What do Americans think about women's rights and roles today - decades after the rise of the women’ movement? Re-asking survey questions first asked as long ago as the 1940s — as well as during the rise of the women’s movement in the 1960s, 1970s and more recently — YouGov attempted to find out. Americans generally have grown more welcoming of women in workplaces, but not as much in political office.
Women and work
Today, Americans see women as an important part of the workforce. In 1936, only 18% approved of a married woman who had a husband able to support her working in business or industry, according to a Gallup poll. Fifty years later, nearly 80% approved, according to a National Opinion Research Center poll. In 1993, 86% approved, according to a CNN/ORC Poll.
Now support has fallen slightly; 88% approve, according to the YouGov poll. Men are not much different than women on this. Among Americans 65 and older, 94% approve, compared to 85% of adults under 30. 93% of Democrats and 83% of Republicans approve; 11% of Republican men disapprove.
In 1946 the Roper Fortune Magazine Poll found that nearly three-quarters of Americans believed that if a business had to lay off staff, it should choose to lay off a more efficient married woman rather than a less-efficient married man. Today, more than 70% of both men and women say the less-efficient man should be laid off.
In the 1970s and 1980s more than half of employed women said they had an equal chance with men when it came to salary; nearly two-thirds said they had an equal chance with men when it came to responsibility. But as women's workplace participation continued to rise, working women's satisfaction about their opportunities declined. Today, only 42% of working women say they have an equal chance with men when it comes to salary and only half say they have an equal chance in responsibility.
Women and the military
Before 2016, when women in the military were permitted to serve in all ground combat roles, about 50% to 60% of Americans supported allowing women to serve in ground combat roles. About one-quarter were opposed. Then and today, there has been little gender difference in opinion. There is, however, a large political difference. About twice as many Democrats as Republicans support military women in combat roles. That was also true in the past.
Women and politics
A 1999 Philip Morris/Roper Poll found that only 17% of Americans thought the country was ready for a woman president, but 70% expected that it would be ready for one within 20 years.
A year before Hillary Clinton headed the Democratic ticket in 2016, two-thirds of Americans said the country was ready for a woman president. Less than half now think that’s the case. Democrats have consistently been more positive than Republicans about a woman’s presidential prospects, though in 2015 a majority of Republicans said that the country was ready to elect a woman.
The loss by Democratic nominee Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election as well as Hillary Clinton's 2016 loss, however, may have changed things. Between a 2024 pre-election poll and one conducted days after that election, belief that America was ready to elect a woman president dropped 11 points. Opinion has changed little since then. The shares of Democrats who think America is ready to elect a woman president fell precipitously since just before the 2024 election, and while the drop among women wasn't as large, now less than half think the country is ready.
But just as was the case a month before the 2024 election, a majority of Americans continue to hope to see a woman president in their lifetime. 54% say they hope for this, including 58% of women and 51% of men. Perhaps because the only two major-party female presidential nominees have been Democrats, today Democrats are four times as likely as Republicans to say they hope for a woman president.
Is it better to be a man or a woman?
In the 1970s, more than half of Americans didn’t think either men or women had more advantages in society. Now, most see a difference, and men and women are more likely to say that it’s men who have the advantages than to say it's women.
Republicans and Democrats don’t agree about this. More than two-thirds of Democrats believe there are more advantages in being a man, while nearly half of Republicans say neither men nor women have more advantages than the other. Among Democrats, men and women are about equally likely to say men have more advantages.
In their own lives, women see distinctions. Somewhat more (44%) say most men they know think they are better than women, and nearly one-third of men (31%) agree about most men they know. But about half (51%) of men say the men they know think of women as equals.
A New York Times Poll in 1989 found that only one-third of Americans said that most of the men they know treated women as equals. That rose to 56% in 2003, according to a CBS News/New York Times Poll, but it has dropped to 45% today.
— Carl Bialik, David Montgomery, and Taylor Orth contributed to this article
See the results for this YouGov poll
Methodology: This article includes results from an online survey conducted October 10 - 14, 2025 among 1,119 U.S. adult citizens. Respondents were selected from YouGov’s opt-in panel to be representative of adult U.S. citizens. The sample was weighted according to gender, age, race, education, 2024 presidential vote, 2020 election turnout and presidential vote, baseline party identification, and current voter registration status. 2024 presidential vote, at time of weighting, was estimated to be 48% Harris and 50% Trump. Demographic weighting targets come from the 2019 American Community Survey. Baseline party identification is the respondent’s most recent answer given around November 8, 2024, and is weighted to the estimated distribution at that time (31% Democratic, 32% Republican). The margin of error for the overall sample is approximately 4%.
Image: Getty
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