Identity Politics In The 1970's

As a consequence of the activism that occurred during the 1960’s, it changed the tone as far as politics was concerned for a good many of groups of people (Schultz 2014). What it changed was the attitude of how people thought or identified with politics and politicians concerning themselves or their cliques. Whereas before the 1960’s the general consensus was to vote accordingly as to what was for the good of the nation as a whole. The reason historians blame the 1970’s for this type of self-centeredness is that there was not a fundamental common ground for the entire American population to focus on to bring it together. This type of thinking became known as identity politics because of the divisions that were created during the 1960’s (Schultz 2014).
One example of identity politics to consider was the women’s movement, where the spotlight fell on the issues of equal rights, sexual harassment in the workplace, and for educating women on health issues (Schultz 2014). An important legal decision that highlights the 1970’s timeline is the Roe v. Wade law over abortion rights which is still a troubling issue in today’s politics. Throughout the 1970’s there were
also changes in the workplace, such as the use of gender-neutral titles and training programs especially geared towards helping the working mother.
Although throughout the 1960’s black American’s had fought against racism, the 1970’s had its own troubles.
The thought pattern shifted to the idea of if blacks could change the American perception of themselves they would be more accepted in society (Schultz 2014). As the result the term “Black is beautiful” became the slogan of the black community. Another example came with affirmative action, where the federal government wanted employers to hire specific amounts of minorities within the workplace. The roots of affirmative action can be traced to Richard Nixon’s influence, which was used with the intention of destroying the Democratic alliance still in place from the 1930’s (Schultz 2014). What affirmative action effectively did was to create fractures between black and white workers which were already
shaky.
There was a number of other examples, but one that continues to have an ongoing effect on the world to this day is the rise of respect for the environment. Up until the 1960’s, the primary interest in the environment was to preserve wilderness areas/habitats and the conservation of our natural resources (The “New Environmentalism” of the 1960’s). But during the 1960’s Americans began to take more of an active role when pollution and toxins were linked to human health problems. Meanwhile, Nixon was applauded for laying the foundation for the Environmental Protection Agency(EPA) in 1970 and Congress applied eighteen laws in the next ten years. The fact remained that even though there was common ground to consider it was not enough. In other words, the environmental issue became just another pawn in the game of politics that Democrats seem to be in favor of and where Republicans seem indifferent.