Are We Back in the 50's?

I've noticed some interesting things since I became a stay at home mom 8 years ago. The people I dealt with when I worked were very different than my fellow stay at home moms. When I worked, women were equal without doubt. No one even questioned it. If you responded in a way that could be construed otherwise you were thought to be uneducated and insensitive. After staying at home I would be surprised when a fellow stay at home mom would hurry off the phone when her husband walked in for fear that he would think she was on the phone all day. They would clean up their house before he got home so he couldn't remark on the cleanliness of it. There seemed to be this unwritten rule that since you were the one home not technically "working" then you had to provide a certain level of image and this image was directly taken from a 1950's sitcom. The troubling part was I was falling into the same role. I would pride myself by having the dishes cleaned and put away and dinner cooked before my husband walked in the door. We were supposed to be born of feminists who fought for equal rights. The first generations who went back to work instead of having to stay home. We had the ability to do either and shouldn't feel bad about it. So why did we have to change who we were? Is this our issue because we don't feel like we are bringing in our fair share? When you stay at home you don't get those occasional pats on the back when the project is done, or raises to show that you are appreciated. No one gives you an award for outstanding potty training. What do you compare yourself to? Is it our husbands who say they think we do the "hardest job in the world" but their reactions at times say the opposite? I've heard some mean and degrading comments that husbands have said to their wives regarding their "work" and watched those wives bite their tongue because maybe they believe it was warranted. Maybe we need to find a new ruler to compare the role of the stay at home mother to. It's not an easy role to define and not all of us want to wear pearls while we vacuum.