And don't forget that a side-effect of the war was a drastic increase in inflation. A single-earner household often didn't cut it any more, even if one spouse wanted to stay home.
The women's movement also made it "not wierd" to want a job outside the home, and for some a badge of honor. It's hard to articulate exactly what that meant for women, but for my older sister, "not wierd" was being a teacher. For my wife, OTOH, being an attorney was "not wierd", and in fact past the point of being a meaningful badge of honor, it was just a job. We're talking a 10 year time span.
-edit-
And by "just a job" I don't mean to imply that discrimination against women completely disappeared overnight. I remember the day after a re-org, the new incoming manager walked into my neigbor's cube, my neighbor being a rather consistently excellent (female) engineer, and he said, abruptly: "I don't like women engineers.", turned and walked out. Those of us that overheard had a total WTF reaction to that. Luckily those dinosaurs are largely gone from the planet.
The women's movement also made it "not wierd" to want a job outside the home, and for some a badge of honor. It's hard to articulate exactly what that meant for women, but for my older sister, "not wierd" was being a teacher. For my wife, OTOH, being an attorney was "not wierd", and in fact past the point of being a meaningful badge of honor, it was just a job. We're talking a 10 year time span.
-edit-
And by "just a job" I don't mean to imply that discrimination against women completely disappeared overnight. I remember the day after a re-org, the new incoming manager walked into my neigbor's cube, my neighbor being a rather consistently excellent (female) engineer, and he said, abruptly: "I don't like women engineers.", turned and walked out. Those of us that overheard had a total WTF reaction to that. Luckily those dinosaurs are largely gone from the planet.