The book The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan is likely the source material for the perspective you are criticizing.

Friedan emphasizes the widespread malaise and discontent of college educated women who are barred from the workforce or are otherwise marginalized on account of pregnancy and motherhood (herself as a writer included). This is accomplished via mostly firsthand interviews if I recall. It is more about a lack of vocational fulfillment (exacerbated by higher education and intellectual capacity). There was a more recent anthropology text (I can’t recall the name) that I read part of that implied it is a cross-species phenomenon for females to need to have work in addition to motherhood as part of a psychology of individuated success.

Motherhood is arguably the most important job in the world. However, there is evidence to suggest that women need work outside of motherhood to feel fulfilled as individuals. My own grandmother, who was more a “housewife” in the sixties, ended up working as her husband’s business partner and has always emphasized to me the importance of working as it relates to mental health. I remember vividly her mad dash to bridge the gap of fulfilling activity in her life following retirement. Her perspective is that women who do not have some work outside of child-rearing mentally suffer compared to women who do.