Which European country has undergone the most remarkable transition from a conservative to a progressive society?
September 14, 2025
By remarkable I mean, for example, unexpectedly or within a short time frame.
9 comments
Ireland, we were essentially a theocracy that literally sent women to labour houses for the “crime” of getting pregnant before marriage. Divorce wasn’t legal in Ireland until 1996.
Now we’re one of the most progressive nations out there, we were the first country to legalize Gay marriage by majority vote in 2015.
I think in countries with multiple party systems, conservative and progressive are quite ungainly labels but anyway, Portugal had a pretty massive shift.
I’d say Ireland for sure. If you look back just 25 or 30 years ago, it was a completely different place. Divorce wasn’t legal, contraception was restricted, and things like same-sex marriage and abortion only became legal pretty recently. It’s gone from being one of the more conservative countries in Europe to one of the more progressive in a relatively short space of time.
Spain went from a literal ultranationalist dictatorship to one of the most progressive countries in Europe between 1975 to the mid-to-late 80s. I think we are quite unique in still being quite a traditionalist and religious country while still being very progressive.
Spain. 🇪🇸
Went from ultra catholic and a dictatorship to being one of the most progressive countries in the world when it comes to human rights and tolerance.
Greece managed to become one of the most progressive European countries regarding LGBT laws only in a matter of years. The laws were pretty conservative a decade ago. Of course, this doesn’t necessarily mean that society shares the same sentiment, but it’s still some kind of progress.
In Spain after the death of the fascist dictator and during the transition to democracy we had something called “El Destape”, or the “uncovering”.
It was a cultural and sociological change, our cinema and tv got full of nude content, usually femenine, and strong erotic and sexual content, the kind of content that was usually banned until that time and in a way more exaggerated that our nowadays standards and it was everywhere, even TV during normal schedule.
The whole country was longing for freedom and moving to permisvenes to this kind of content reflected the need of the country to make a rupture with the imposed christofascist conservatist moral while the dictator was alive, as well you can imagine how can be a society that has been sexually repressed during 40 years, horny would fall short.
I don’t know, I live outside of my country now but in some things looks more conservative and in other way more progressive than other countries in Europe, in sexuality I got the feeling we are less ashamed of talking openly about some things that make, specially eastern Europeans, blush but I got the same reaction coming from French, and nórdicos while talking about stuff that would be considered childish to be ashamed of in Spain.
I got the feeling that we went from getting in jail homosexuals and atheists to actually enforce inclusivenes, womens empowerment, gay marriage and in general being a very progressive country in record time because the generations that made those changes wanted to break with everything that reminded them the old times of strong Christian fascist moral, a shame that the vulture of fascism is flying over our heads again.
Speaking of this, are there are European countries that had moved in the other direction? Back to more pro-family conservative values?
Spain or Ireland definitely. I will say, Spanish society definitely started liberalising under Franco as he did open up Spain to the rest of the world to build ties with the West and for the economy, my grandfather worked in London for a good portion of his career and became very anglophilic as a result. Basically, the progressive transition that began after Franco kicked the bucket wasn’t out of nowhere, it had been building for a while but still it’s a big step to go from a dictatorship to a highly democratic constitutional monarchy even if we did let all of the Francoists go without punishment.
9 comments
Ireland, we were essentially a theocracy that literally sent women to labour houses for the “crime” of getting pregnant before marriage. Divorce wasn’t legal in Ireland until 1996.
Now we’re one of the most progressive nations out there, we were the first country to legalize Gay marriage by majority vote in 2015.
I think in countries with multiple party systems, conservative and progressive are quite ungainly labels but anyway, Portugal had a pretty massive shift.
I’d say Ireland for sure. If you look back just 25 or 30 years ago, it was a completely different place. Divorce wasn’t legal, contraception was restricted, and things like same-sex marriage and abortion only became legal pretty recently. It’s gone from being one of the more conservative countries in Europe to one of the more progressive in a relatively short space of time.
Spain went from a literal ultranationalist dictatorship to one of the most progressive countries in Europe between 1975 to the mid-to-late 80s. I think we are quite unique in still being quite a traditionalist and religious country while still being very progressive.
Spain. 🇪🇸
Went from ultra catholic and a dictatorship to being one of the most progressive countries in the world when it comes to human rights and tolerance.
Greece managed to become one of the most progressive European countries regarding LGBT laws only in a matter of years. The laws were pretty conservative a decade ago. Of course, this doesn’t necessarily mean that society shares the same sentiment, but it’s still some kind of progress.
In Spain after the death of the fascist dictator and during the transition to democracy we had something called “El Destape”, or the “uncovering”.
It was a cultural and sociological change, our cinema and tv got full of nude content, usually femenine, and strong erotic and sexual content, the kind of content that was usually banned until that time and in a way more exaggerated that our nowadays standards and it was everywhere, even TV during normal schedule.
The whole country was longing for freedom and moving to permisvenes to this kind of content reflected the need of the country to make a rupture with the imposed christofascist conservatist moral while the dictator was alive, as well you can imagine how can be a society that has been sexually repressed during 40 years, horny would fall short.
I don’t know, I live outside of my country now but in some things looks more conservative and in other way more progressive than other countries in Europe, in sexuality I got the feeling we are less ashamed of talking openly about some things that make, specially eastern Europeans, blush but I got the same reaction coming from French, and nórdicos while talking about stuff that would be considered childish to be ashamed of in Spain.
I got the feeling that we went from getting in jail homosexuals and atheists to actually enforce inclusivenes, womens empowerment, gay marriage and in general being a very progressive country in record time because the generations that made those changes wanted to break with everything that reminded them the old times of strong Christian fascist moral, a shame that the vulture of fascism is flying over our heads again.
Speaking of this, are there are European countries that had moved in the other direction? Back to more pro-family conservative values?
Spain or Ireland definitely. I will say, Spanish society definitely started liberalising under Franco as he did open up Spain to the rest of the world to build ties with the West and for the economy, my grandfather worked in London for a good portion of his career and became very anglophilic as a result. Basically, the progressive transition that began after Franco kicked the bucket wasn’t out of nowhere, it had been building for a while but still it’s a big step to go from a dictatorship to a highly democratic constitutional monarchy even if we did let all of the Francoists go without punishment.