Читать книгу Reinventing the Welfare State - Ursula Huws - Страница 12

For those who did not live through it, and even among some who did, there is a real danger of romanticising life in Britain during the period following the Second World War. In reality, it had many downsides. It was pretty hellish if, for example, you were black, or gay or unfortunate enough to get pregnant without being married. Although new opportunities were undoubtedly opened up for some, working-class kids who got scholarships to university or women who aspired to be taken seriously as intellectuals often faced condescension and ridicule. Indeed, it was a reaction to such strait-jacketed constraint and bigotry that produced the social movements of the 1960s – for women’s liberation, for civil rights, for gay rights, for a democratisation of universities – led by the first generation of products of this post-war welfare state.