I hope I can help you with my answer. I assume you mean America. Before, politics were very racist and sexist. There were laws such as the Jim Crow laws and women were seen as objects that cooked, cleaned, and basically were men’s toys.
It was truly a horrible time for lgbt, women, and people of color.
Don’t forget that for a time there was slavery.
Now,
there is more equality, less racism, less sexism, less homophobia (still working on that especially)
But yeah.
I hope I helped you get an idea
I uploaded an example of the idea of women in the past (a real advertisement from the past)