Penn State University - La Vie Yearbook (University Park, PA)

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Decade: National The Feminist Movement in the Seventies overturned traditional views of home and of- fice. proved that a womanTs place is not neces- sarily in the kitchen, and even set men to reth- inking the role society had assigned them. Women won the right to have abortions and later fought to retain it against a surging back- lash. On the average, they continued to earn less than men. But in 1978, more as a result of economic need than feminist principle, 50 per- cent of all women had jobs. The Equal Rights Amendment was stalled just short of ratifica- tion. partly through the efforts of an Illinois housewife named Phyllis Schlafly who orga- nized a potent anti-ERA campaign. Within only a few short years. millions of women had attained a measure of equality w on the job, in the military, and even as ministers of the church. In 1973. King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, react- ing to the latest Israeli-Egyptian war, cut oil production and declared a boycott on ship- ments to lsraelts arms suppliers. The resulting disruption not only convulsed Europe and pro- duced the first gasoline lines in the United States. but also emphasized the level of power achieved by the loosely organized cartel. Within weeks. OPEC announced a quadru- pling of basic oil prices. As the prices contin- ued to spiral. Saudi Shiek Ahman Zaki Yamae ni warned that oil was a diminishing resource and that the West must learn to use less and pay more. Since each 10 percent rise in the price of oil added one percent to the US. cost of living, the price to Americans was high in- deed. Gasoline lines became even longer dur- ing a crisis in the late Seventies as an odd-even license plate rationing system went into effect and gas at the pumps climbed over the one- dollar mark. On July 20. 1976, - seven years to the day after the first men walked on the moon e the Viking Lander set down on Mars and began radioing information back to earth. What the cameras saw was a rock-strewn and apparent- ly lifeless plain, resembling deserts in Arizona and Northern Mexico. Disco surfaced as a new form of self-expres- sion in the late Seventies. In the pulsing. flash- ing atmosphere of the discotheque, 37 million people danced to the thumping bass beat of disco music. The craze became a $4 billion business comprising some 10.000 discotheques across the nation. New Yorkls Studio 54. the most famous and most controversial of the dis- cos. attracted celebrities from around the world. W Scott Smith DecadelNalional 23

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