Social and Cultural Change - Part 1

Question 1

What did Thatcher and Tebbit blame for the ills of the 1980s?

Answer 1

• The moral decline of Britain under Wilson’s government
• Raises 2 questions
• Were the moral and social changes of the 1960s as widespread or as damaging as the right assumed?
• Did the labour party play a leading role in encouraging the emergence of the ‘permissive society’?

Question 2

What did Kenneth Morgan argue about change during the 1960s ?

Answer 2

• 1960s saw a tidal wave of permissive indulgence, homosexual as well as heterosexual, huge boom in contraceptives, a crusade for sexual indulgence in whatever form became accepted.

Question 3

How did the media and television grow in the 1960s?

Answer 3

• In the 1960s the mass media grew in size and type
• Television became available everywhere –> started to create a uniformity of culture and ended isolation of distant communities
• By 1961 75% of population had a TV in their home and by 1971 it was 91%
• When Hugh Greene became Director- General of the BBC in 1960 - set out to transform it

Question 4

What were the developments in style of television ?

Answer 4

• Guidelines of nudity and swearing revised, a new style of news presentation and more popular programmes were commissioned
• The launch of ITV in 1955 allowed advertising to expand

Question 5

What were some new programmes that were released in 1960-70s?

Answer 5

• Z cars - 1962-78 - realistic drama
• Steptoe and Son - 1962-74
• The Wednesday Play 1964-70 - covered controversial issues

Question 6

How did the radio develop?

Answer 6

• Radio survived through developments of technology - car radios, long-life battery and earphones - meant that radios could be taken out and listened to in the privacy of the bedroom
• Personal radios meant programmes could be targeted at different audiences
• Beginning of 1960s just 3 BBC radio stations
• young people started listen to music on the radio
• a BBC pop music station, Radio One, was started

Question 7

How did Print Media develop?

Answer 7

• The Sun, launched in 1964, set out to be ‘the only newspaper born of the age we live in’.
• In 1969, bought by Australian newspaper tycoon Rupert Murdoch - associated it with the permissive attitudes of the age and its popularity grew enormously

Question 8

How did leisure time grow?

Answer 8

• By the 1960s leisure time expanded as fewer people were expected to work on Saturday mornings and weekends
• By 1969, TV accounted for 23% of leisure time
• DIY and gardening became popular hobbies
• Cookery, needlework and knitting encouraged by new gadgetry
• Shopping became a leisure activity in its own right

Question 9

How did car ownership change?

Answer 9

• Accelerated rapidly in the 1960s
• Use of the car grew to account for 77% of journeys by 1974
• Technological improvements meant cars became more affordable

Question 10

Changes in tourism and holidays? - statistic

Answer 10

• 1960s saw leisure travel turn into mass tourism as the number of holidays increased
• 1951 - 27 million holidays - 1971 - 41 million holidays

Question 11

What travel company was created and how did travel in Britain change?

Answer 11

• Britannia Airways was founded in 1964 to serve holidaymakers wishing to fly to Spain and the Canary Islands, Malta, Bulgaria and North Africa
• Still reserved to the middle classes
• Package holidays grown from under 4% of total holidays in 1966 to 8.4% in 1971 - still in infancy

Question 12

How was there changes in sport mainly football in the 1960s?

Answer 12

• Given unexpected boost in 1966 when England won the world cup final
• Football became an arena for young, working class fans, often violent in disposition
• Harold Wilson tried hard to exploit this to divert attention from the political and economic crises of July 1966

Question 13

How did the footballers change?

Answer 13

• Archaic restrictions on footballers’ pay had been removed after strike action
• The Northern Irish and Manchester United footballer, George Best, with long hair and highly publicised sex life suggested very different values from the sportsmen of the past

Question 14

What were the developments in scientific development in the 1960s?

Answer 14

• In 1961 the first person had gone into space and by 1969 the US had landed on the moon
• Scientific development - key aim
• The Anglo-French partnership continued in aircraft
• The Post Office Tower opened in 1965 to improve telecommunications

Question 15

What were the developments with censorship in the 60s?

Answer 15

• In 1967, labour backbencher George Strauss introduced a bill to abolish theatre censorship
• 1968 Theatre Act abolished the Lord Chamberlain’s right to censor stage plays
• result was a series of plays featuring nudity and four-letter words
• Art and music became more radical
• By end of the decade, screen violence and sex had become more acceptable and more explicit

Question 16

What was opposition to changes in censorship? - key figure

Answer 16

• Mary Whitehouse began ‘Clean-up TV’ campaign in 1964
• Moral campaigner concerned by these changes
• support led to the National Viewers and Listeners Association in 1955 –> soon had 100,000 members
• little impact

Question 17

Give some examples of films, TV shows and songs that became accepted / were new following this act and less censorship:

Answer 17

• Productions: “Hair”, “Oh! Calcutta” and “Fanny Hill”
• 1960s saw a broadening of what was considered acceptable:
• Darling (1965), Alfie (1966), Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush (1967)
• Satirical programmes: “That Was The Week That Was” and magazines “Private Eye” –> criticised everyone from the royal family to politicians

Question 18

What was the progress towards women liberation in the 1960s overview?

Answer 18

• Seen as the decade which movement emerges
• In 1970 Germaine Greer published her influential text The female Eunuch

Question 19

How was Harold Wilson a reason for the success of the women’s liberation movement ?

What acts did he enact?

Answer 19

• Much more alive on women’s issues and ambitions than any other PM
• He included several women in his cabinet including Barbara Castle and Shirley Williams
• Enacted Equal Pay Act and the 1975 Sex Discrimination Act - Jenkins too

Question 20

How did the second wave of feminism start?

How did the lives of women change positively in relation to education?

Answer 20

• Second wave of feminism started in US when Betty Freidan in 1963 The Feminine Mystique argued that women were unfulfilled and restricted in lives
• Spread to Britain –> education contributed to frustration
• Women accounted for only 28% of students in higher education in the 1970s and only 5% of women ever reached managerial posts

Question 21

How did the lives of women not change in relation to work?

Answer 21

• Girls frequently left school at the minimum age and married young
• jobs for women were in the clerical or service sector - no prospects and poor pay

Question 22

How did the lives of women change in terms of sex and marriage with contraceptives?

Answer 22

• The NHS Family Planning Act of 1967 allowed local authorities to provide contraceptives and contraceptive planning advice for the first time
• N. of illegitimate births rose from 5.8% in 1960 to 8.2% in 1970, number of marriages ending in divorce also rose

Question 23

What was the feminist movement encouraged by?

Answer 23

• encouraged by books and articles exploring position of women E.g. The Female Eunuch (1970)
  The feminine mystique (1963)

Question 24

How did the feminist movement take off?

Answer 24

• ‘Women’s Lib’ groups sprang up around UK
• Rally in 1969 led to establishment of Women’s Co-ordination Committee
• At Women’s Liberation Conferance 1970 - oxford
• Four demands:
• Equal Pay
• Free contraceptives and abortion on request
• Equal educational and job opportunities
• Free 24 hour childcare

Question 25

What progress was made following the rise of feminist movement?

Answer 25

• The 1970 Matrimonial Property Act established that the work of a wife, in paid employment or at home, should be taken into account in divorce settlements
• The 1970 Equal Pay Act established the principle of equal pay for equal work - not in force until 1975

Question 26

What were the limitations of the feminist movement?

Answer 26

• The ideal of female domesticity still strong throughout 60s
• After election of 24 female MPs in 1945 there was virtually no change and by 1974 there were only 27
• By end of decade inequalities and discrimination still existed and traditional stereotyping of roles remained strong