But a lot did work. My mother did. My father was an army officer, but wherever we were posted my mother worked as a teacher or in an office. Quite a few of her contemporaries did much the same. My best friends mother also worked, she was a nurse and worked in the local GP's surgery and I can think of others.
Like the cliche that only middle class women didn't work, the other cliche is that middle class women certainly didn't work. Many who didn't work for money worked quite seriously and almost full time in senior positions in voluntary organisations.
As you say, grumppa generalisations are not very helpful.
Brussels police ordered to attend a right wing conference attended by Braverman and Farage