for the lazy people, "work hard and the American dream will come true", these are the kinds of " traditions " that make it impossible to be a woman, a mother and a successful business woman, to the point that paid maternity leave is not even a right!

Here in Italy, which is not the best country in the World about maternity policies, women have 5 mandatory months of paid maternity leave during which they can't be at work, it's mandatory that they abstein from it. The period can be extended if the medical conditions require (or suggest) it.

Paradoxically younger generations that grew up on social media immersed in American culture, see things the same way and have a very hard time accepting that not being highly succesful at work (or in general) is not the end of the World and they also think that being an housewife is a failure.

full disclosure: there haven't been housewives in my family at least in the past three generations, so I am not saying it because I wish for women to stay home and take care of the kids.

Three of my close friends are women in the construction industry and my cousin is a car mechanic. My best friend who is male works as a secretary and my uncle is a nurse.

People will works on things that passionate them when they have the freedom to do so. There is no such thing as a gendered job.

I am familiar with the gender equality paradox and personally believe that it's causes are socioeconomic and not about "not having the stress" to "emulate men". Especially since Nordic countries have a higher percentage of women in parliament which I would argue is "traditionally" a man's role.

anecdotes aside

Women working in construction numbered 1.5 percent of the entire U.S. workforce

they also earn only 80℅ of the men's pay on average.

> and my uncle is a nurse.

and so was my father, for 42 years. There are cultural differences in the World, as a low payd job there is less incentive for men in USA, only 13% of nurse are men, in Italy about 30% of them is a man.

But in Italy 80% of teachers up to high school are women, for example, still today.

Because traditionally education is a women's role.

We think (or thought) they do it better.