Another factor in what happened since the 1960s is that a lot of women, not all of them, demanded a way out of what many at the time considered domestic servitude. The women's movement of the 1970s, at least in the US, was an all out rebellion against the "old-fashioned" way where the man dominated over the family and in some ways was really more of a master than a husband. Many women wanted their own lives, their own careers, their own money, some level of independence and a higher status in society than just being a housewife. Husbands had real power over their families and in many cases abused them with impunity. Divorce was rare and scandalous, so many women found themselves trapped for life with men who treated them like servants.
Both of my grandmothers were in that situation, and both of my parents said that their fathers used to beat their mothers more often than they care to talk about, especially after trips to the bar. Women also had few job opportunities because they were supposed to really only have babies and raise families. So women who didn't marry found themselves in low paying jobs with little hope of advancement. Often a convent provided the only escape for some. I don't look back on that era as a particularly romantic one, though I'm sure the situation worked out for some people. If you were a domineering, controlling man it was probably a paradise. The women's movement tried to put a stop to all of that and men had to react, especially when women entered the workforce and began competing directly with men. A lot of the mechanisms that kept women down began to erode and, since women began to unquestionably excel, men could no longer dismiss them as intellectually inferior and only suited to low-paying jobs and child-bearing.
Advertisements at the time blatantly reflected these attitudes. A search for "sexist ads" will result in too many to count. Here are only a few.
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The tradition of men arguing that women are intellectually inferior goes a long way back. For one, Thomas Jefferson taught his own daughters that women were created for the pleasure of men. The tradition still survives. Just a few years ago, a co-worker of mine, a blonde woman, said her boss kept dropping hints that she was "stupid." So she went out and passed a dozen certifications and would bring each one into him personally. A lot of women still deal with that crap today.
Though not entirely successful, the woman's movement changed a lot of attitudes towards marriage and gender roles. Things have slowly evolved since then and plenty of traditionalism still exists, but it now exists within a larger consciousness with infinitely more variety and possibilities than the comparatively homogeneous 1950s and 1960s offered for women. Like most things, it came with good and bad, but women now have far more life options than housewife, secretary, teacher, nurse or nun. That was the good part. Then as the economy worsened in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s, women entering the workforce became almost a necessity for many families. That, arguably, was the bad part.
Let me try and be more clear as im not the best at that... i'm not saying that both partners can't provide, or that the roles "have to be split out by gender or relegated to one person only" for everyone. I am saying thats how it has to be in my relationship, thats my preference. I like being a woman, and I want to be treated in a way that makes me feel feminine not masculine.
