Thursday, May 6, 2010
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
POP culture
Pop Culture of the 70s was all about fun. Movies like Star Wars had visuals the people had never seen before. People enjoyed watching music, dancing, movies, and video games. Clubbing was popular in all subcultures.
Andy Warhol popularized Pop Art and revolutionized many ideas about Art, and what it took to be an artist. He pioneered the use of screen printing in art and his dance and art club, Studio 54 is still famous today, 30 years later.
Liberals vs. Conservatives
Conservative Stance on Major issues in the 1970s
Keep death penalty
Against gay marriage
Against abortion
Against affirmative action
Lower taxes, smaller government
Free market system, competitive capitalism
LIBERALS - believe in governmental action to achieve equal opportunity and equality for all, and that it is the duty of the State to alleviate social ills and to protect civil liberties and individual and human rights. Believe the role of the government should be to guarantee that no one is in need. Believe that people are basically good. Liberal policies generally emphasize the need for the government to solve people's problems.
Environmentalism: A new movement
Thanks to the environmental issues and the moon landing, the 70s people expanded their views on preserving nature. Earth Day began on April 22, 1970, and the day marked a beginning of the growth of the environmental movement.
Earth Day was first established through Gaylord Nelson, a Senator from Wisconsin. As an environmental activist, Nelson was influenced for the event in Santa Barbara, right after the horrific oil spill in 1969. Angered by the lack of the interest from the general public for concern of the environment and devastation it caused, Nelson proposed a national awareness on the environment yearly.
The results were tremendous as New York City alone, one million citizens shut down Fifth Avenue in acknowledgment of the environment. In Philadelphia they created Earth Week.
Senator Nelson wrote of the first Earth Day -
“Earth Day worked because of the spontaneous response at the grassroots level. We had neither the time nor resources to organize 20 million demonstrators and the thousands of schools and local communities that participated. That was the remarkable thing about Earth Day. It organized itself.”
Environmental Effects?
-Nixon's Clean Air Act (1970)
-Nixon's Clean Water Act (1972)
-Nixon's Pesticide Control Act (1972)
-Geothermal Energy Research
-National Energy Act (1978)
-Development and Demonstration Act (1974)
-Solar Heating and Cooling -Demonstration Act (1974)
Key People?
-Senator Gaylord Nelson
-President Jimmy Carter
-Rachel Carson
The Fight For and Success of Legal Abortion
In the early 70s abortion was illegal in the United States. During this time many underground abortions took place, and the majority of them were unsafe, unsanitary, and often unfairly priced. Many women died or had injuries that lasting up to an entire lifetime from these kinds of abortions. If a woman wanted to get an abortion at this point in history she could potentially obtain a legal abortion if she was raped, or succeeded in claiming to be raped, but this was often only legal if the rape was documented and proven legally, she could obtain an abortion from an illegal source, reputable or not, she could attempt it herself, she could attempt get a very expensive one in another country, or she could not have an abortion even if she wished to have one, often the most likely case. Of course, many people were very anti-abortion at this time, mostly reasoning with religion, and moral opinion. It is rough political territory because you are trying to fight for the rights of two human beings, the mother and the baby. You essentially have to choose one over the other to determine a solution.
After a long history of dangerous, illegal abortions a group of women in Chicago decided that they needed to satisfy the great public need that they saw for safe, clean, affordable, and comfortable abortions. They decided that picketing, marching, and sit ins were not going to work. They decided that direct action would work, and as medical professionals, they had the tools and knowledge they needed to help and so they did. JANE collective was formed in 1969 and operated until 1973, the year that Roe v. Wade legally changed abortion laws in the united states. The group performed 12,000 abortions for around 25.00 apiece. And the most incredible fact? No one died.The group eventually disbanded after being raided and officially disappeared after abortion became legal and the need for their work was no longer there.
The case of Roe v. Wade changed the face of abortions in American dramatically, giving women much more freedom and control over their own bodies, lifestyles, and future. The drama began in 1969 when a woman named Norma McCorvey, alias Jane Roe, discovered she was pregnant, and decided that she did not want a child. She tried to claim it was rape and obtain a legal abortion but she failed. She decided to continue fighting and brought her case to court with legal backing, and the case eventually reached supreme court upon repeal. Here the court deemed abortion a fundamental right under the United States Constitution, and thereby subjecting all laws attempting to restrict it to strict scrutiny in a court of law. Interestingly, Norma McCorvey is now a Christian pro-life activist.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Black Power!!!
Activism: Opposing the War.....
An interview with Alan Canforah, a former injured Key State Ohio Student:
In response to the killings, the Hard Hat Riot occurred. On May 8, 1970, high school and college students began storming New York City's City Hall in protests to America in Cambodia and the Vietnam War. Roughly 200 construction workers began attacking the students in response - leaving many injured.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
The Anti Discrimination Acts of the 70's
The Age Discrimination Act of 1975
Prohibits age discrimination on programs and activities that receive funding from the federal government; specifically concerning schools and colleges
The Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978
Since 1978 employers have been legally bound to provide leave assistance to employees with medical leave or disability, including pregnancy
Gay Liberation: flamboyant, loved and hated
The gay liberation movement, the term coined in the 70s for a movement that had been building for decades, had its first official stirrings in the late 60's, and centered around San Francisco, California. It was linked with the Feminist movement and was a major issue in the American conscience of the 70's.
At this time, homosexuals of all colors, gay, transgendered, lesbians, this that and the other and their straight friends all started coming out, spreading the idea of acceptance like wild fire across America. The started speaking out in public, by words and by actions, for what they believed in. Even if it was the simple act of dressing however they wanted, these people realized that to be accepted for who they were, they had to first accept themselves, and truly be and act how they wanted to. The big cities of America were often highly influential centers of action for this sub culture.
On March 28, 1969 in San Francisco, Leo Lawrence, a member of the press, called for "the Homosexual Revolution of 1969" , which resulted in an explosion of energy in this movement. Leo encouraged members of this minority group, gays, lesbians, and other liberal political groups to join together, interact, and "come out" together accepting homosexuality as a normal human lifestyle choice.
Later that year a group of patrons resisted a police raid on the Stonewall Inn, a gay club in San Francisco that was a home and hub of culture and activity for members of this gay subculture, beginning a huge riot. 2,00 people came out and stayed out in the streets for 3 days.
A month later the Gay Liberation Front was started. This group published a magazine called "COME OUT!", blatantly and boldly spreading their word. And it worked,as this group ended up inspiring many other like minded groups to get together all over the country, bringing their message to the foreground of American awareness.
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On June 28, 1970, the first Gay Pride Marches took place in Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York commemorating the anniversary of the riots. It was called Gay Liberation Day.
In 1973 the American Psychiatric Association "Came out", Defending Homosexuality from a scientific and academic perspective. The APA leaders mutually realized that Homophobia was the problem, and the APA publicly spoke out in favor of anti-discrimination laws.
But not all people were supportive of this movement. A few decades before it would have been dangerous to "come out", and it still could have been even as late as the '70s. Residual attitudes from a politically homophobic past showed up in the 1970's politics. In 1972, the Supreme Court of Minnesota in Baker vs. Nelson ruled that it did not violate the federal Constitution for a state to deny a civil marriage license to a same-sex couple.
A popular Miss America runner up from Oklahoma, B actress, and three times Good Housekeepings "Most Admired Woman In America" named Anita Bryant became an anti-gay movement activist in 1977 after launching a crusade to repeal a new Miami-Dade ordinance prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
A number of U.S. states repealed sexually restrictive laws during this decade -- laws that had criminalized same-sex behavior as misdemeanors or felonies. These laws were basically putting the government rule in your bedroom, gay or straight. These laws were called by various names: anti-sodomy, unnatural intercourse, crimes against nature, sexual misconduct, "abominable crime of buggery" laws, etc. Many had been placed on the books during colonial times or the Victorian era. Many banned all anal and oral intercourse, whether performed by gays, lesbians, heterosexual singles or even married heterosexual couples.Political change concerning gay marriage has been slow to come about nationally for this movement, but its strength in the consciousness of America is steadfast and encouraging major change on the state level, with the question currently rising to the national level.
Feminism in the 70's: A radical call for change
Feminism in the 70’s was the forward thinking and radical culmination of a long history of women fighting for freedom and equality. The feminist movement of the 70’s was all about female empowerment, screaming for radical change. The women of the 70’s were no longer willing to suffer under patriarchal politics like the women of the past. They marched in the streets of their towns, and the streets of Washington using physical presence to reinforce mental awareness of their ideas. They also used direct action, changing their actions at home in new ways, like going out to work and demanding equal pay. The women worked hard to justify child rearing as a job, one that to be fair, should be shared by both sexes in a more equal way. Some burned their bras, some grew out their body hair, some cut off their hair, but all of them were inspired by similar ideas: that a woman is a free creature, equal to men, and shouldn't be limited by restricting concepts and expectations of "what it means to be a woman". To them being a woman meant essentially whatever the woman wanted it to mean for herself. The movement, which had been building for years, was spurred on by the inspired writings of radical feminists and the work they did in Washington, on college campuses, and on the streets trying to boost female power in politics. Considered the mother of the Feminist movement of the ‘70s, Betty Friedan paints the picture of the typical American housewife with this excerpt from her history changing book, the Feminine Mystique:
“Each suburban wife struggled with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffered Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night — she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question — "Is this all?" Friedan goes even further to say: “The problem that has no name — which is simply the fact that American women are kept from growing to their full human capacities — is taking a far greater toll on the physical and mental health of our country than any known disease.”
Friedan believed that for women to happy, and truly equal with men, they had to free themselves from socially defined sex roles placed on many of us from birth. She believed women needed to work beyond the home to be fulfilled.
“The only kind of work which permits an able woman to realize her abilities fully, to achieve identity in society in a life plan that can encompass marriage and motherhood, is the kind that was forbidden by the feminine mystique, the lifelong commitment to an art or science, to politics or profession.”
Friedan even goes so far as to draw conclusions about the feminine mystique, the term that she used to define this effect, and its potential effects on child rearing.
“Strange new problems are being reported in the growing generations of children whose mothers were always there, driving them around, helping them with their homework - an inability to endure pain or discipline or pursue any self-sustained goal of any sort, a devastating boredom with life.”
This era of the feminist movement succeeded in creating great change out of great struggle. The Equal Rights Amendment was reinstated in 1972, lawfully protecting equal rights of all sexes and races concerning any federal, state, or local law. It was written by a woman named Alice Paul. Multiple government programs assisting women and children were created, including the Women Infants and Children program in 1975, which is commonly known as WIC. The Equal Opportunity Credit Act of 1974 made assistance for college available equally amongst sexes. Many laws concerning rape and sexual harassment were revitalized further protecting women and men from injustice. This era saw more women than ever in high political and economical positions, further exemplifying the growing equality of sexes, which still benefits us today.
