During the mid 1960s why did hippies come about?

Question

What fueled their desire to become a trendy hippy? Was it the alteration and change of music?? Then again I know that hippies changed the way music was...

1. So, what im asking is why was their a sudden transition of trend, attitude, and change of normality.

2. How did women start to gain their own freedom and power... from the old 1950s stereotyped "house wife"... Was it because of music liberation? Drugs?

real answers please.

Answer 1

I can talk some about your question two. The civil rights movement was an instigator for other rights movements. Women began to question why men in power were the ones who defined them and their roles. It was really about seeing other people empower themselves (through the civil rights movement) and realizing that many of the same issues implicit in racial inequalities were part of women's lives too. It was about questioning hegemonic assumptions - things we believe because we just take them for granted and forget to question. Hegemony is about participating in our own subjugation because we think that ideologies of people in power are the right ideologies. Yet they are the same beliefs that keep those people in power and leave us without it.

Answer 2

I don't think music or drugs was the reason for the change - but it was a result of the change.

Most older folks will cite the 1950s as a great time. Indeed we had defeated two of the greatest threats to our freedom only a few years before, and we had become a world power to be reckoned with. People did not have much fear, as most were able to sleep with their doors unlocked, everybody was your friend - or so I'm told.

However, the underbelly of the fifties brought about the sixties. The fifties, for all the good we could say about it was during a time that legalistic ideals and self-righteousness reigned. They never questioned anything, and so they never had an answer to anything. When their children would ask questions, many times they were told, "That's just the way it is," or something a long those lines. As you know, that answer is not good enough, and what we saw was a pendulum effect. One generation saw things the other, and their offspring hated that so much that they went to the opposite extreme in everything.
1. Music
2. Sobriety
3. Hair
4. Clothing
5. Many, many other things.

Answer 3

1
Sudden? It was hardly sudden... you had beatniks in the 50s and a general rise of people trying to break out of traditional behaviors. There was not a lot of tolerance in the 50s for "different" people. Look at all the civil rights problems that began to be dealt with back then.

And as the Baby Boom generation began to get to its teen years, starting in the late 50s, it wanted to try new things and go new places. At this point, teenagers were slowly becoming the "majority" in America. When JFK was elected, even though "hippies" didn't really exist then, there was a sense of the world changing and growing. And the more people tried new & different things, the weirder some people got... The Beatles came along and one of the things that was so "shocking" about them was the haircut! Can you imagine a day when men were considered freals for having long hair?

Also, the long drawn out pointless Vietnam War helped create disillusionment in the government.

And the introduction of the birth control pill helped loosen the fears of sex...

All the things "grown-ups" said were "bad" were coming under question... and so one thing led to another...

It is an overall evolving picture...


2
Women's Lib has been around for over 100 years. In the late 60s, once the population started trying new things, then women, who were suppressed for 5000 or more years, started saying "Hey maybe male/female relationships should be new & different too... Let's start with being treated equally!"

Answer 4

The very unpopular war was just one reason. Young men went off and many died. Drugs also played a part. Particularly pyschodelic drugs.
Peace, freedom and rock and roll. Revolution, anti establishment, back to nature, free love. We didn't call ourselves Hippies, well not at first and by the time that moniker was acceptable, much of the world had changed and passed us by.
We really thought we could make a difference and change the world for the better. We didn't just want to change things we wanted to do the oppisite of everything we saw in our parents.
The music followed the trend for change, experimentation and discover.

Answer 5

That would depend upon the age group and the time period (early, mid or late 60s). In the early 60s I was in (public) grade school, we had dress codes and a vice principle who would stand at the bus drop off to make sure we were all dressed appropriately (slacks, button down shirt, dress shoes -- jeans were work clothes, not appropriate for school. No t-shirts, they were underwear, and no tennis shoes, they were for gym class.). If we were found to be "inappropriately dressed," we were put back on the bus and sent home. The men wore essentially the same, we were cookie cutters of the adults. By the late 60's, the world had been turned on its head. Blue jeans were the norm as were t-shirts with stuff written on them.

Answer 6

Sometimes the young are just looking to rebel against rules or anything ..and "hippies" were not all about love & peace" .
Being a so-called "free spirit" sort of let you off the hook in terms of morality . It was like a key-card to party through life . For others ..it meant anarchy and a certain ideology of hate-politics . People like Jane Fonda & John Kerry encouraged much hate toward their government - simply because this government tried to stop the flow of Communism . Some students , indoctrinated by many liberal colleges , and the free flow of drugs during the 60's & 70's ..were too
easily influenced to rebel - many not knowing why . It went with the culture of the 60's .".free spirits "meant never having to think before you act . I think it was a time when some were looking to change the world . Drugs did change music in a lot of ways , for a time ..until many dropped dead from it .
The idea of peace & love , sounds like a perfect utopia - but the reality is , there's always someone somewhere who wants to step in when you aren't looking - and squelch democracy . So you fight for peace-as strange as it may sound .Without peace & freedom ..there's not much time for love . Kerry & Fonda fooled many into believing they were the ones who sought peace- but instead , caused suffering and riots ; and inspired many to spit on the brave troops returning from war in order to preserve peace & freedom . Hippies were not all love, flowers & peace ..racial hatred was stimulated in many southern democrats ..and it was also a sad , ugly time , where mixed race couples were spat upon .. and where radicals brought political riots to many towns . . and rich kids like Patty Hearst or Manson followers abosultely lost their minds to hate the so-called "establishment". .robbing banks ; slaughtering households ..many times just to rebel or prove how anti-war they were . Maybe you had to live through it - to know it's happening again now - in many of the same ways - by radical liberal democrats ( who should still be in prison ..but never were) ; inspiring hate ; racial bigotry , and anarchy ..without the flowers .

Answer 7

The combination of psychedelic drugs and the peace effort for the war caused the hippie nation.

Their new attitudes created the new forms of music.

As for the women they were also hippies and drug addicts putting them on the same position as men during the movement. Plus many women were left home alone when the husbands left for war. The change in freedom for women was also just gradual, so it was bound to happen sometime.

Answer 8

I don't mean to complain...BUT....How on earth can you guys not born in the fifties and having not grown up in the 60's answer this question????? I was born in 1959, and was therefore a child in the 60's...I do not feel qualified to answer the question...but was drawn to the question to see answers from others, and after seeing some the answers, am quite shocked. Unless you are an expert on something, or have personal experience, why do some of you even bother to answer??? This has baffled me since I joined YA. Isn' t that
what YA is for???? Sharing personal expertise and experiences???? Geez....ok...you can have your soapbox back...

Answer 9

Books and poetry by authors like Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsburg and the 1950s beat era were predecessors of the hippies and influenced their arrival on the American cultural scene.

The 1960s women's movement was kicked off by Betty Friedan's "The Feminine Mystique."

The music, the drugs, and the Vietnam War, while influential later on, were not as influential in the early stages of 1960s culture.

Also, John F. Kennedy's election, persona and assassination were very influential as well.

Answer 10

It started with the beatniks daddy-o, the hippies came about from all the far out business started by them--like the poetry, the weird interpretive dance and the jive talk.