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Placing this all on feminists is absurd.

An excellent book called "The Hearts of Men" showed the situation more realistically. Around 1950, labor saving devices made it possible for a man to have a clean home, clean clothes, and hot meals without needing a wife. Because of these technological changes, white collar professional men no longer needed to marry as early as they had. And without a wife they had a lot more disposable income for the swank apartment in the city, the hep new stereo, and the double martini lounge life. You now had a new demographic of upscale men enjoying the freedom of the new urban swinging single life, the whole Rat Pack lifestyle. The Thunderbird, "Playboy", and the later pony cars were aimed at this new market. So marriage began unravelling not because of feminism, but because men were now freer than they had ever been and no longer needed "the old ball 'n chain". The balance of power was shifting decisively to men.

And with no fault divorce with the equal property split, men were now free to dump frumpy wives during their peak earning years. Since the beginnings of time upscale men have had mistresses. Privileged men have always fooled around. Now, with easy divorce you could shed the wife and keep the mistress.

The growth of divorce had nothing in the least to do with feminism. It was men who wanted out to taste the new freedom their money could buy.

Well, I ain't takin the rap for any of these changes. LOL.

And if I could put all of the people who don't like our modern world into a 1957 Chevy and send them back to the 1950's, I'd pay for the gas and I'd even hire Frankie Avalon to drive.

But I can't. ;-)

I think there is a lot of truth in what you are saying. I would
propose that you could back this up from the 1950s, to the
1940s. WWII ushered in Rosie the Riveter, and an explosion
of women into the workplace out of necessity. When the
war was over, soldiers returned and married the women, many
of whom stopped working.

But the elixir of female self-sufficiency had been tasted. A
woman's place wasn't necessarily in the home. Feminism
may have been a reaction to the Playboy forum. Based on
their wartime experience, American women already knew
that they needed men like fish needed bicycles. The journey
back into the workplace followed a new path. Rather than
necessity, the human need for self-actualization, along with
the time-saving household appliances you mentioned,
propelled bored housewives into careers, and feminism
became their justification.