What did we Accomplish in the Sixties?

I recently posted some thoughts about this subject on Dueling Modems.

Why do you think nothing concrete and lasting happened out of the 60s? Lots of people have been saying this lately, and I can't help feeling that the changes were so profound and total that no one remembers that there were changes! The 50s, my friends, happened in a different country than this one. We did not get everything we wanted, no. The world is not perfect now, and is that why some of us think we accomplished nothing?

Consider: in the 60s, the Civil Rights movement brought about the end of segregation and a raft of anti-discrimination laws, culminating in the Johnson administration's Civil Rights Act, one of the most far-reaching pieces of law ever enacted. Local governments also produced laws against discrimination in housing, jobs, schooling. Even leisure activities -- I remember a time when non-whites couldn't enter most restaurants, go to Disneyland, or use the same beaches as whites. Mixed race couples were harassed everywhere they went unless they lived in Hawai'i. I could go on, but you get the picture.

Then there's the Women's Movement, which had its roots in the 60s though it flowered in the early 70s. Equal pay for equal work -- I remember when "Help Wanted" ads came in two columns, male and female. The female jobs always paid less: waitresses less than waiters, secretaries less than administrative assistants, on and on. Women had no control over their own bodies -- contraception depended on a man's willingness to use a condom, and most weren't willing. No legal abortion. Doctors who paid little attention to female complaints but lots to male illnesses. Natural childbirth wasn't an option, and women were kept from breastfeeding even if they wanted to. And so on.

Consider the "social issues". Women who had an illegimate child were horribly stigmatized, and the child suffered. Living with someone you weren't married to was out of the question. Misogynistic and racial slurs were considered an integral part of humor. Sex was a tabu subject. Consider the food -- filled with chemicals, stripped of flavor. And then there's fashion -- women like sheep bought what was "in" every year. Wearing homemade or second-clothes was considered faintly shameful in the 50s. Wearing jeans was definitely a sign of shameful poverty, or worse, rebellion. Every social occasion and job had one right way to dress, and that was that.

More importantly, we have the question of arguing with authority, with daring to question authority, whether that authority was a doctor, a cop, or a president. The Bushies are finding out to their horror that a great many people now see dissent as the American Way. That wasn't the case in the 50s, not on your life. It's a direct result of the huge numbers of people who turned out to protest in the 60s. At first the media tried to slight the rallies and the marches, but by the end TV news showed streets filled with people from all walks of life, marching to end the war or to give people of color access to all of American life, not just the servant classes.

No one questioned inventions like nuclear power plants, even. The environmental movement in this country dates to the 60s.

Whoops, I nearly forgot Gay Liberation. Probably I've forgotten other social causes, too.

No, the world's not perfect. Not all the changes we wanted came about. Thanks to the damned Fundies of all religions, we've lost some ground -- but we're beginning to turn that around, too. But to say nothing lasting came out of the 60s?!? Try to remember what life was like in the 50s. That's all I can say to that. It's the power structures that are trying to pretend that the change wasn't lasting, so they can convince people that protests and the like are futile now.

But they lie. I'm glad to see that many young people aren't buying it.