Women in the 1960s

The “swinging sixties” can be seen as a political, economical and social breakthrough for women in Great Britain.

A British woman’s position in the 1960s was greatly improved by the Pill as it could be said that women were put in a position of superiority over men because, for probably the first time they were able to have unprecedented control over fertility. Unlike sexual intercourse which at times could be forced and unwanted.    

 There are many reasons as to why I would call it a breakthrough for British women.
One of them is the oral contraceptive otherwise commonly known as “The Pill”. It was approved by the FPA and had become available on the National Health Service in 1961. The Family Planning Act, made by Labour, enabled local authorities to provide advisory services on birth control. The Pill was called reliable, convenient and ironically a godsend to British women. Only the medical establishment wasn’t ready for free love in 1961, as the Pill was only prescribed to married women. For the unmarried and young, information about the Pill was hard to obtain and fear of pregnancy still dominated intimate relations between some couples, this did not change until 1967. Also there was the argument that knowledge of contraceptives encouraged promiscuity and unsafe sex, so maybe that was why only married woman were allowed the contraceptive.

 The Coal Is Our Life, a Yorkshire mining community, had reported that some women were scared of using the Pill incase it offended their husbands. One woman didn’t even know of the Pill’s existence until she overheard a conversation from two women talking about birth control at work.    

 
Another issue which was against the contraceptive was the religious figures and institutions. Obviously they were not very happy and debated the proper role of sexuality and its relationship to creation. The Roman Catholic Church in particular, after studying the facts of oral contraceptives and re-emphasized traditional Catholic teaching on birth control in the 1968 papal encyclical Humanae Vitae. This went back to the traditional Catholic teaching that artificial contraception ruined the nature and the whole purpose of sex.

Join now!

Even so the Pill was still generally welcomed and evidence of side effects was mostly ignored. Doctors regarded it as completely safe, adding to its appeal. It was highly successful, by 1964 half a million British women were actually taking the Pill and the birth rate began to fall. Fear of unwanted pregnancy was abolished and adoption or abortion wasn’t necessary any more as you had the Pill.


There are other factors which helped women to make progress in political, economic and social fields.

Socially, in the mid 1960s a sociological pessimism about family disintegration was being replaced with ...

This is a preview of the whole essay