I attempt to investigate the shift in female gender roles and its effects on the family as the smallest social unit as represented in the selected works of three postmodern American playwrights: Adrienne Kennedy’s A Movie Star Has to Star in Black and White (1976), Sam Shepard’s True West (1980) and David Mamet’s The Cryptogram (1990). The aim of the thesis is to reveal the main elements of this particular subject matter, and the way these dramatists visualize the apparent complexity of this social phenomenon in their works.