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Thursday, December 01, 2022

M2 seminar: Britain in the 1970s

Two things which came up.

Woodwork 

There are still secondary schools which include woodwork classes. Here is one organization which encourages them


https://www.bwf.org.uk/education/timber-futures/schools-wow-i-made-that/ 

Gay rights

The beginnings of the gay rights and gay pride mobilizations were not understood by most of the Left in Britain. Almost all gays had stayed hidden from the public before the 1967 law.

In the 1970s Left groups gradually realized the importance of the question. This 1978 article by the founder of the Socialist Workers Party was one important moment.

 https://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/1978/08/gays.htm

In 1981 the AIDS virus was discovered. Homophobia was making the death toll much higher, and slowly governmental authorities realized this. For a number of reasons, the terrible AIDS epidemic encouraged different sections of the population to abandon some of their homophobia.

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