Research Guide to American Literature

description of the 1970s as the “me decade.” In contrast to the activism of the
1960s, Americans focused on improving themselves as individuals rather than
as a society. But while therapy, self-help, fitness, and diet books and programs
become extremely popular in the 1970s, Americans did not abandon their efforts
to secure environmental, social, and political justice. The first Earth Day was
celebrated, and the Clean Air Act was passed, in 1970; the Endangered Species
Act became law in 1973. Civil-rights groups continued to fight for racial equality,
supporting affirmative-action programs to help minorities gain greater access to
education, jobs, and professions. In 1973 members of the American Indian Move-
ment (AIM) occupied the town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, for seventy-
one days to protest poverty on the Pine Ridge Reservation. The gay-liberation
movement gained momentum in the 1970s, as well, challenging stereotypes of
gays and lesbians while calling for equity. In 1970 about five thousand gay men
and lesbians marched in New York City on the first anniversary of the Stonewall
Riots, when the patrons of a Greenwich Village gay bar had fought back against
a police raid. Women also continued to push for equal rights. In 1972 Title IX
was added to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, forbidding discrimination on the basis
of sex by institutions receiving federal funds; the principal effect was to ensure
equal funding and opportunity for female athletes at colleges and universities.
The following year the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision made it legal
nationwide for women to choose abortion for any reason in the first trimester of
pregnancy, although states could impose restrictions in later stages. In 1972 the
U.S. Senate and House of Representatives passed the Equal Rights Amendment
(ERA), a proposed twenty-seventh amendment to the Constitution that would
guarantee that equal rights under federal, state, and local law could not be denied
on account of sex. ERA opponents claimed that the amendment would send
women into combat, deny them the right to be financially supported by their
husbands, eliminate separate public restrooms for men and women, grant more
power to the federal government at the expense of states and individuals, and
legalize homosexual marriages. By the 30 June 1982 deadline it remained three
states short of the thirty-eight needed for ratification. Nevertheless, Americans
in the 1980s witnessed several “firsts” for women: the appointment of Sandra Day
O’Connor to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1981, astronaut Sally Ride’s 1983 trip
into space, and Democrat Geraldine Ferraro’s vice presidential nomination on a
major party national ticket in 1984.
The backlash against feminism was accompanied by antigay and antilesbian
movements. Although activists had transformed what had been an underground
subculture to a more open community by successfully challenging discriminatory
laws and practices, well-organized conservative groups such as the Moral Majority,
a conservative Christian-oriented political movement founded by minister Jerry
Falwell, worked to turn back those gains. AIDS (acquired immune deficiency
syndrome) was officially identified in the United States in 1982. The majority of
victims early in the AIDS epidemic were gay men, and antigay rhetoric played on
the widespread fear of the disease. On the other hand, the epidemic called forth
increased activism on the part of gays. Gay communities rallied for the victims,
creating organizations to provide assistance and services, to fund research and

Historical and Social Context 9