What was it like during the Vietnam War in the US? Was was it like during the Women's Rights Movement?

Answer 1

Vietnam was a very divisive time in American history. Most of the people (at least in my age group at the time) protested it vehemently, often insulting and and sometimes assaulting men in uniform because the war was so unpopular. It was really a war of attrition--the enemy realized that they could never win against the military strength of the US in open battle, so it was largely conducted by guerilla tactics. Eventually the American people got sick of the mounting death toll and a peace was negotiated. Yes, you could say we lost.

The Women's Rights Movement? You talk of that as if it's not still an ongoing thing!

In the late 1960's and in the 1970's, women began to express their discontent with the idea that they should be happy to just stay home and have babies. Like all social change, a lot of people were uncomfortable with this--women as well as men. There were many who felt that the stay-at-home mom was missing out, that all women should have careers outside the home--and at the other extreme, that no woman should hold down a job outside the home unless it was dire necessity driving her to it. As always, there was polarization.

After watching its progress, I'd have to say it was all about choice, and to my amazement a young friend of mine recounted to me a conversation she'd had in the waiting room of her gynecologist's office in which she was verbally attacked for wanting to be a full time homemaker. After all the opinions were aired, she simply said, very calmly, "But isn't that what the women's movement has always been about? Choice? Why are you acting as if my choice isn't a valid one?"

Ouch! It seemed to me at that moment that we'd come full circle, only now it's not the working wife and mother who has to defend her choice, it's the woman who opts for the "traditional" role.

Ah, well, The one constant in life is change!

Answer 2

Continued fight against communism. Black Separatism and The Student Movement. (there were some of these movements in other nations but the US was probably the biggest so it might not be considered global, though it did have global effects.) The site below will have a section on the Sixties.

Answer 3

Turbulent. A bit.