Preview

Sexual Revolution 1970's

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
916 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Sexual Revolution 1970's
Social Movement and Trends
Sebastian Hernandez
HIS145
April 5, 2013
Natalye Pass

Social Movement and Trends
It is to no surprise that as time passes, laws and morals are often confused and mistaken on behalf of what is right and what is wrong. As early as 1968, sexual liberation became a forefront concern to many in regards to birth control, women rights, and homosexuality. Even though many of these things started what many call a “revolution” it was simply the beginning of an ever-lasting process. This process is still seen today in the 21st century and has caused extremist to demonstrate cruelty, unfair treatment or injustice, and even death to those that undermined what society still believes to be wrong. To this day, discrimination towards homosexuals is still observed and witnessed, abortion is still looked down upon, and women are still not treated equal in the workforce. Understanding what started the “revolution” will be the highlight of this essay.
The shift in morals and values towards freedom of sexuality arose in the early 1960’s where sex became more socially accepted, women wanted freedom and more to their lives than simply being a homemaker, and homosexuality wanted to be an accepted way of living. This of course brought many aspects of morality to light and much concern was heightened.
Women were not equal; “women were seen as the ‘weaker sex,’ requiring special rules to protect them from the rough world and from unladylike appearances” (Feldmann, 1998). Ironically, rules and laws against women mistreatment by men had not even been considered yet. “One of the most profoundly life-altering - and controversial - developments of the century for women has been the advent of legal birth control and abortion” (Feldmann, 1998). This created for the first time the stepping-stone in minorities challenging traditional values that had been set in stone for decades. This of course brought much tension into the playing field and created animosity


References: Campbell, S. (2010). The Pill that changed our world. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.apollolibrary.com/docview/250781184?accountid=35812 Feldmann, L. (1998). Gains by women. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.apollolibrary.com/docview/405629099?accountid=35812 McCabe, S. (2012). Stonewall riots spark gay rights movement. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.apollolibrary.com/docview/1023776148?accountid=35812 Ruby, R. (2010). Pill turns 50. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/275578526?accountid=35812
Continue Reading
View Writing Issues

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    Analyze the changes that occurred during the 1960's in the goals, strategies and support of the movement for African American civil rights
    • 491 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Analyze the changes that occurred during the 1960's in the goals, strategies and support of the movement for African American civil rights

    Throughout all these rulings, some women began to feel that society might not be the place for them. Under all that pressure, women’s rights groups enhanced their campaign and pushed hard for women’s rights. They were mainly focus on the need for women to vote. They stressed this because at the time women felt that voting was helpless. They supposed they lived in a society that needed them to only serve men and bear children. The women’s rights groups changed that though by pushing women to get jobs to support their families and nation and also vote for understanding politicians.…

    • 491 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Analysis Of The Handmaid's Tale By Margaret Atwood
    • 663 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Analysis Of The Handmaid's Tale By Margaret Atwood

    Author Margaret Atwood’s writing has been shaped by one particular movement- the push for women’s rights in the 1960s and 1970s. When Atwood was a college student, “a woman was expected to follow one path: to marry in her early 20s, start a family quickly, and devote her life to homemaking” (“The 1960s-70s”). Employers assumed that the females who did work would soon become pregnant, so ladies were unlikely to advance in their careers. What money they did earn was controlled by their husbands, or their male wardens, as females are legally subject to them. With the development of the birth control pill a few years later, women could now chase professional careers and “the double standard that allowed premarital sex for men but prohibited…

    • 663 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Positive Influence of Hippies on Canadian Society in the 1960s.
    • 1333 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Positive Influence of Hippies on Canadian Society in the 1960s.

    Cited: Canadian Broadcasting Comany. "The Birth Control Pill | CBC Archives." CBC Archives. http://archives.cbc.ca/health/reproductive_issues/topics/572/ (accessed December 8, 2009).…

    • 1333 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Howard Zinn's Oppression Towards Women
    • 788 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Howard Zinn's Oppression Towards Women

    Toward this oppression and discrimination, women were and are rebelling and raising awareness through many categories such as art, books, music, proposing laws and regulations and such. Trying their best from the place they’re in to abolish this oppression toward women shows the persistence and resistance of women. The time women had come out from the cage or the house had dated back to a long ago yet they are fighting till now to get the equal treatment with men in this 21st century. Examples of how women in history fought to obtain equal treatment from society will be presented below.…

    • 788 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Reproductive Rights Movement Book Review
    • 1214 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Reproductive Rights Movement Book Review

    She follows both a chronological style within the chapters to show growth and change, but also uses each chapter to describe different groups, events, and political ideals, that were vital to the reproductive rights movement. Nelson begins her book with an introduction to the movement as well as a history of abortion- both legal and illegal methods. Chapter one provides the reader with a background of the Redstockings and the early abortion rights movements. Chapter two focuses on the history of black women and forced sterilization as well as proposed legislation based on sterilization and welfare (a topic that will come up repeatedly throughout the book). Chapter three shifts the focus from black women, to black movements such as the Black Panthers and Black Power, and how their masculine-controlled movements led to the oppression of black women’s access to contraceptives and voluntary sterilization. Chapter four introduces readers to a minority outside of the black race, the Puerto Rican women and the Young Lord’s Party, and their struggle with reproductive rights. This chapter also looks at the oppression of women under and eventual reconstruction of Machismo. Chapter five focuses on the role of CARASA in the movement and its eventual self-destruction. Nelson concludes her text with restating her argument and discussing the evolution of reproductive rights for women of color and poor…

    • 1214 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Roe V. Wade: Laws Against Women's Rights
    • 3793 Words
    • 16 Pages

    Roe V. Wade: Laws Against Women's Rights

    This secondary web document gave me valuable information about how women expressed to others their opinions. It also provided facts about the women activists group called Redstockings. It demonstrated their frustration towards laws that made it difficult for women to obtain abortions. I used this information in my historical background to show the effects women on society.…

    • 3793 Words
    • 16 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Women Who Make America Analysis
    • 1268 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Women Who Make America Analysis

    Strong and independent women were beginning to pop up in movies and on television. The battle of the sexes was a major issue during the seventies because the divorce rate was exploding. Feminism was not the sole reason for divorce but it had a great influence on it. Women wanted to be free and put on the streets rather than being stuck at home and most importantly, they wanted to be brave and a part of something more than what they were. Many of the men were stunned to find out that their wives had felt this way. Since feminism was spreading rapidly, women's’ desires to gain control over their reproduction grew significantly. The contraceptive pill changed sex for millions and it was considered “women’s liberation”. After the pill was invented, women were able to explore their sexuality and make choices. However, once a woman became pregnant, she had no control. Abortion was illegal in most states during 1970 because it was considered a crime and shameful act. Many women did not know what to do or where to go and the only way an abortion could happen, was if a women had the money to get one or had certain connections with people who could perform the procedure. The Women’s Health movement made headway and fought to establish the right to abortion. Weddington argued that women have a constitutional right to choose abortion and it finally became legalized in the early…

    • 1268 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    The Progression of Women through the 20th Century
    • 1173 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The Progression of Women through the 20th Century

    A lot has changed in the last 100 years. Women have taken each step towards equality that they have been allowed. “Looking back over the century, Nancy Woloch stated, "Women of the twenty-first century, thus inherited an unfinished agenda, one initiated by second wave feminists in the 1960’s and 1970’s but incomplete as the century ended”, (Bowles, 2011).…

    • 1173 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Sexual Activities In The 1920s
    • 228 Words
    • 1 Page

    Sexual Activities In The 1920s

    By the end of the 1920’s the youth became more involved in sexual activities. The revolution was mostly focused on the women and how they were less pious. Results that came from this “...was the effect of woman's growing independence of the drudgeries of housekeeping.” The women acted different they smoked in public and drank more where others were around. The parents freaked out and were shocked in what their daughters were into. This turned being bad into being cool for women or younger girls. The long term results were the youth being more sexually active and girls wearing more revealing clothes than before. By the end of this, more people became more open minded about relationships and activities. The traditional family started to become…

    • 228 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    His 204: American History Since 1865
    • 2148 Words
    • 9 Pages

    His 204: American History Since 1865

    As a woman myself, it is hard to imagine a time when I would not have been allowed to attend college, let alone be writing this paper. As children most of us heard stories from our grandparent’s about what life was like they were young. I can remember laughing at the thought of “walking up hill both ways” to get to school. With the liberties American Women have today, it is easy to take for granted everything the women before us fought so hard for. It is easy to forget the treatment they suffered in their struggle to bring us to today. In this paper we will examine the lives, struggles, and small victories of women that have led us to today. We will begin in the latter half of the 19th century when the first women’s rights convention took place. Then we will journey into the early 20th century and discuss the 19th Amendment and birth control. Next, we will move forward to the late 20th century to examine women’s job and pay equality. Finally, we will discuss women of the 21st century.…

    • 2148 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Societal Stigma Of Women
    • 1225 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Societal Stigma Of Women

    The Societal Stigma of Women Throughout the history of the United States, numerous groups have found themselves subject to harsh social injustices and discrimination. Beginning first with the Native Americans, who were prosecuted by various generations of European settlers, our nation’s early record of ‘equality for all’ is tenaciously dismal. Additional examples of prejudice can also be drawn from decades of societal hatred towards African Americans, in which millions of citizens were forced to perform hard labor for no wage. However, and perhaps least shockingly, no other group within the history of the United States has been more victimized than women. Commencing in 1848, when a convention concerning the progression of women’s rights…

    • 1225 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Traditional Gender Roles In Society
    • 1832 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Traditional Gender Roles In Society

    Traditional gender roles have existed for many centuries. Throughout the history of humanity among various cultures and eras, there are pieces of evidence and traces of unfair treatment of women. Women have a role of a wife waiting for her husband to return from the war, a mother of the conquering hero or a great scientist, or a daughter who is destined to marry the prince of another country in order to consolidate the alliance between the two countries. Life of a woman was determined by the man, whether it be her father, husband or son. It is not surprising that such a position in society led women to fight. Starting with the suffragettes and finishing with the third wave, feminism has become an integral part of the society. Women opened…

    • 1832 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Women's Rights In American History
    • 1766 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Women's Rights In American History

    One of the most controversial topics in American History has been the subject of gender equality and the ever changing concept of women’s rights. Overtime, it’s actually quite incredible to see how far the American populous has come, comparatively with other countries, in such a short period of time. Women’s status in America today, for all intents and purposes, is equal to any man’s. However, that has not always been so. The United States has existed for exactly 240 years, and over the course of that time, the development of women’s rights can be divided into 5 eras: The Colonial Era, The New Nation Era, The Pre Civil War Era, The Industrial Era, The World War Era, and the Post World War Era. By thoroughly investigating the development of…

    • 1766 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Gender Inequality In The Workplace
    • 1229 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Gender Inequality In The Workplace

    It is no secret that for centuries, women have faced years and years of discrimination, inferiority to men, and being viewed as less than human by society. Women have had to fight for their right to vote amongst other legal rights, and for their independence from their husbands. “When American women began to enter the labor force in the nineteenth century, the relatively few jobs open to them were highly segregated by gender” (Spain 1992: 14). The first women’s labor union began to form by the end of the 1930’s. Women’s activism began to increase, leading to a new reform in paid work and the rise in feminism in the midst of a new labor movement (Gregory 2003: 25). By the 1940’s, the transition of the housewife to that of a working woman began to trend. Women began to venture out of the home in search of employment and educational opportunities to help provide for their families, since their…

    • 1229 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Best Essays

    The Gay Rights Movement
    • 3319 Words
    • 14 Pages

    The Gay Rights Movement

    Thesis Statement: The Gay Rights Movement dates back to the 19th century. By 1970 gay and lesbian organizations existed all over the United States and in other countries all over the world. Some supporters of the movement would say that our society as a whole has made great strides towards acceptance of homosexuality. However, gays and lesbians are still fighting for equality in 2009. The issues are vast and widespread, with same-sex marriage at the top of the list. In the world that we live in today one might be surprised to learn how many countries are accepting of gay and lesbians, as well as how many are not. The world has made progress within the last decade regarding this issue, but definitely not enough. We need to take steps to protect and balance Gay rights.…

    • 3319 Words
    • 14 Pages
    Best Essays
    Read More

Related Topics