There is no debating that feminism was necessary back then. Socially and legally women were at a severe disadvantage and something had to be done. Of course it’s a never-ending process as injustice will exist as long as humans exist, but the levels are very different nowadays in western countries compared to developing and exploited countries (no they aren’t “developing” they are being held back, but that’s a different topic).
At the same time, there was a lot of movement for social awareness and things like free love, queer acceptance, bodily autonomy, anti-racism movements, and a lot more were happening world-wide. France had massive left-wing protests and so did Germany. Many know of the movements in the US Black Panthers, MLK, Woodstock, Free Love, Flower Power, and turmoil that took place after Kennedy was shot in 1963. In Congo Patrice Lumumba was assassinated for his role in the independence of the country (leading to the Congo Crisis), Nigeria had its very own Nnamdi Azikiwe promoting an African Union (which came to be for a short while), and a lot more was happening.
One would have thought the world was going to radically change forever in the 60s, but then, very quickly, the biggest topic became feminism. It was on TVs, talkshows, streets, and much more. While other civil rights movements were being brutally stamped out, somehow feminism got bigger and had major support in the US by the Johnson administration (after Kennedy was shot) and (suprisingly) even the following president: Nixon (although he was still a fucking sleeze).
And thought by the 70s the social movements in the US were declining and still strong in Europe, feminism gained force.
Things have now changed significantly as feminism is now “evil” to right-wingers and religious types (with a return to rhetoric from their antagonists in the 60s) and still serves as a major distraction, but mostly because it is seen as a danger to the elite themselves. For a while, it served its purpose of distracting and also bringing more people into the workforce while successfully forcing the pay of single bread-winner to be insufficient and requiring two. The economical output doubled while remuneration halved (with inflation considered).
The bigger distraction now is “immigration”. The elite and uberrich have now successfully shifted the focus away from themselves. Again.
Hey, one of the more nuanced posts here with links and something I can relate to! 🫠
I’m fairly sure there is this cultural difference here. I believe we still have some of those old-school movements here in Europe. Feminism, fight for environmental issues and the planet, anti-war people… I think it also fundamentally changed how they raised the next generation(s). To this date people (on average) don’t beat their kids anymore and they mostly try to provide them with lots of opportunities. We, as people, were fairly emancipated for a while. And there is a broad bandwith of stuff that came from the protests of 1968. It’s been a long time, though. Things went through different phases or waves… I don’t think there was that much of a clash between generations since. And maybe that changed things.
As far as I’m aware, the protests of 68 and the following movements were bottom-up. By the people. But we had a lot of neoliberalism after that, starting with Reagan, Thatcher… And the world changed yet again. Pretty substantially and it had its toll on society and economy.
And seems to me we’re deep in neoliberalism these days. Especially the USA. (But most western countries are headed the same direction.) And with that it’s top-down. People with money guide the country, and society… Rip off the people… And all the identity politics and distraction tactics work really well on the internet. People are confined in filter bubbles and radicalize. They’re confused about their identity and there isn’t even “truth” out there because that got displaced by an abundance of misinformation. They get some fabricated outcry of the day, every day. And that provides them with some distraction. Something to get agitated about and feel hate towards someone or something. And that’s good enough. Also fits the social media dynamics very well, and unfortunately that’s where we all get our truth from, these days. A substancial amount of people doesn’t even care anymore about what’s happening beyond their front door. They just make up stuff on the internet. And they pick fascism as their identity.
I don’t think this is connected to feminism. It’s a great showcase of the Strauss–Howe generational theory and how bad social media and the corporate run internet is. Hating on women or blaming feminism is just one aspect of something else in my opinion.