They were decidedly not feminists.

They were decidedly not feminists. They were individualists, weaning Americans off the family unit.

Mary Tyler Moore was a sitcom that aired from 1970-1977 and featured the fictional character Mary Richards who was associate producer of a television station, Lou Grant was her boss, Murray, a co-worker.

Lou Grant was in place of the father figure, Murray in place of a husband figure, there was the host of the "happy homemaker" show who would show up and annoy - she was in place of the annoying mother in law, anchor man Ted Baxter, the immature child.

They functioned as sort of a family with sitcom types of stories in which they are both at home and at work in these ongoing relationships that normally take place within the family.

It was a project of weaning Americans off the family unit, with the implication that you too can get your family needs in the office.

 Marlo Thomas as the main character in "That Girl", a 1960's sitcom, had this non-boyfriend boyfriend character named Donald, so she was an independent woman, except that Donald was somehow at her side.

I do not believe that Gloria Steinam, politician after all, has ever supported women in coping with tough situations that life sometimes throws at you. We will probably discover someday that she wrote little of what she published, that she was a photogenic front face for the so-called feminist movement, a movement which was not good for women as it did not help women with what women do, and that is rear family and gain satisfaction and security both financial and social, from being in a strong marriage, and raising functional children who feel nurtured.

If you are always asserting yourself and prioritizing yourself, like individualists encourage, you will not have the tools to cope in trying circumstances. 

Individualists like Steinam and Thomas were not setting examples of how to cope well when family commitments pull at a woman, nope, quite the opposite. They were part of a movement to wean Americans off the family. They were decidedly not feminists, because what they promoted, that is, individualism, is not good for women, and you know what, it's not good for men either.