From Smoggy Offices to Unbuckled Rides: 13 Shocking 70s Norms That Would Never Survive Today’s Scrutiny

I know what you’re imagining when you hear “the 70s”: the undeniable cool of disco, the free-spirited energy of tie-dye, and maybe a flash of bell-bottoms strutting down the street. It’s a decade perpetually bathed in a warm, sepia-toned glow of nostalgia, characterized by a cultural output that still feels vibrant and influential today. We celebrate the music, the bold fashion, and the sense of cultural liberation. But if we step back from the playlist and the vintage photos, and take a closer look at day-to-day norms and practices, we find ourselves looking at a reality that is, well, jarring, in light of modern eyes. What was common then would surely, without question, elicit a collective gasp in disbelief and perhaps a stern lecture from today’s younger generation.

• The societal norms of the 1970s expose how fast values can shift.
• This retrospective highlights significant progress in health and safety.
• It serves as a crucial reminder of the lessons we’ve collectively learned.
• The comparison shows how social justice and equity have evolved.

This journey back to the seventies is much more than just a historical critique or a shallow exercise in pointing out outdated decor choices. It’s a profound opportunity to genuinely understand the monumental shift in our collective conscience over the last five decades. The changes are deeply rooted in our values concerning public health, personal safety, environmental stewardship, and social justice. The ’70s were an era of massive cultural upheaval and newfound freedoms, yes, but it also fostered behaviors and beliefs that underscore just how dramatically our priorities have evolved.

1. Pervasive public smoking: The cloud that followed you everywhere

Can you seriously envision a world where thick, pungent smells of stale cigarettes were the de facto indoor air freshener? In the 1970s, this wasn’t some sort of bizarre, dystopian vision; it was simple, everyday reality for virtually every public space. Whether you were walking into a bustling, fluorescent-lit office, settling down for a meal at a crowded restaurant, or even buckling into your seat on an airplane, the right to light up freely was a common, unchallenged occurrence. Ashtrays weren’t decorative; they were absolutely standard fixtures in workplaces, public venues, and even many homes, which spoke to the prevalent social norm of casual, unrestricted smoking. It really says a lot about the priorities of that time-how personal convenience trumped the comfort and health of everybody else in the room.

• Ashtrays were a fixture on airplanes, a shocking reality to people today.
• Bars and restaurants offered zero protection from smoke for patrons.
• Long-term effects from secondhand smoke were willfully ignored.
• A smoker’s right to smoke outweighed a non-smoker’s right to clean air.

This utterly widespread acceptance of indoor smoking was mostly rooted in a very underdeveloped understanding of public health, especially the dangers of what we now know as secondhand smoke. While the risks to the individual smoker were becoming increasingly hard to ignore, the crucial concept of environmental tobacco smoke and its profound negative impact on nonsmokers was either poorly understood by the public or, more likely, it was one largely dismissed by those in power. As a result, bars were infamously described as “smoke-choked nightmares,” trying to enjoy a nice meal at a popular restaurant often meant constantly “battling the aroma of stale cigarettes,” and leaving an indoor concert meant you walked out “smelling like the Marlboro Man himself.

2. Casual Sexism & Workplace Harassment: Enduring the Hostile Office

For countless women navigating the workforce in the 1970s, the professional environment was, to put it mildly, often profoundly hostile and frequently bordered on outright harassment. What we instantly recognize today as unequivocally inappropriate and often illegal sexual harassment was, back then, routinely and casually “dismissed as harmless banter or simply part of the office culture.” The workplace environment was often a minefield of deeply unprofessional behaviors, including the expectation to endure “catcalling, groping, constant comments about their looks, and men, in general, being gross little pervs.

• Inappropriate touching and comments were often seen as a “compliment.”
• The women were expected to “shrug off” overt sexual harassment.
• Media and advertisements often objectified women’s bodies.
• This lack of legal recourse also made it difficult for women to report any misconduct.

The pervasive nature of this behavior was deeply reinforced and normalized by the media of the era. Television shows, blockbuster movies, and ubiquitous advertisements further cemented these toxic attitudes, often featuring blatantly sexist themes and the objectification of women. If you look back at certain classic TV shows from the ’70s now, it is genuinely “hard to understand how they were tolerated” at the time, let alone why they were considered family viewing. “Jokes at the expense of women were commonplace in 1970s comedy,” which tragically reflected a much broader cultural acceptance of misogynistic and demeaning humor that would immediately be deemed offensive, outdated, and unacceptable by modern, socially aware audiences.

3. Widespread Use of Lead-Based Products: The Toxic Threat at Home

It seems unbelievable now, but in the 1970s, highly toxic lead was an incredibly common fixture in everyday life. We now widely understand the severe, irreversible dangers of lead exposure, but back then, “lead paint was widely used in homes and toys.” This hazardous substance wasn’t limited to old, dusty furniture; it served as the primary coating for walls in residential buildings across the country, and more alarmingly, was used in various children’s products. As if that wasn’t enough exposure, “lead-based gasoline additives were widely used,” literally saturating the air and the environment with a dangerous chemical whose full, devastating long-term effects were not fully grasped by the public or adequately regulated by governing authorities. It was a silent, insidious threat woven into the fabric of daily life.

• The bright colors of children’s toys often contained high levels of lead.
• Toddlers could readily ingest lead dust, which was produced by deteriorating paint.
• The atmosphere, soil, and even drinking water pipes were contaminated with lead.
• Regulators were slow to acknowledge or act on scientific warnings about lead.

At the time, it’s fair to say that “younger generations have little idea of the issues that surrounded lead paint back in the day,” largely because the problem has been systematically addressed. Despite a growing body of scientific evidence, the full extent of the harm caused by “lead exposure, particularly in children,” and its capacity to inflict severe developmental and neurological damage, was not widely acknowledged or acted upon. This staggering regulatory failure meant that countless individuals, especially babies and young children who mouth everything they touch, were unknowingly exposed to a silent, pervasive toxin present within their own homes and daily environments.

4. Lax Car Safety Standards & Unrestrained Children: A Frightening Road Trip

Take a deep breath and prepare for a moment of genuine shock, because it is truly “hard to believe” just how different the state of car safety was in the 1970s. For one, “many cars in the ’70s didn’t have seatbelts,” a fact that sounds utterly alien to us today, and even when they were installed, “it wasn’t uncommon for people to ride without them.” Often viewed as no more than a mere formality-or worse, as “unnecessary or even uncomfortable”-seatbelts engendered a casual culture where people rarely buckled up.

• Children could frequently be found standing on the transmission hump.
• There were virtually no laws mandating the use of seatbelts for adults.
• Crumple zones and reinforced frames were not standard design priorities.
• Safety was seen as a personal choice, not a legal and design mandate.

This utterly lax and dismissive attitude extended into a genuinely dangerous practice regarding children’s safety. “Most people who were kids during the 70s might have fond memories of sitting on their father’s lap while he was driving,” a practice that is now grounds for serious concern. Moreover, “it wasn’t uncommon to see kids bouncing around the backseat without car seats.” Imagine that: infants and young children were frequently just “held on laps during car rides,” placing them at immense, lethal risk in the event of even a minor accident. The very thought of such practices today is absolutely shocking, making one wonder “how they got away with such slack laws, we’ll never know.

5. Rampant Racial Stereotyping & Discrimination: The Unchallenged Bias 

Despite the momentum of the Civil Rights movement, the 1970s remained a time when “racial stereotypes were rampant in ’70s media, and no one spoke up about it” in the mainstream. Television, serving as a powerful mirror and amplifier for society, proudly displayed casual racism that would be considered utterly egregious and unacceptable today. Programs would often frame characters and whole situations through a prejudiced, one-dimensional prism, examples that vary from “Duke brothers tearing around town in a car emblazoned with a massive confederate flag” to cartoons like “Hong Kong Phooey,” whose very title and character design is now viewed with deep insensitivity.

• Overt racial jokes were standard and acceptable fare for stand-up comedy.
• Residential segregation was still enforced through discriminatory practices.
• Minimal diversity in casting and storytelling, often relied on tropes.
• The representation of marginalized communities was more often tokenistic or nonexistent.

Moving beyond media depictions, blatant and systemic discrimination was an unforgiving and undeniable fact in everyday life. “Discrimination in jobs and housing” was, unfortunately and depressingly, common, serving directly and profoundly “to harmful biases and discrimination that had negative impacts on certain demographics.” Laws of equal rights were either often not present in reality or poorly enforced, so that people frequently suffered from prejudice and institutional obstacles in basic elements of life-from trying to rent an apartment to applying for a mortgage-and often had little to no real legal recourse. This inbuilt, systemic prejudice was a pervasive and incredibly destructive feature of society, which reflected tragic, deeply rooted prejudices that the wider culture allowed largely to go unchallenged.

6. Lenient Attitudes Towards Drunk Driving: The Casual Danger

It is difficult to reconcile the severity of drunk driving today with the astonishingly casual attitudes of the 1970s, where the dangers of operating a vehicle under the influence were profoundly underestimated. Back then, driving after consuming alcohol was simply not considered the grave, potentially felonious offense it is today; in a truly shocking twist of historical fact, “it was not a crime to drink and drive in the 70s.” Even more unbelievable is the reported police practice: “if the police pulled a driver over and discovered that they were inebriated, they would ensure that the driver made it home safe and sound.

• The breathalyzer was not a standardized tool among law enforcement.
• In most instances, the legal blood alcohol limit was much higher than it stands today.
• “One for the road” was a culturally accepted and common practice.
• Victims and their families had minimal support or legal recourse.

Public awareness campaigns highlighting the absolute perils of driving under the influence were incredibly limited or totally non-existent, and for the vast majority of people, they simply “viewed it as a minor issue rather than a significant safety risk.” The current, well-developed understanding of how alcohol fundamentally impairs critical driving functions such as judgment, reaction time, depth perception, and overall driving ability was simply not well-established, effectively publicized, or taken seriously by the wider public. This widespread social tolerance meant that individuals routinely and casually got behind the wheel after consuming alcohol, without the serious and immediate legal or social repercussions that would become standard in the decades that followed.

7. Accepted Corporal Punishment in Schools: The Rule of the Paddle

For many children growing up and attending school in the 1970s, the classroom could occasionally be a place of physical anxiety and genuine intimidation. The unfortunate reality was that “corporal punishment in schools was an accepted form of discipline,” meaning that various physical methods were commonly used by educators and school administrators to maintain order and obedience. The fear of an abrupt physical correction was very real: “Many ’70s kids feared a whipping or a smack if they acted up at school,” and being sent to the principal’s office often meant that a “friendly meeting with ‘Mr. Paddle’ was sure to follow.

• Physical discipline was often administered publicly, thereby increasing humiliation.
• Schools had wide latitude in determining the severity of the punishment.
• The disciplinary methods of the school were rarely questioned or challenged by parents.
• Alternative, positive behavioral management techniques were rarely utilized.

This disciplinary philosophy stemmed from an older, more authoritarian pedagogical model, where physical coercion was tragically considered a necessary and legitimate means of controlling student behavior and instilling immediate obedience. Critically, the long-term psychological and emotional effects on children the fear, the humiliation, and the damage to the student-teacher relationship were either largely overlooked or simply not fully understood in the context of child development. The use of uncomfortable euphemisms, such as getting “beaten, kindly euphemized as ‘corporal punishment’,” is a stark historical indicator that even then, there was a societal discomfort with the reality of the practice, even as it was still widely accepted and implemented across the country.

8. Unsafe Playgrounds: The Concrete Jungle of Childhood

For any child enjoying a day out in the 1970s, a trip to the local playground often meant confronting structures that, by any modern safety standard, appear astonishingly hazardous and unforgiving. The playground equipment from that era was dramatically different from the wonderful, cushioned, and carefully safety-tested offerings kids have today; it was universally characterized by rigid, unforgiving surfaces, dangerous heights, outdated designs, and a definite prevalence of materials that prioritized initial low-cost durability over a child’s well-being.

• Swings usually consisted of heavy wood or metal chains and usually lacked protection.
• Equipment was missing guardrails or proper barriers at heights.
• This includes infrequent or no maintenance on older, rusting equipment.
• There were few regulations regarding playground design or surface materials.

Imagine the terrifying reality of metal slides that would rapidly turn molten-hot under the summer sun, capable of inflicting minor burns, or climbing structures that soared to heights where any slight misstep was almost guaranteed to result in a trip to the emergency room for broken bones. These play environments were genuinely filled with potential and entirely preventable dangers, a stark and frightening contrast to modern facilities that are designed with explicit, stringent safety measures in mind, including soft landing materials and safer structure geometry. The casual, almost negligent, acceptance of such high risks in spaces explicitly dedicated to children’s joyous play speaks volumes about the differing priorities and the lack of consumer product safety oversight of that time.

9. Animal Testing in Cosmetics: Beauty at a Cost

The cosmetic industry active during the 1970s was based upon a somewhat different set of ethical considerations than are accepted and even lawfully required today, particularly with regard to the development and safety testing of beauty products. It was quite common and widespread at the time for cosmetic companies to repeatedly and extensively test their products on animals, and the average consumer unfortunately either overlooked or simply did not know about the practice.

• Commonly, rabbits were used for eye and skin irritation tests.
• The public generally accepted animal testing as a “necessary” part of safety.
• Most of the labels on cosmetic products never indicated animal testing.
• Welfare activism for animals was not a mainstream movement or concern.

Part of this was due to the institutional perception that there were few viable or equally effective alternative options available for ensuring product safety. More sophisticated scientific methodologies for in-vitro testing (testing in a test tube) or other non-animal approaches were either still nascent in their development or were simply not widely adopted by the industry, making animal testing the regrettable and cruel default for a vast number of manufacturers. Lacking sufficient public discourse and advocacy regarding animal welfare as relates to major industrial practices, the suffering of animals in laboratories-undergoing tests like the Draize eye test-remained largely out of sight and tragically out of mind for the majority of the consuming public.

10. Lawn Darts: The Banned Backyard Hazard

Among the array of popular outdoor games that families enjoyed in the 1970s, lawn darts stand out as one of the most striking and illustrative examples of a consumer product that would be immediately and permanently rejected today due to its inherent, profound danger. This highly popular backyard game entailed throwing heavy, sharp darts, typically fitted with a significant metal spike or tip, which players would hurl across a lawn, aiming for a small target ring on the ground. The very concept of casually chucking sharp, weighted, and aerodynamic projectiles in a casual, family-friendly setting-often with children running nearby-is deeply and profoundly incongruous with all modern safety standards and oversight for consumer products and toys.

• The weighted tips could cause serious damage if they hit a person’s head.
• Multiple child fatalities were directly linked to lawn dart accidents.
• Risk was increased because the product was marketed for usage by all ages.
• The eventual ban was a direct result of public outcry and tragic injuries.

It should surprise no one, in retrospect, that this seemingly innocuous backyard activity unfortunately and predictably caused a tragically high number of serious, preventable injuries. Children, being less coordinated and more unpredictable, were especially vulnerable to devastating head injuries, puncture wounds, and eye loss, fundamentally changing what was intended to be a simple, fun game into an incredibly real and documented public safety hazard. The sad and astonishing lack of strict product safety regulations at the time meant that such inherently dangerous and poorly conceived items could be openly and widely marketed and sold directly to families and children without adequate prominent warnings or effective safeguards to stop serious harm.

11. Casual Homophobia: The Culture of Exclusion

The 1970s, despite its overall reputation for counter-cultural movements and a general sense of breaking free, remained an incredibly difficult and challenging era to live through for the LGBTQ+ community, where pervasive homophobic language and attitudes were tragically widespread and often passively accepted as a normal part of social interaction. This pervasive prejudice was regrettably not typically challenged or questioned in mainstream society, and it often manifested as routine derogatory remarks, deeply ingrained discriminatory practices, and a general, debilitating lack of basic understanding or empathy for non-heteroual people.

• Same-sex relationships were legally recognized in very few jurisdictions.
• LGBTQ+ characters were either villains, punchlines, or non-existent in media.
• Hate speech was so often dismissed as “freedom of speech” without consequence.
• The societal ignorance regarding sexual orientation was widespread and never challenged

This kind of routine, casual homophobia contributed tragically and directly to harmful biases and systemic discrimination that had a profound, negative, and lasting impact on certain demographics, making life unbelievably difficult and often dangerous for individuals who simply did not conform to traditional heteroual norms. Such pervasive attitudes fostered environments where discrimination in fundamental areas like jobs, access to housing, and all social spheres was frequently overt and went entirely unchallenged, which created deep, institutional, and pervasive barriers for LGBTQ+ individuals trying to live normal lives.

12. Pesticides used without restriction: disregard for the Silent Spring.

In the 1970s, the agricultural and public health sectors shared a deep and alarming reliance on a wide array of chemical pesticides, with what now appears to be a stunningly minimal regard for their undeniable long-term environmental or human health impacts. Extremely powerful chemicals such as DDT were commonly and liberally used for widespread pest control in large-scale farming and, alarmingly, even in individual homes, under the faulty assumption that they were a benign, completely safe, and definitively effective solution to pest infestations.

• Harmful chemicals persisted in the environment and built up in living organisms.
• Their extreme toxicity to humans and wildlife was not generally known or recognized by the public.
• Early scientists, such as Rachel Carson, began raising alarms through emerging research.
• Public awareness and regulation lagged far behind the growing scientific evidence.

powerful substances that would later be unequivocally identified as a major, preventable public health hazard, contributing to tragic, widespread, long-term environmental degradation to which we are still trying to reverse the effects today. Warnings about pesticides were minimal and users frequently disregarded them. It was common to “fog” neighborhoods with insecticides. Residues of DDT were commonly found in breast milk and human tissues. Chemical corporations actively fought against early attempts at regulation. 

13. Unsafe Baby Equipment

The Gaps in Child Protection When we look at the design and safety standards for baby equipment from the 1970s, it’s clear they often fell profoundly short of what is now considered minimally safe and acceptable. Old photographs of children’s strollers, cribs, high chairs, and car seats from the era can often give modern, safety-conscious parents a genuine case of the heebie-jeebies, revealing flawed designs that unfortunately prioritized aesthetics, low manufacturing cost, or simple adult convenience over the baby’s absolute protection.

• Cribs had wide slats and unsafe drop-side designs that risked infant entrapment.
• Toys often had small, detachable parts that caused choking hazards.
• Car seats were hardly safe, depending on adult seatbelts.
• Convenience or costs commonly outweighed the needs of baby safety.

This was a time before the big consumer product safety commissions had the teeth and legal mandate to issue mandatory recalls and establish non-negotiable standards. Without the rigorous, government-enforced safety testing and standardized design, products were being sold that, in retrospect, were genuinely dangerous, reflecting both a critical and tragic gap in the commitment to child welfare and consumer protection. History has led directly to the rigorous testing and complex safety standards that parents rely on today. Cribs were usually recalled years later because of entanglement hazards. The use of toxic materials in teething toys and plastics was unchecked.