Did 'Flower Power' betray us gays & women.

I went into shock early in the hippy revolution when I discovered homophobia and mysogeny were almost as rampant within the hippy community as elsewhere. OK, lots of men felt free to experiment who otherwise would have remained stuck in their hetro rut but too often they'd ask you 'Don't tell me mates (buddies in the US)"
I remember one nasty week I went fruit picking with a bunch of people I thought would know better. After a day when both men & women had worked their arses off out in the fields the males returned home to relax whilst the females made them cupps of coffee, cooked their evening meal, did the laundry etc.
Me, being an idealistic fairy lost my temper and told the assembled males they were a bunch of chauvenist pigs. The resulting animosity was so threatening I had to leave. Mind you, one of the men had already put the hard word on me - and yes - I was asked not to tell his buddies.
I know that gay liberation came out of other liberation movements of the time but often wonder if most flower children would have prefered us to stay in the closet.
I'd be interested to hear from anyone else and their experiences of that time , that is, if you haven't left the planet and if you can remember back through the LSD fog.

 

I was not really around at the time to have made any first hand experience.

I believe that the Flower Power facilitated a step forward towards a degree of liberalization hitherto unknown. Whereas, much energy was centered on Free Love, the idea that this meant equality for both women and gays was certainly not in the forefront.

Enjoying Free Love mostly meant that you could have sex with multiple partners, not that your masculinity was challenged in terms of turning "gay".

No doubt, some men experimented with other men. But they wanted to keep this private. Revolution of a kind was OK, but you did not want to receive a stigma being attached to gay men at that time, i.e. being a lesser male, fairy, cocksucker, whatever.

Revolutions are revolutionary to a degree. People want some freedoms and rights that they thinks are naturally theirs. They do not want to change EVERYTHING.

KD

 

You leave me wondering if you yourself regard gay men as 'lesser males'.

 

So the men were in trouble because a bunch a women cooked dinner?

 

How dare the men allow such happenings!

 

Yeah, I'm pretty sure the females in that situation where the only male chauvinist pigs.....

Maybe you're a bit overly sensitive, in a really obnoxious way, and that's why they had you leave. Like you taking kewldewd mentioning the sentiments you posted about, and accusing him of sharing them.....

I mean, if I was working all day, no matter who was making the supper, I would not be happy if you started going off on me when I got a chance to sit down. It doesn't sound like any women where forced to do anything..... have you considered that maybe despite the need for gender equality in treatment, there ARE practical differences between the genders and there ARE jobs that are, for many reasons, better suited to each gender. Maybe if they knew who was doing what, the women paced themselves and men where more spent? And even when it's not needed, some people just take care of others, it's a very desirable trait, and generally much appreciated....

 

No, because night after night they unquestioningly took it as their 'natural' right to be pampered by domestic slaves.

 

You're fictionalising my experience to justify your own ideology.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgBtfCchaQ0"]frank zappa absolutely free subtitulos - YouTube

 

You seem very pushy and closed-minded. I was interested to see where this thread was headed; but you've strangled the chance for open discussion.

 

How is it possible to 'strangle the chance for open discussion' on a forum?
I had no idea such powers were available.

 

what's at issue is whether or not the women were happy with their roles or not.

if they confided in you that they felt oppressed but were too meek to speak up for themselves, then your actions might have been justified

it's not your right to force anyone into a "liberated" gender role, simply because it is your preference

it might have been better to ask the women what they thought of conforming to traditional gender roles rather than becoming irate on their behalf

 

I'm pretty sure if you read my post, it doesn't say for certain what any part of your experience was like, it says what we can interpret from your post about the women in that situation, and then it says that I agree with them for kicking you out, because they had a situation that worked for them, and instead of trying to improve things you threw a little fit because..... you could? It sort of looks like how this thread is working.

Seriously, I'd vote to kick you out of a commune. Because you're a drama queen, and are making no effort at legitimate discussion. You just act like you want to have been wronged.

It's so much easier when the world is all against you, because it's THEIR fault that they're against you, instead of YOUR fault that you're stirring up tensions without actually trying to fix anything, and without even establishing that anything NEEDS fixing.

Maybe mothers tend to mother people. Who woulda thunk it?

 

Not only did they confide their irritation they'd previously confronted the men about the issue and been informed if they didn't like it they could hitch back to the city on their own. Only the males had cars. You also need to understand my irritation at having the hard word put on me by one of these men with the condition I not tell his buddies. This kind of furtive assignation always got up my nose and still does. Call me a twitchy, judgemental of fag if you want but that's how I react to such slimy propositions.
Anyhow, soon after I left I encountered a wonderful group of hippy dyke/gay fruit pickers who, along with myself, become the founding members of the Melbourne Gay & Lesbian Front and the real fun began. A number of our members were hetro hippys who didn't treat woman as second class restoring my faith in human nature, but hey, they were the exception in that era from my experience.

There are other issues we could discuss about those days. Putting aside for now the fact that history is now ingnoring the significant positive impact the hippy movement had, especially in the creative arts, I suggest many of us manage to put on rose coloured glasses when thinking back to this time. For instance, some of us who lived through that time observed participants who in reality were greedy, opportunistic capitalists only hitching a ride on the back of the flower power movement in order to line their own pockets.

 

So, now you're saying that they where fake hippies.

Then how is flower power betraying women or gays an issue at all?

Then again, maybe their problem was with people trying to solve things your way.... maybe once you left, things got straitened out.

 

dialogue might have been better than becoming irate, but now that I know the details, it's clear that the women were being bullied

it's one thing to choose a traditional gender role and another to be forced into it

 

Your very good at interpreting other's remarks.
Putting aside the difficulty of defining a 'true hippie', many were fakes just along for the ride.

You're confusing the broad abstraction with my particular experience.
I'm not to sure about your usage of 'betraying' either. They would have had t to claim public allegence to universal liberation in order to betray themselves.

Things didn't get 'straitened out' after I departed. Two of the women were bashed for refusing to obey their 'superiors', one was raped and the forth fled by stealing one of the boys cars. One of those borrowed the farmers motor bike pursueing her and was killed speeding on a rough country road.
None of these particulars though get us anywhere near the broader question of why so much of the flower power so called revolution was often superficially and selfishly interpreted by many of the participants.
However, I can see I'll get no nearer answering my original request for others to write of their experiences and if they were in any way similar to mine. So, I withdraw from the thread.

 

This post basically asks questions that totally destroy your own premise for this thread.

You seem to like saying (generally obnoxious, whiny) things, and then when they're responded to, whining that nobody could really know what you mean. Then why the fuck don't you say what you mean, so there is no confusion?

Because if I say something, you attack it by questioning the grounds that I say it on, to the point that you have already attacked the hippie movement as being (possibly, because well, you'll probably say you didn't EXACTLY say this) one of fakes and phonies, OR one of violent wife-beaters...... there's no two ways around it, those are the options for what you consider the hippie movement to be, with what you've written. If you think that I'm unfair and saying things you don't mean, and that I can't know what you mean or think, you've none to blame but yourself, for not clearly and honestly saying what you mean.

Either you're saying those where legit hippies, or you're not. Sure there are fakes and trendwhores in every movement, what's your point?

You make broad statements or questions, and then come back to say that I'm inferring things that you didn't say, and that it's all some fiction of mine. This is not an error of mine, but a dishonesty in conversational method, of yours.

 

I wasn't there for "flower power." But I've been touched by the ripples it created, and what the OP is describing doesnt sound anything like it.

Why do you feel these people represented the movement?

 

This thread makes my head hurt.