The Changing Role of Women, 1950–2000

Women’s roles at the beginning of the 1950s

Between 1950 and 2000, American women gained wider opportunities in employment, education and public life. Their legal rights also expanded. However, change was uneven: discrimination persisted, and Americans disagreed over how far women’s roles should change.

A woman’s role means what she is expected to do; her status concerns her rights, opportunities and position in society. These are connected, but not identical. A woman might have paid employment while still having fewer opportunities for promotion than a man.

The Second World War provided an important background. Women had taken jobs in factories and other industries as men entered the armed forces. This demonstrated their ability to do work previously associated with men. After the war, however, many lost these jobs when servicemen returned.

In the 1950s, the ideal of the male breadwinner and female homemaker remained powerful. Women were expected to find fulfilment through marriage, childcare and managing the home, with domestic appliances presented as part of a comfortable family life. This ideal did not describe every woman’s experience, but it helped justify restrictions on women’s careers. Some employers could dismiss women when they married, and professional opportunities were particularly limited for married women.

Why demands for equality grew

Growing numbers of educated women became frustrated that their qualifications did not lead to the same opportunities as men’s. Around 1960, women accounted for only about 7% of doctors, 4% of lawyers and 5% of company managers. Paid work was therefore not the same as access to prestigious or influential careers.

In 1963, Betty Friedan published The Feminine Mystique. She challenged the assumption that marriage and housework necessarily gave women a satisfying life. Her account of well-qualified women feeling unfulfilled helped turn experiences often treated as individual problems into a public debate about women’s position in society.

Feminism sought equal rights and opportunities for women. It challenged both discrimination and the social expectations which restricted women’s choices. Its aim was not simply to move women into jobs, but to give them greater freedom to decide how to live.

Campaigning through organisations and protest

The National Organization for Women (NOW) campaigned for greater equality. It challenged employment discrimination through the courts and pressed for equal job training, maternity leave and childcare provision. These demands were connected: formal access to a job was less useful if a woman could not obtain training or arrange childcare.

The Women’s Liberation Movement, which emerged in the late 1960s, also challenged attitudes towards women. Its supporters used direct action to draw attention to unequal treatment. Protests against beauty pageants, including the Miss America contest, argued that judging women primarily by appearance reduced them to objects rather than recognising their abilities and individuality.

The feminist movement was not a single organisation, and women did not all face identical barriers. The National Black Feminist Organization and the North American Indian Women’s Association also campaigned for women’s rights. Their involvement mattered because racial discrimination could compound sex discrimination: equality campaigns needed to address more than the experiences of white, middle-class women.

Legal changes widened women’s choices

Campaigning accompanied important changes in the law:

• The Equal Pay Act, 1963, required equal pay for men and women doing equal work. It gave women a legal basis for challenging unequal payment.
• The Civil Rights Act, 1964, prohibited employment discrimination on grounds including race and sex. This addressed access to jobs and treatment at work, not just wages.
• The Education Amendments, 1972, strengthened protection against sex discrimination in education, widening opportunities for girls and women to prepare for careers.
• The Pregnancy Discrimination Act, 1978, prohibited employment discrimination because of pregnancy. Employers could no longer lawfully dismiss a woman simply because she became pregnant.

Changes also affected family and personal life. Married couples gained legal access to contraception, while no-fault divorce made it easier to end a marriage without proving wrongdoing by one partner. These developments increased women’s ability to make decisions about relationships and childbearing.

In Roe v. Wade, 1973, the Supreme Court recognised a constitutional right to abortion, subject to limits. The ruling restricted states’ ability to ban abortion and represented an important victory for campaigners seeking reproductive choice. It did not mean that abortion was unrestricted throughout pregnancy.

These measures changed women’s legal position, but laws alone could not immediately remove discriminatory practices or deeply rooted expectations.

Opposition and the Equal Rights Amendment

Not all women supported the feminist movement’s aims. Conservative campaigners defended traditional family roles and argued that some proposed changes would remove protections they valued.

In 1972, Congress approved the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). It proposed that equal rights under the law should not be denied on account of sex. Supporters wanted a clear constitutional guarantee of equality, rather than relying only on separate laws addressing particular forms of discrimination. To become part of the Constitution, however, the amendment also needed approval from enough states.

Phyllis Schlafly’s Stop ERA campaign organised opposition. Schlafly argued that the amendment would undermine traditional roles and lead to consequences such as women serving in combat, higher abortion rates, unisex bathrooms and same-sex marriage. These were her arguments about what might happen, not outcomes already produced by the amendment.

Opposition helped prevent the ERA from gaining sufficient state approval. It did not become part of the Constitution during this period. This was a major limit to feminist success and showed that changes in women’s status remained politically contested.

How much had changed by 2000?

Women’s participation in paid work increased rapidly from the 1960s through the 1980s, before growth slowed in the 1990s. In 1999, 60% of women aged 16 and over were in the civilian labour force: they were working or actively seeking work. This was a major departure from the expectation that women’s lives should centre exclusively on the home.

Families changed too. In 1967, 44% of married-couple families had earnings from both husband and wife; this reached about 60% in the mid-to-late 1990s. Two-income households made women’s earnings an increasingly important part of family life.

Women also gained greater political visibility. In 1984, the Democrats selected Geraldine Ferraro as their vice-presidential candidate, making her the first woman nominated for that office by a major US political party. Her nomination was a breakthrough, although she did not become vice-president.

Overall, women’s roles and status changed substantially between 1950 and 2000. Legal protections expanded, paid employment became more common, and women had greater choices over careers and family life. Nevertheless, equality was not complete. Discrimination continued, opportunities remained uneven, and the failure of the ERA demonstrated the strength of opposition. The strongest judgement is therefore that the period brought major advances, rather than complete or universally accepted equality.