Concerning the emancipation of women, the question ‘how far did we come?’ is difficult to answer. The gender domain has changed and is continuously changing, the field has become more complicated and more ambiguous. The social inequality between men and women has diminished, old patterns of male dominance are gradually losing their grip. Ambivalences and dilemmas became a steady ingredient of the inner life of women—and men. In the Netherlands planning and policy evolved into an unilinear direction: mothers should enter the labor market. But the feminist debate covered more ambiguity and a larger range of controversial themes than paid labor and part-time or full-time employment. As Norbert Elias observed, a decrease of power differences goes together with diminishing contrasts in conduct and emotions. But more equality gave also more room to variation. The conceptions of masculinity and femininity were changing, and the scope of the debate about gender and gender identity became broader: The emancipation of people with other sexual orientations became included, homosexuals, transgenders, non-binary people. The progression in the emancipation of women induced a backlash among men and more awareness and more concern of the weakened position of men, of their worries, and their insecurity. But apart from the conservative backlash from outside, women are also hindered by internalized patterns of subordination.