Makers: Women Who Make America

In the early 1970s, feminism became a force that reshaped the relationships between men and women in the most fundamental ways. Divorce rates spiked as women chafed under their traditional roles but, where men could adapt, marriages became stronger than ever. With the widespread adoption of the contraceptive pill, women’s sexuality was freed from the constant worry over pregnancy.

As the Movement achieved long-sought goals, a new generation of women were re-evaluating some of its most basic assumptions, especially the balance between work and family. By the 2000s, the movement was again under attack from conservatives seeking to rollback abortion and contraception laws, and by younger women fleeing the very word “feminism.”