f the family. Changes in both family structure andsex roles over the last century have produced the ferment we still see today,and one of the problems with the changing role of women is the degree to whichsociety perceives this is causing unwanted changes in the family, though it isjust as true that changes in the family have altered the roles of women. As women entered the early 1990s, they faced a number of problems.Most of these problems have been around for some time, and women have challengedthem and even alleviated them without solving them completely. They areencountered in the workplace, in the home, in every facet of life. Women havemade advances toward the equality they seek only to encounter a backlash in theform of religious fundamentalism, claims of reverse discrimination by males, andhostility from a public that thinks the women's movement has won everything itwanted and should thus now be silent. Both the needs of women today and thebacklash that has developed derive from the changes in social and sexual rolesthat have taken place in the period since World War II. These changes involvethe new ability of women to break out of the gender roles created for them by apatriarchal society.The desperation women feel has been fed throughout history by thepractice of keeping women in their place by limiting their options. This wasaccomplished on one level by preventing women from gaining their the sort ofeducation offered to men, and while this has changed to a great extent, thereare still inequalities in the opportunities offered to men as opposed to women.Susan Brownmiller writes:The sad history of prohibitions on women's learning is too well known tobe recorded here. . . In much of the world women are barred from advancedknowledge and technical trainingYet opening the world of business with new opportunities for women does notdissipate much of this frustration because both men and women continue to beruled by their early ...
