During the late 1960s, a number of changes occured: pop music, explicitly aimed at teenagers, began to emerge; film became an important influence on young people; televisions and telephones were installed in homes.
Postcolonial Britain.
Mass immigration on non-European people from former colonies that, in time, turned Britain into a multiracial society.
Racism became a regular part of British life.
Britain became a small country in Europe, and many people had difficulty in coming to terms with Britain's loss of importance and influence on the world stage.
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The 1960s
Conservatism is based on pragmatism, maintaining the traditional institution of society, free enterprise, and law and order.
It was the era of the Beatles, 'Swinging Britain', with its outrageous fashion and personal liberation.
The contraceptive pill meant that women could have sex without fear of the consequences.
By the end of the 1960s, the 'sexual revolution' had swept away centuries of taboo.
'Free love' became popular and male homosexuality became legal for the first time.
The hippy movement of the 1960s promised an alternative lifestyle that was unconventional, anti-materialist, and free thinking.
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The 1960s
Education
A significant contribution to these changes came with the introduction of comprehensive schools in the Labour government.
The new comprehensive schools would educate all children together, despite their social background.
They were hailed as a great piece of social engineering that would finally remove the class divisions from British society.
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The 1960s
Social Change
The 1960s was the era of pop art, mini-skirts, beat music, long hair, and hallucinogenic drugs.
Many young people joined the peace movement.
The feminist movement began to challenge the limitations placed upon women.
Grammar schools offered a route to university for lower middle-class women.
The sexual revolution meant that women were able to take the initiative of affairs of the heart once they were in control of their fertility.
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Thatcherism
Thatcher, a grocer's daughter, became leader of the Conservative Party in 1975, and was elected as Britain's first female prime minister.
She was strongly anti-feminist.
She encouraged self-interest, and said there was no such thing as society.
This was interpreted as absolving the wealthy from any social resonsibility towards the less fortunate than themselves.
The gap between the rich and the poor widened dramatically in these years (1979 - 1990).
She was seen as a hero by patriotic, anti-European nationalists, and those who took advantage of the opportunity to become rich without the need of social conscience.
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Feminism
Women have had fewer rights than men for centuries. Responsibility for this lies principally with the medieval Christian Church which decided to blame Eve for the fall of mankind.
As a wife, a woman was the property of her husband.
They were discriminated in the law in regard to property rights.
Women were not allowed to take university degrees until early in the twentieth century.
Women's suffrage.
In the 1960s, the feminist movement slowly emerged.
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Feminism
Women's liberation.
A series of legislative changes swept away some of the legal discrimination against women, but at the same time more radical feminists mounted a more fundamental challenge against the patriarchal structure and attitudes of society.
Some argued that men were unnecassary, and argued for lesbian households.
Less radically, some women questioned why they should be expected to present themselves as sex symbols for men.
Reclaiming history.
The Bible, classical mythology, and fairy tales were all found to have deeply embedded anti-female prejudices.
Some feminists worked to develop alternative mythologies.
Lilith, the first wife of Adam, was idenitifed as an alternative to Eve.
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