La Countreculture Dans Les Années 70 (en Anglais)

HIPPIES

The story : The hippies are a counterculture created in the sixties in the USA and that has broadened all around the world. They were younger people who rejected the traditional values, the lifestyle of their parents and the consumption society!

This movement began with the fight of the younger people against the American war in Vietnam. A generation that rejected the authorities.

The ideas :  A life based on the liberty, a sexuality without taboo, the research of new experiences with drugs, and mostly a life devoted to the ROCK music!

They wanted to adapt the consumption society by developing ecologist and fair values.

They wanted peace everywhere in the world

It was a real sexual revolution!

They wanted to live freely, with more authentic human relationships.

Their music has had a major cultural influence.

The symbolic: august 15th 1969 the first concert in WOODSTOCK

It was the first important hippies gathering. 3 days of concert without break. They didn’t come only to listen rock music but also to share their opinions about critical areas like the war and Human Rights.

There was a peace and love atmosphere. There has never been any accident or any violence incident during a hippie concert.

The youngest people consumed drugs and some of them had sex in public.

This festival is a real symbolic event for hippies.

The Beach-Boys, Santana, Janis Joplin, Joe Cocker, Jefferson Airplane, The Who and of course Jimmy Hendrix had participated at this festival, and they became legends.

In this video we can heard Jimi Hendrix during a live in Woodstock. His song calls to mind the bombing during the Vietnam War after to have played the American national anthem. It’s his way to show his commitment against this war!

Another celebrity, famous for his commitment in favour of the peace and love movement is John Lennon, the creator of the BEATLES, a famous group of the sixties. He used his celebrity to launch a campaign with her wife Yoko Ono against the war and to support the hippie movement.

Feminists :

The story: Until the sixties women didn’t have the same rights than men. In the American society, women had to stay at home to make the house work, they had to be the perfect wife, to bring up the children… It’s a women gathering born in the sixties with the creation of the “Women’s Lib”. It was the name of their movement. They defended the Woman rights in the society and wanted to fight social, political and economic injustice. Betty Friedan was the first woman to have spoken about the women liberties. She launched the feminist actions with her book, “The Feminine Mystic” that reevaluated the women’s place in the American society. After that, she was created the “National Organization for Women” that has had an important place on the political scene in the sixties.

The Ideas : They fighted for their body control, the right at the abortion, at the free contraception. Because it was to difficult to obtain means of contraception. But their more important fight, the one for their liberty, for the equal rigths with men.

The most important persons : Betty Friedan for her book that I spoke before.

Geraldine Ferraro, was the first woman at the vice-president post of one important political party in 1978.

Robin Morgan, was a scritter who milited for the feminist ideas. She published “Sisterhood” a very important book in the feminist “world”.

Glorian Steinem was a reference in this movement. She founded “Madame’s magazine” until 1972. She helped to create mettings about women political.

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