Well, there were also no laws protecting people from discrimination based on race before the Civil Rights Act, and I'd suspect that most people would agree that those laws were needed.
Even if most people would agree, it is intellectually sloppy to equate the treatment of blacks with the treatment of women. You cannot say that because laws against racial discrimination are needed, laws against sex discrimination are needed as well.
But that was not even my main point. You characterized the 1950s as a major step backwards for women because of choices those women themselves made. Why is that?