Women In The 1960s

The 1960s and 1970s were a thunderous time. Many women, African Americans, Native Americans, gays and lesbians, and other marginalized people continued to fight for their equality. Many Americans during this time also joined the protest against the ongoing war in Vietnam. In other ways, a new right mobilized in defense of political conservatism and traditional family roles. By the end of the 1970s, these divisions and disappointments had set a tone for public life that is still with us today. These sexual revolutions of the 1960s and 1970s both strengthened and weakened Cold War notions of gender and sexuality.

During the 1960s, Playboy and Hugh Hefner became a very crucial aspect of society. When people hear about Hugh Hefner, all they

mainly think about are women and money. Hugh Hefner derived his sexual revolution through the root of the Kinsey Report and the V-Day Kiss. After reading the Kinsey Report, Hefner automatically connected with it and encountered a couple of queer experiences as a youth. From a personal perspective, this wasn’t something I knew before learning about it, which I find pretty fascinating. His idea behind it came from experience and his interest outside the gender norms, rather than for the purpose of fame or money. I think as a society we see him as a “macho man”, because he is always surrounded by women, but he never wanted to be a macho man. It is quite ironic. After divorcing his wife, Hefner comes up with the Playboy magazine, which is instantly popular and controversial. It renegotiates heterosexuality and allows the inclusion of women. It shows that women are active partners and it is okay and there is no shame. Even though some approved this and others didn’t, I personally think it was the right step into female revolutions.
An uprising of feminism struck when The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan was published. Friedan conducted a survey in which she found that many women were unhappy with their lives as housewives. Many women rejected the domestic arrangements and gender roles. This book also boosted for heterosexuality and sparked the second wave. Women began wanting expansion of options. Rather than equality of gender roles, they wanted more economic and political opportunities. This increased economic, reproductive, political, and sexual movement all across the world and not just the United States. With this women began pushing towards liberation.
The National Organization for Women (NOW) was established in 1966 and many protests started taking place.

A noteworthy protest was the Atlantic City Miss America Protest in 1969 when women flamed their bras on fire. Even though only a dozen women protested, it was a significant protest that caught the media’s attention. I think the idea and the intentions behind burning their bras were to show their independence from men and proved a statement for women’s rights. Another way feminism was portrayed is through films in the 1960s and 1970s. The film we watched in class, I Spit on Your Grave, showed the transformation of a women gaining her independence from men. In the beginning of the movie, she is represented as a weak and helpless women. In the end she comes out a strong person who seeks revenge on those who raped her. I never thought to view movies in this concept and didn’t even know there was an idea of feminism behind these stories. After watching the film and discussing it in class, I realized that there is at least a little bit of feminism behind movies as

such.
The pill and the Birth Control Revolution was also a very huge impact during the 1960s. In the beginning it had very bad side effects, but women continued using them. The numbers went from 1.2 million to 6.5 million by 1965. Reis says, “The technology of birth control could effectively abort the biological consequences of illegitimate sex and thus the transmission of a delinquent culture” (325). Birth control was a game changer for women. It allowed them the freedom of reproduction. Besides birth control, sexual revolutions came across the attention of the Supreme Court. Many cases served justice, while others did not. Roe v. Wade in 1973 was a huge decision, which legalized abortion, a plus for women. On the other hand, in Bowers v. Hardwick, gays do no gain rights during this time. The Supreme Court continued to boost heterosexuality and pair-bonding.
As women began gaining rights, gays and lesbians continued to stay under the notions of the Cold War.

Political movements pushed toward the New Left and Free Love. The New Left culture wanted the restructuring of social norms such as religion, politics, sex, gender, and drugs. Free love rejected sexual and gender norms. There was no ownership of bodies and they pushed against marriage, reproducing, and monogamy. They wanted sexuality driven by desire and not obligation. With this many started announcing their queerness to the world, regardless of the world wanting to hear it or not. Queers hoped to gain free expression, strength in numbers, and a cultural change. The more queers began coming out, oppression continued to grow. Similar to the tactics used during the Cold War, police began using entrapment. They would organize networks to seduce queer men and labeled queer’s as “perverts”. Even in the 1960s and 1970s they believed that homosexuality was a sickness and could be cured. I think this standpoint and idea is still believed to this day, which is very

disheartening.