Unlike earlier discontinuous waves of interest in the social roles of women, the more recent confrontations have generated an impressive amount of reflection within the professional and scholarly community. Questions have now been raised concerning the equality of opportunity and occupational choice, as well as the commensurate advancement and remuneration in women's employment. An even more basic questioning of gender role assignment, both within the family and general society, has arisen as a result of these deliberations. Scholars from the fields of social science, psychology, and psychoanalysis have been thrust into the position of either defending previous conceptions of gender designations and the family, or have gravitated toward newer explanations for the social and psychological organization of human beings.

It is clear that the public confrontation of these issues has led to qualitatively different statuses for some women, and that the impact of these changes has affected even larger numbers of people—