The processes of modernization affected every aspect of social life, including the role of women in the family and society. The aim of this paper is to determine specifics in the experiences of women characteristic of a certain generation of women of the same family and to gain insight into their perception and experience of roles and chances in the family in relation to men with an emphasis on the rural context through the lens of sociologist Ulrich Beck's thesis on reflexive modernization. The role of reflexive modernity is to modernize all aspects of society that remained unmodernized during the first modernization, including the roles of women. Qualitative methodology and a semi-structured interview method were used in the work. A total of 12 interviews were conducted (9 one-on-one and 3 group interviews), and further analysis identified four themes that represent the backbone of this theme. Based on the testimony of the interlocutors, it is evident that the modernization processes in the rural areas of Croatia take place much more slowly than in the societies of other countries. This is also contributed by the fact that Croatian rural society has just entered the last phase of the modernization of the rural area, which strives to modernize the rural population to the greatest extent. Based on the findings of the research, one can observe the non-linear modernization of rural women, which manifests itself through the retention of traditional customs in which the woman is the head of the family household and the adoption of egalitarian attitudes and practices when it comes to the education and career of women.