Makers: Women Who Make America Episode Rating Graph

In the early 1970s, feminism became a force that reshaped the relationships between men and women in the most fundamental ways. Divorce rates spiked as women chafed under their traditional roles but, where men could adapt, marriages became stronger than ever. With the widespread adoption of the contraceptive pill, women’s sexuality was freed from the constant worry over pregnancy.

As the Movement achieved long-sought goals, a new generation of women were re-evaluating some of its most basic assumptions, especially the balance between work and family. By the 2000s, the movement was again under attack from conservatives seeking to rollback abortion and contraception laws, and by younger women fleeing the very word “feminism.”

Tracks the rise of women in the world of comedy, from the “dangerous” comedy of 70s sitcoms like Maude to the groundbreaking women of the 1980s American comedy club boom and building to today’s multifaceted landscape. Today, movies like Bridesmaids break box office records and the women of Saturday Night Live are often more famous than their male counterparts. Contemporary comics, including Chelsea Handler, Mo’Nique, Sarah Silverman, Ellen DeGeneres, Jane Lynch and Kathy Griffin, talk about where women started in this competitive, male-dominated profession and where they are determined to go.

Traces the history of women pioneers in the U.S. space program. Some, like aviators Wally Funk and Jerrie Cobb, passed the same grueling tests as male astronauts, only to be dismissed by NASA, the military, and even Lyndon Johnson, as a distraction. It wasn’t until 1995 that Eileen Collins became the first woman to pilot a spacecraft. The program includes interviews with Collins, as well as Sally Ride’s classmates Shannon Lucid, Rhea Seddon and Kathryn Sullivan, and features Mae Jemison, the first woman of color astronaut, and Peggy Whitson, the first female commander of the International Space Station. The hour ends with the next generation of women engineers, mathematicians and astronauts—the new group of pioneers, like Marleen Martinez, who continue to make small but significant steps forward.