Social, Intellectual and
Cultural Thresholds
1914 - PRESENT
Gender
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Feminism and equal rights
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Early century: World War I saw Western women get vote
Status of women changed dramatically after WWII in industrialized states
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U.N. Declaration of Women’s Rights officially grant women international rights
U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1964 forbids discrimination on basis of race or sex
In Western Europe, US, Oceania women entered politics, board rooms
Gender equality in Communist Countries?
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Communist states often improved women's legal status
Despite legal reforms, women have not yet gained true equality
In USSR, Eastern Europe many women entered medicine, science but second to men
In China, one-child policy encourages infanticide or abandonment of baby girls
The Developing World: Africa, SW Asia
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Decolonization often as much from colonizing country as husbands, males
Domesticity and abuse restricting rights of women
Women in Arab and Muslim societies twice as likely as men to be illiterate
Most Indian women illiterate (75 perecent in 1980s) and confined at home
"Dowry deaths" common in India; burning of wives in Pakistan
Women leaders in South Asia
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Effective political leaders: Indira Gandhi (India) and Benazir Bhutto (Pakistan)
Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga became president of Sri Lanka, 1994
Democratic activist Aung Sang Suu Kyi
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Women mobilized to support war; some actually fought in war
Women demanded full equality with men, access to education and employment
Birth control enables women to control their bodies and avoid "biology destiny"
Received Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 when under house arrest in Myanmar
Seeks democracy in Burma
UN launched a Decade for Women program in 1975
Latin America, Japan, Little Tigers beginning to follow early 20th century West
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SOCIAL REFORMS, SOCIAL REVOLUTIONS
Feminism
– Defined: Women should enjoy equal rights in
• Society, law, business, government
• Decisions about their bodies especially abortion, birth control
– The Issue
• By 1920s: Women have the vote but this is not equality
• By 1940s: Latin American women generally have the vote
• Opposition to feminism came from both left, right
– Left felt women would vote conservative, listen to their husbands
– Right felt women would be liberals, vote to change society
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Post War Europe saw the rise of feminism
– Simone de Beauvoir: society oppresses women, creates differences
– 1960s
• Feminism becomes a middle class movement
• Pill, right to work and education helped movement
– NOW: National Organization of Women (USA)
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Pressed for legislation to end discrimination towards women
1973: Roe v. Wade made abortion legal and strengthened women’s movement
Presses for equal access to jobs
Runs up against the glass ceiling
– An artificial barrier women cannot pass into management
– Women not entering the board rooms (CEOs), senior government positions
Women around the world
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East Asia
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China
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Communists push women into society
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In China
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1960s Cultural Revolution pushed this idea
1980s economic liberalization seems to have hurt progress
Japan
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Meiji women entered workforce (2/3 of work force); poor conditions
World War II
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Women enter into all workforces to free up men for army
This is true of every major combatant in World War II (US, UK, USSR, Germany)
US Occupation changed Japanese society beginning in 1945
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Women are comrades aiding the revolution
True also of USSR, Eastern Europe; to a lesser extend also true in Vietnam, North Korea
US insisted on equal rights, women’s vote, equal pay
Women enter grassroots politics, consumer groups, environmental issues
Religious States
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Muslim states
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Egypt, Turkey, Morocco, Malaya, Pakistan, Libya saw some positive changes
Muslim states ruled by Communists, USSR saw progress but only to a certain level
Afghanistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia so no significant changes and experienced some decline
Christian societies
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Divorce, ownership of property allowed; control of bodies (birth control, abortion) opposed
Many Catholic societies repeatedly blocked abortion, divorce
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Attempts to liberalize repeatedly drew intervention of the Church, Pope
True of much of Latin America, African countries, Philippines, Catholic Europe
Protestant fundamentalist forces in the US, Latin America opposed liberalized women’s rights
Broad References
• 19th Century: Era of Transportation
• 20th Century: Era of Telecommunications
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Newspapers: 1890s
Radios, Movies, Teletypes: 1920s
News magazines, journals: 1930s
Television: 1950s
Personal Computers, Fax: 1980s
Internet, World Wide Web, Email: 1990s
Cell Phones: 1990s
• Mechanization of the Home
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Major aspect of consumerism
Began with electrification of 1910s, 1920s
Refrigerators, washing machines, vacuum machines
Home computers, microwaves, advanced entertainment
• Service Industries
– Largest sector of Western economies is now service related
– Service industries are retail, entertainment, sales, technology support
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Early Century
Post World War I Pessimism
– The "lost generation"
• Term described pessimism of U.S., European thinkers after the war
• Postwar poetry, fiction reflected disillusionment with western culture
• Scholars--Oswald Spengler, Arnold Toynbee--lamented decline of west
– Religious thought reflected uncertainty and pessimism
• Karl Barth attacked liberal Christian theology embracing idea of progress
• Older concepts of original sin and human depravity revived
– Attacks on the ideal of progress
• Science tarnished by the technological horrors of World War I
• Most western societies granted suffrage to all men and women
• Many intellectuals disillusioned with democracy
• Conservatives decried "the rule of inferiors
Intellectual Revolutions
– Albert Einstein's theory of relativity, 1906
• Space and time relative to the person measuring them
• Implication: reality or truth merely a set of mental constructions
– Werner Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, 1927
• Impossible to state position, velocity of a subatomic particle at same time
• Atomic universe indeterminate; can only speak of probabilities
• Challenged long-held assumptions about truth, cause and effect
– Freud's psychoanalytic theory, 1896
• Conflict between conscious and unconscious mental processes
• Sought psychological causes of mental illness
• Sexual repression frequent cause of neuroses
• Freud's ideas shaped psychiatric profession, influenced literature and arts
– Modern painting
• When photography can reproduce nature, why should painting?
• Painters like Pablo Picasso sought freedom of expression, emotional expression
• Borrowed from artistic traditions of Asia, Pacific, and Africa
• No widely accepted standards of good or bad art
– Modern architecture: the Bauhaus school started in Germany, 1920
• An international style for twentieth-century urban buildings
– Walter Gropius: form should follow function; combined engineering and art
– Simple shapes, steel frames, and walls of glass
After WW II mostly American
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Domestic containment
U.S. leaders held families to be best defense against communism
Women discouraged from working, should stay home and raise kids
Senator McCarthy led attack against suspected communists in United States
Increasing pressure to conform, retreat to home and family
Female liberation movement a reaction to postwar domesticity
Working women unhappy with new cult of domesticity
Writers Simone de Beauvoir (The Second Sex) and Betty Friedan (The Feminine Mystique) reflected women's
dissatisfaction
Some feminists used Marxist language, argued for "women's liberation"
Black nationalism in United States, Caribbean, and emerging states of Africa
Influenced by Jamaicans, singer Bob Marley, nationalist Marcus Garvey
Martin Luther King Jr. inspired by Gandhi's nonviolent methods
The U.S. civil rights movement emerged from cold war
USSR critical of United States for treatment of African-Americans
African-Americans organized in protest of southern segregation
1954, U.S. Supreme Court ruled that segregated education was unconstitutional
Rosa Parks started boycott of Montgomery buses, led by M. L. King, 1955
Cold war consumerism
Socialist countries could not match United States in material wealth, consumer goods
Stark contrasts between economies of western and eastern Europe
Marshall Plan infused western Europe with aid, increased standard of living
The space race exemplified U.S.-Soviet competition in science and technology
Soviet gained nuclear weapons, then intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM)
Soviets launched Sputnik, first satellite, 1957
Soviet cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin, first man to orbit the earth, 1961
American space program followed; John Glenn orbited, 1962
President Kennedy established NASA; United States put man on the moon, 1969
Peaceful coexistence somewhat improved after Stalin's death, 1953
Slight relaxation of censorship under Khrushchev
Both sides feared nuclear confrontation
Khrushchev visited United States in 1959, put a human face on communism
Cross Cultural Exchanges
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Global Barbie
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Western consumerism becoming a global phenomenon
Sara versus Barbie in Iran
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Barbie in Japan
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Barbie seen as a threat to Islamic values, symbol of cultural imperialism
Iranian dolls, Sara and her brother Dara (an Islamic cleric), are modest alternatives
Image of Barbie unsettling, Mattel created a younger doll for Japanese market
Whereas Iranians reject image of Barbie, Japanese adjust Barbie to their aesthetic
Consumption and cultural interaction
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Global culture of consumption
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Pan-American culture competes with United States
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Satisfies wants and desires rather than needs or necessities
Homogenization of global culture: blue jeans, Coca-Cola, McDonalds
Western icons often replace local businesses and indigenous cultures
Brand names also identify local products, for example, Swiss Rolex, Perrier, Armani
Eva Peon (Evita) has become a pop icon in Argentina and beyond
Latin American societies blended foreign and indigenous cultural practices
The age of access
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Globalization minimizes social, economic, and political isolation
Preeminence of English language
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Critics: mass media become a vehicle of cultural imperialism
Internet is an information colony, with English hegemony
China attempts a firewall to control Internet information
Adaptations of technology in authoritarian states
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Zaire television showed dictator Mobutu Sese Seko walking on clouds
Vietnam and Iraq limit access to foreign servers on Internet
POP CULTURE
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Leisure time allowed for development of mass entertainment
Technology led to syncretic blend of world artistic traditions
Globalizing Art and Culture
– Fine art vs. pop(ular) art
• Distinction blurred
• National distinctions largely gone
– Interconnections, exchanges without war
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Music
– Probably greatest aspect of Globalization
– Syncretic World Beat: Classical, African, ethnic influences led to Jazz, Blues, Rock
– Popularity of Beatles, ABBA, Ladysmith Black Mazembo around world
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Movies
– Technological wonder born of marriage between photography, art, music
– Hollywood and Bollywood dominate production of world movies
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Sports
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Outgrowth of British interest in competitive sports, 1895 Olympic revival
1920s/1950s: Baseball, basketball spreads wherever Americans live, stationed
1930s: Popularity of soccer spreads from Europe to Latin America
Today perhaps the primary world wide entertainment: 2 billion watch Olympics
Internet Connections
McDonald’s in Tokyo