Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi everyone
I'm new here so just wanted to say hi and hopefully make some new friends with similar interests.
Although I'm in my early 30s, I've always had a bit of an obsession over the 1950s, 60s and 70s era's from music, fashion/ vintage clothing, sewing patterns, crochet patterns/books, hairstyles and of course the VW Campervan and Beetle.
Does anyone else like these era's?
Share your experiences, hobbies and interests or what songs you like from the 50s, 60s or 70s. I would love to hear them
Although I share no nostalgia for past decades (that I have lived through), preferring the present, I thought I'd share some family photos from the 1950s and 1960s.
Life was tough in the past, for both sexes, but it was hard for women to work because of the expectations of society but also because domestic tasks were such hard work and took up such time.
Women were expected to marry and raise a family even if they didn't want to (which was true of my mother).
The 1970s continued the work that the pill began in the 1960s, liberating women including by domestic applicances, but in a miriad other ways.
My mum with my sister in the 50s:
My mum with my sister and me in the late 1960s (I am the littlest one).
I've heard Germaine Greer say something like (I'm paraphrasing) that once women were slaves to their husbands but now they are slaves to their bosses (joining men). The modern world is better in some ways but not as many as you think. I think modern Britain is the pits for most people in it.
Didn't working class people have more rights in the latter half of the 20th century than they do now? Due to Union Strength and density. New Labour never scrapped Thatchers anti trade union laws unfortunately. If you're working in the private sector now it's more likely to be a non union workplace and you are then relying on the benevolence of employers to set your pay and hours. I would say what we have now is a veneer of liberalism under a free market system that's function is to increase inequality.
I don't know. I worry that socially we might have peeked in the 90s/00s ... although obviously technology marches on.
The modern world is better in some ways but not as many as you think.
For fear of giving a huge reply, I'll just say that I'd far rather live in 21st Century UK than at any point in the past for a long variety of reasons, but just looking at the rights and opportunities of women, LGBTQ+, children, people with psychiatric 'illnesses' and the working classes compared to the 20th Century (and most definitely before) will illustrate my point.