British Women's Gain of Independece in 1960's and 1970's

British Women's Gain of Independece in 1960's and 1970's

At the end of the 1950's women still had many disadvantages to men in

almost all areas of life, and they were not equal. The man was still

seen as the main earner for the family. Although after the Second

World War progress had been made in employment and women were able to

get jobs,

they were very much secondary to men.

At the beginning of the 1960's there was a huge boom in popular

culture which was accounted for by the huge amount of young people as

a product of the 'baby boom'. Businesses were thriving as they were

beginning to cash in on the huge teenage market. There was new teenage

music and clothing and along with them came new ideas. The 'hit

parade' was the introduced and teen icons emerged as symbols of

rebellion like James Dean and later the Beatles. Fashion was being

designed for teenagers - Mary Quant became a teenage fashion designer;

the mini-skirt was introduced and generally clothes that previously

would never have been worn started to become commonly worn by the

younger generation.

As a result of these new ideas that were not being suppressed by

traditional views of how children should behave, the role of women in

society was changing as well. The view that women were below men was

beginning to change.

Much of this rapid youth rebellion was brought about by the Vietnam

War. In America there was a huge wave of hatred towards the war, which

in turn led to the rise of the hippy movement. Although Britain was

not involved in Vietnam the hippy movement did affect British youth.

There were radical views of peace and changes for equality between men
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importantly in 1979 the first female Prime Minister, Margaret

Thatcher, was elected in Great Britain. This seemed to be hugely

important for women's status in society. However, feminists as a whole

were not satisfied as they felt that she was not advancing female

politics whilst she was in power. Evidence of this is shown in that in

all her eleven years in office Margaret Thatcher did not appoint a

single female cabinet minister.

I believe that there were several major reasons why women gained more

independence during the 60's and 70's. These included the rise of

feminism that sparked so much within society and the hippy movement.

These were backed up by other political, social, domestic and

educational changes that were brought about predominantly by women

themselves during the 1960's and 70's.