What are stay at home dames?

Have you downloaded a dictionary application to your phone yet? It's really all the rage. 

Anyway, searching for a definition of the word "dame" led me to a few meanings, but allow me to list a couple that stood out to me.

1. "(formerly) a form of address to any woman of rank or authority."

And

2. "Slang: Sometimes Offensive. a term used to refer to a woman: Some dame cut me off and almost caused an accident."

Why did they have to use the "woman driver" stereotype for the sentence example? Ugh.

Mind you, these are just the two most common definitions used in America. Apparently, in Great Britain, the title "dame" is given to a woman who is part of the Order of the British Empire, which stands about the same rank as a KNIGHT (No big deal, right?). Or the title dame is given to the wife of a knight (thats a real good dame you got there, Sir Lancelot).

    
Why would the word "dame", a word meant for royalty and female superiority, be turned into a term used towards woman in a negative gesture? Who's idea is it anyway?

Back in the day (a day that landed in the 1930's), a women (also known as a dame) was expected to take care of the house, take care of the children, and be a good wife. In the year 1939, things changed. The men  were drafted into the war, and women at home had to step up and basically take the men's place. Women were involved in serious manual labor. These women took up jobs doing welding, riveting, and worked in shipyards. The government encouraged women to take up more "war jobs" as well as "civilian jobs" through magazine articles and television ads.

I am a stay at home dame. Well, that's what I'd like my title to be.

My fiancé is my provider and I'm his chubby Guinevere. He goes out and slays clients' technical issues, attends meetings at the round table in the Camelot conference room, and comes home to me around 7 p.m. He's my knight in ironed business wear. I cook him dinner and clean up around the house, and quite frankly, I'm happy with that. And once we get hitched, I'll be the woman of my own house. 

The Woman of the House. It's got a nice ring to it, doesn't it? Almost like a role a woman plays, or a responsibility she takes up, or a "rank of authority" almost. Let's give her a title. Let's give her a rank. She's been the significant other, the girlfriend, the right one, the fiancé, and the loving wife, so let's call her a dame. And once a month we'll call her the damsel in distress.

Stay at home dames are stay at home wives, mothers, fiancés even. We're trying to manage a household, and turn a house into a home. (Homemaker) We build our men up when life beats them down. We are the partners that God assigned the men because they can't run the world by themselves. It's safe to say that we've earned our title.

Pictures:
A Knight and His Lady by William G. Mackenzie

Rosie the Riveter from The Saturday Evening Post. May 29, 1943