How was it for you? : women, sex, love and power in the 1960s / Virginia Nicholson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Nicholson, Virginia, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Women--Great Britain--Social conditions.

Women.

Great Britain.

Social conditions.

Feminism--Great Britain--History.

Feminism.

History.

Nineteen sixties.

Women--Social conditions.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

xiii, 493 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color) ; 25 cm

Other Title:

Women, sex, love and power in the 1960s

Place of Publication:

[London] UK : Viking, an imprint of Penguin Books, 2019.

Summary:

"A feeling that we could do whatever we liked swept through us in the 60s ..." The sexual revolution liberated a generation. But men most of all. We tend to think of the 60s as a decade sprinkled with stardust: a time of space travel and utopian dreams, but above all of sexual abandonment. When the pill was introduced on the NHS in 1961 it seemed, for the first time, that women - like men - could try without buying. "It was paradise for men ... all these willing girls ..." But this book - by 'one of the great social historians of our time' - describes a turbulent power struggle. Here are the voices from the battleground. Meet dollybird Mavis, debutante Kristina, Beryl who sang with the Beatles, bunny girl Patsy, Christian student Anthea, industrial campaigner Mary and countercultural Caroline. From Carnaby Street to Merseyside, from mods to rockers, from white gloves to Black is Beautiful, their stories throw an unsparing spotlight on morals, four-letter words, faith, drugs, race, bomb culture and sex. This is a moving, shocking book about tearing up the world and starting again. It's about peace, love, psychedelia and strange pleasures, but it is also about misogyny, violation and discrimination - half a century before feminism rebranded. For out of the swamp of gropers and groupies, a movement was emerging, and discovering a new cause: equality. The 1960s: this was where it all began. Women would never be the same again.

Contents:

1960. Brides

Hearth and home

Lady C

New arrivals

Forecast for a future

The sexual supermarket. 1961. Bobby's girl

She is having fun

Cool

The yellow peril

Off the deep end. 1962. Maids and models

Is chastity outmoded?

Satire and street cred

Alarm. 1963. Climate change

Problems with no name

Hessle road

Twist and shout

Bye bye Johnny. 1964. Whitehouse-land

Rockers

Happenings

Dreaming of houses. 1965. Not quite the same as before

What's new, pussycat

Paying for it

What to do about dinner

The priesthood

Men's club. 1966. Nightmare

Party time

Hotbed

The weaker sex

Brain bunnies. 1967. Things

Fun, fun, fun!

A calm sea

Lucy in the sky

Vultures

Come together. 1968. Big Lil

'For we were young and sure to have our way ... '

The rule book

Honky tonk women

Say it loud

Chick work. 1969. The we generation

Back to the garden

Sunshine and rainbows

You say you want a revolution

Birth of a movement.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 445-455) and index.

ISBN:

0241242371

9780241242377

OCLC:

1042352294