Isn't feminism and the women's liberation movement what caused women to stop becoming stay-at-home mothers and enter the workforce instead?
> I thought it was WW2 and the lack of men to do the jobs they usually would.
I thought it was common to teach that women's employment rose with second-wave feminism in the 1960s.
My background knowledge: after WW2 ended, women were fired and replaced with men. The average age of marriage dropped, and the portion of women attending college descreased. Housewives were increasingly dissatisfied, which drew them to the second-wave feminist movement. This is why the book The Feminine Mystique sold well.
that would time well with being one generation removed from the one that lost 400k to war. the 60's would be when boomers would start entering the work force.
I'm sure some of the silent generation women also entered, but they wouldn't lead the bulk of the workforce shifting by the late 60's/70's.
That doesn't track the reality of the timeline of women in the workforce. Women temporarily worked during WW2, and after the war things returned to the previous status quo. Women weren't common in the workforce until the 1960s. It wasn't until 1967 that women's labor force participation broke 40%[1] but then it pretty quickly hit 50% by 1978.
"Women's liberation" is what brought women into the labor force. That doesn't mean it "ruined America", it just means the approach had flaws that need to be iterated on.
I don't think any progress in women can be attributed to feminism. They still don't have any ownership of their own bodies (abortion, sex work), their bodies are controlled by 80+ year old white males running the govt.