Housewife vs. homemaker - English Language Usage Stack Exchange Homemaker is a more modern word — OED attests it from 1861 rather than the thirteenth century for housewife — and it focuses on creating a home rather than simply being in a house And it's sex-agnostic However, which is used is entirely a matter of style and choice, perhaps with a regional bias
grammatical gender - Is it correct to apply Housewife term for an . . . Maybe twenty years ago it would have been a fairly neutral term, but now it is considered too freighted On the one hand, some consider housewife too passive; people in that role may prefer the more active and gender-neutral homemaker, or stay-at-home mom dad parent if they are caregivers for children
A possibly modern derogatory term for housewife A term with precisely that meaning that will be readily understood in the United States (at least by those who are middle-aged or older), but probably not elsewhere, is Suzy Homemaker The term was originally a brand name for a line of toys intended for girls, that enabled them to pretend to be homemakers, but as the Wikipedia article on these toys puts it, the term eventually became an insult