Do you remember the 70s?

Question

What were your thoughts, impressions, experiences from the 70s?

If you were not born yet, do you have any relatives that have shared what life was like back in the 70s or earlier?

We often hear about the radical feminists.

What about the chauvinists? What were they like?

Answer 1

I wasn't born in the 70's...but judging from "That 70s Show"...it seems like a lot of fun lol

Answer 2

Yes, I remember.

Watergate, Vietnam, drugs, gas lines...the excesses of the 60s caught up with us.

Then Jimmy Carter, Iran hostages, more gas lines, hi unemployment, stagflation,

NYC was bankrupt, crime was up, Russia was still commie...world was going to h**l

Great times....

And the d**n fems started...U know they dont burn bras now, and how come Victoria's Secret does so well?

Answer 3

I graduated from high school in 1976:

-abortion had just become legal (1973);

-the pill was just becoming available to unmarried women;

-in the rural midwest where I was-jobs were still separated by gender in the "want-ads" (pre internet);  

-girls were still expected where I lived to marry and have kids-only a few went to college (but few boys went either)

-a lot of kids wore big bell bottoms and girls wore tube tops and lots of people had long hair; pot was very popular

-the Vietnam war was bitterly fought over

-Women's studies became a minor and my professor taught it one-quarter time (not even part-time)

-I became involved in the new g*y L*****n and bisexual group on my college campus (I was straight at the time)

-I worked all through college at minimum wage jobs as I was told at a fast food joint I worked at that "girls" can't be managers only "boys" (the 1964 equality pay act wasn't too widely known and not enforced)

-I was sexually harassed by one of my professors who was a creep who preyed on his female students (I suggested we have a chat with his boss and he left me alone)

Answer 4

i was born in 78...turned 1 in 79..good times..good times!

i wonder if i had cake....mmm cake.

Answer 5

I wasn't born until the early 80's.

EDIT-  Woo Hoo, a thumbs down for when I was born!  Next time I'll try to work on that one.

Answer 6

The 70s s*cked.  Jimmy Carter was a 70s disaster and he endorses Obama.

Answer 7

Just look at my profile to find out what I think of the 70's.

In many ways a wonderful time, in many other ways a terrible time.

And yes, really agonisingly sexist - even moderate feminists were treated as crudely as they often are here!

Answer 8

Barely.  I was born in the early 70's but don't remember much from life back then.

I do remember though that often law inforcement would turn a blind eye to domestic violence, particularly from a husband to wife, because back in the 70's, it was a husband's matter, not a police matter.  My mother was petrified of my father.

But then, nowadays women are taken seriously and have more protection, but men don't seem to have that against abusive women.  This isn't from what I have read here, but rather other personal stories.

Answer 9

I think the seventies were an innocent time, when the world was awakening to the possibilities of change and thinking that problems could be solved.  I presume there was a lot of pot-smoking.  Then came the 80's and greed actually came into style.  Sad.  All the good intentions to reform washed away by corporate indoctrination.  

BTW.  I have purposefully omitted anything to do with Disco from my trip down memory lane.

Oh, right, the chauvinists.  They were high, and seemed not to be bothered by feminism.  When they traded marijuana for cocaine, in the 80's they came back with a vengeance - the backlash.

Answer 10

It was a crock of bull.  You had sappy, whiney men crying because they could no longer harrass women and cop a feel at the workplace and women were finally given a chance to become managers and run things and wow, surprise, surprise, many did as good if not much better a job than men.

Men cried the blues because equality was making their willy droop in bed and at the office but it wasn't long before they realized women weren't out to castrate them, just to earn the money they deserved for the work they did.

Having worked in the late 70s and through the 80s I can tell you women did 5 times what men did and were paid half of what they did...and usually they did the majority of thier boss's work for them too.

So it was justice recognized.  However, they promoted women and aboriginals in those days and some were totally incompetent as there weren't many women willing to step up to the plate (they were scared) so the greedy incompetent ones stepped up too and they actually gave women the "bad name".

I remember having to file a grievance to get the same pay as others did for what I did and I did it for 5 years and trained two managers on top of that too.  I won hands down but of course they then decided they "no longer needed my job" which was fine by me I was transferred to head office which worked out much better than working with a bunch of losers who just used me to make themselves look good.

Women should be ashamed to call other women "feminists".  I would give those women the title of "cowards".

Chauvinists, well most men always were so won't argue that point.  However I think that's changed a lot with the newer generations but they have a whole new set of problems with gender confusion and lack of morality and religion in the home.  

As for the USA and politics, they were as awful at governing then as they are now.  

Progression has been at a standstill and in fact I think it's gone downhill.  Just shows the man with the gun rules.

And just to acknowledge your "radical feminist" perception, in every age there is that 1 or 2 percent of extremists.  They get the news of course and are what's remembered down the road, but it doesn't really portray reality just extremism.

Answer 11

I don't know any, but I have a few neighbours in their 60s.

My thoughts, impressions and experiences from them is that they are kind and gentle and a bit cranky and they are dreading when they come into their 70s. None of them are radical feminists or chauvinists. But they do speak of a few friends they knew who threw themselves in front of racehorses for womens suffering gent.

Answer 12

I was only a child in the 1970s, but one of the social changes I do remember is that people were beginning to be more open about their sexuality and more inclined to live together before marriage - I can remember newspaper and magazine articles on the subject, saying that society was crumbling away.

Even in our rural community, my parents were offered drugs and "swinging".

The music was great, I can remember that very well!

Answer 13

I was born in '72, so my memories are pretty limited to childhood things.  My father told me that I could do anything that boys could do, but the boys in the neighbourhood were convinced that they were all better than girls.  Of course, they were all at the "girls are icky" stage,  so it probably had nothing to do with either feminism or chauvinism.

Oh, yeah... I do recall that hitting children was a lot more acceptable then than it is now.

Answer 14

Sure do.  It was very exciting.  Australia got its first progressive government in decades in 1972, and huge social changes were put into effect.  They stopped packing pregnant single women off to so-called "homes" and taking away their babies. There was a peaceful cultural, social and political revolution under way.  g**s came out of the closet and refused to live in silent shame any more.  All kinds of ideas that had been unthinkable became not only thinkable but realities.

Answer 15

Yes, I do remember the 1970s. I was a teenager for much of that decade and graduated from high school in 1977. I remember that it was sort of a mix between traditional ideas and feminism. More girls were being encouraged to attend college rather than work for a few years and then quitting when they got married. However, I also remember how hard girls were being pushed to take typing classes in school so they could support themselves in the work place. I don't remember that boys were encouraged to do the same. Most math classes were electives and generally only those who were planning to pursue careers that required a lot of math took them. This wasn't to say that everything was all bad. I don't condone cigarette smoking or drug use by any means but I liked the more tolerant attitudes towards them back then. Many high schools had designated smoking areas and the worst thing that could happen if you were caught smoking in a school restroom was to get your cigarettes confiscated and told not to do it again. Now, you can be suspended from school. I don't remember that drug tests ever occurred even though it was obvious that some people were using them. As long as that drug use didn't interfere with school or job performance, people generally looked the other way. Now, they can go to jail. I recall that drug paraphernalia was openly sold at flea markets and in record stores plus you could get jewelry shaped like coke spoons or marijuana leaves. I even remember being able to get T-shirts with marijuana leaves or the chemical composition of cocaine printed on them. Imagine what could happen now if people tried wearing those things.