Were the '90s more socially progressive than the 2000s?

Yes I would generally agree, I was old enough to have lived through a good portion of the 90s as preteen and teen and also schooling (HS, University) from the early to mid 00s . I also went through the different styles, grunge/goth/punk etc and lived across North America and elsewhere so I have a sense of it. 

The 90s were definitely more progressive but the 2000s did offer something. 

To sum it up there was a hedonistic, mature, nihilistic and individualistic and liberal spirit that lasted in 1998-1999 to some degree (even though things were just starting to change a bit earlier) that allowed you to be yourself no matter what it was. There were so many styles to choose from, whereas the 2000s had more of monoculture feeling, you were either part of the in crowd or out. The 90s feminist movement was more authentic and rational than 2010s movement and had more presence than the 2000s era, and well even had influence on groups like the spice girls.Homophobia existed but people had a generally open and liberal approacjh or understanding compared to the 2000s, even though there was still some stigma related to AIDS and few more religious people compared today. Slurs weren't used in the same way and nowhere near as frequently to belittle others, you could be openly gay, depending where you lived, or come to school in make up or crazy raver or gothic clothing as male and get away with it, which was not as tolerated in the 2000s.  
There was some racism but it was deeply frowned upon to be racist and there a lot of emphasis on racial inequalities and minority struggles and people were careful with a lot of emphasis with pc language, and content censorship in music and films etc


In the early 2000s, even things like having long hair, not belonging to any particular group or social clique or having a name that sounded too eastern european or french etc would result in heavy preconceived judgments or some cases bullying or rejection. Even among people older then 15 or 16. It depends where you lived but many people have felt the same in varying degrees but it wasn't as extreme as you'd think at the same time. 

The sexism and homophobia was pretty strong in 2000/2001. People forget how sexist it was, but it was there. A lot of the hip hop culture from that era that blended into the pop mainstream at the time and normalized it to some extent. Also, I see the homophobia not just related to affecting  LGBT people but everyone, males especially. You also had xenophobia after 9/11 and the blind support of foreign wars. There was a lot of acceptance of casual racism towards foreigners (mexicans, arabs) , to some extent african americans and minorities in general. Also if you were white you could automatically be assumed to of a particular ethnicity or supportive of bush or an evil colonizer etc of course to a  less extent and depending where you lived. Also around that time people were very suspicious to assume anyone who looked different was a potential school shooter, a devil worshiper etc

Most of this didn't exist even in the late 90s and very early Y2K era. 

In the early to mid 00s (2002-2004) you start seeing some minor changes such as bit less uptight sexuality among females, more normalization of bisexuality among females, guys with more acceptable gothy/grungy looks becoming just a bit more tolerated, and the beginnings of criticizing and questioning the current regime and social topics of the day (micheal more docs comes to mind)

I think the mid 00s (late 2004-2007) in some cases was the same or sometimes an exaggerated version of conservatism of late Y2K/Early 2000s era but on the otherhand you did notice a more defined leftist activist culture against the war in iraq, more awareness of the global warming, more awareness of unhealthy food and social issues. Also you see more of a tolerance of alternative subcultural style and much wider adoption and mainstreamization of emo and more exposure to metal/hard rock, outside of the pop oriented nu metal and mall rock of earlier years, making it easier for people to look or act differently without higher risk of persecution like earlier. 

Also in the late 00s you started to much bigger steps towards racial inequality and social acceptance with the election of obama and some more serious steps towards the social activism, LGBT and woman's rights movements which peaked in the early to mid 2010s. 

So yes 90s were better, but 2000s did offer something as well. 

 

Ughh I was going to write a long post but was hit with a page refresh

To summarize what I was going to write I think the 2000s were conservative in the US, but not so much in Canada.

We legalized gay marriage in the 2000s whereas in the 1990s the government used to send spies to rat out gay people and fire them.

People had the opposite response to 9/11 here. People became very anti-war, anti-American, pro-immigration. We were not fans of George Bush here at all.

In the early-mid 1990s Canada was still pretty racist to hear it from my older cousins. White people would not caught dead being friends with an Asian (not many black people in Canada back then). By the 2000s that had reversed at least for East Asians, anime and Japanese pop culture hit the mainstream and became cool and K-Pop followed on its coattails in the late 2000s.

Majority of people in the US opposed interracial marriage in the early 1990s too, a thought process I thought would've died in the early 1960s. Things improved a lot following the 1992 LA riots and election of Bill Clinton. The 2000s were better for race relations imo especially with the election of Obama in 2008 and mainstreaming of black musicians.

Anyway if I have time I'll try to rewrite the post, I had charts and citations and even talked a bit about the UK lmao.

I agree. I'm not sure if you've seen it or not, but there's an episode of "Seinfeld" from 1993 called "The Outing" which I feel represents the attitudes towards the gay community during the '90s quite well. Jerry and George are mistaken for being a same-sex couple by a reporter and in their desperate efforts to deny being homosexual, they back it up by saying "not that there's anything wrong with that". It shows that there was an increasing level of acceptance towards being apart of the LGBTQ+ community, but it was obviously still a point of contention. 

Re: clothing trends during the mid-late '90s; I've actually got a book that was filled out by my parents just days after I was born and there's a section in the book which asks what the latest trends were at that time. For clothing, my Dad wrote that "anything goes". I definitely agree that there was a free-spirted attitude towards wearing whatever you feel like during the '90s, especially during the second-half of the decade. I can remember watching an episode of "Cold Case" which was set at an American high school in 1998. All of the teens had their own unique style, some were dressed goth, others sported baggier clothing, while others still wore flannelette shirts. 

The 2000s were the exact opposite of that for the most part. In terms of clothing styles and what was considered "acceptable", it was even a conformist time for kids. I can remember constantly getting pressured by my Mum and hairdresser whenever I got a haircut to get my hair spiked with gel because all of the other boys were doing it. Everyone wore loose-fitting jeans or "Bad Boy", "Pipping Hot"-made t-shirts. 


That's interesting, I wouldn't have expected Canada to have been so different in that regard. Would you say that attitudes were already heading in a more progressive direction in Canada before the September 11 Attacks or do you believe the country's response to them was the true catalyst for change? 

I agree that race relations, as well as the greater recognition of climate change, are the two subject matters which the 2000s had the edge over the '90s. 

Coming from somewhere where attitudes are approximately 8 years behind (at least my own social milieu of middle-class people is, IDK about how many years behind the slums and provinces are because I only know them from a distance), let me just say that people here were still that backward even in like 2014 or 2015. Even among 18-25 year olds. 

I have never witnessed that. I remember a pinching nipples trend at my school at least. One kid had to go to the ER because someone punched a stapler in his nipples. But I don't know about punching someone in the gonads. That would've been... a dick move.

In the US, the 90s were overall more proggressive, with the exception of race, the 2000s were definitely better in that regard. Don't get me wrong, the 90s were definitely not bad for racism and our attitudes towards race in the 90s was already a lot more like today than say the 70s but, the 2000s were a bit better in this regard.

The 90s were definitely less conformist and there was a much more individualistic attitude. Being different in the 2000s was looked down upon and you could be bullied if you were different and not conforming to what was "cool". People were also a lot more materialistic in the 00s compared to the early-mid 90s too.

When it comes to homophobia, it was worse in the early-mid 2000s than the 90s (atleast in the US). On the otherhand, the 90s are more homophobic compared to the 2010s/now though.

In the 00s, there was a republican president, conservative talk shows/news shows had more popularity compared to the 90s, Bill Clinton & the Democrat party were looked at differently after the Monica Lewinski scandal (I'm not actually quite sure about this one), 80s nostalgia was huge (starting in 2002), there was a backlash against the more liberal attitudes of the 90s. Patriotism was also a lot bigger as well (especially after 9/11), this caused sooooo much country music to be on the radio at the time (all of it pretty bad lol).

Despite my criticisms towards the 00s, there were things that the 00s did socially better. The crime rate in the 00s was much lower compared to the 90s, Crack & Aids weren't as much of a problem, the economy was actually better in the early-mid 00s (contrary to belief). Racism was also a bit better as stated.

Yeah I know what you mean. For example I had never heard someone say "SJWs" in real life before, it seemed to be an online-only thing. If I heard someone say that in real life I would think they live on the Internet or have no life lol. But in 2017 after Trump was elected I started hearing it everywhere. American trends and ideas always bleed here eventually especially Anglophone Canada.