Phenomenon in the US of making accusations of subversion or treason without evidence American anti-communist propaganda of the 1950s, specifically addressing the entertainment industry Part of a series on Discrimination General forms Age Class ( Caste ) Physical Disability Education Economic Employment Genetics Hair texture Height Housing Language Looks Race / Ethnicity / Nationality Rank Religion Sanity Sex Sexual orientation Size Skin color Specific forms Social Acephobia Adultism Amatonormativity Anti-albinism Anti-autism Anti-homelessness Anti-intellectualism Anti-intersex Anti-left handedness Anti-Masonry Antisemitism (Judeophobia) Aporophobia Audism Biphobia Clannism Cronyism Drug use Elitism Ephebiphobia Fatism Gerontophobia Heteronormativity Heterosexism HIV/AIDS stigma Homophobia Leprosy stigma Lesbophobia Misandry Misogyny Nepotism Pedophobia Perpetual foreigner Pregnancy Reverse Sectarianism Supremacism Black White Transphobia Non-binary Transmisogyny Vegaphobia Xenophobia Religious Ahmadiyya Atheism Baháʼí Faith Buddhism Catholicism Christianity post–Cold War era Druze Falun Gong Hinduism Persecution Islam Persecution Jehovah's Witnesses Judaism Persecution LDS or Mormon Neopaganism Eastern Orthodox Oriental Orthodox Copts Protestantism Rastafarianism Shi'ism Sufism Sunnism Zoroastrianism Ethnic/national African Albanian American Arab Armenian Australian Austrian Azerbaijani British Canadian Catalan Chechen Chilean Chinese Croat Dutch English Estonian European Filipino Finnish French Georgian German Greek Haitian Hazara Hispanic Hungarian Igbo Indian Indonesian Iranian Irish Israeli Italian Japanese Jewish Khmer Korean Kurdish Malay Manchu Mexican Middle Eastern Mongolian Montenegrin Pakistani Pashtun Polish Portuguese Quebec Romani Romanian Russian Scottish Serb Slavic Somali Soviet Tatar Thai Tibetan Turkish Ukrainian Venezuelan Vietnamese Western Manifestations Blood libel Bullying Compulsory sterilization Counter-jihad Cultural genocide Defamation Democide Disability hate crime Dog-whistle politics Eliminationism Ethnic cleansing Ethnic conflict Ethnic hatred Ethnic joke Ethnocide Forced conversion Freak show Gay bashing Gendercide Genital modification and mutilation Genocide examples Glass ceiling Hate crime Hate group Hate speech online Homeless dumping Indian rolling Lavender scare LGBT hate crimes Lynching Mortgage Murder music Occupational segregation Persecution Pogrom Purge Red Scare Religious persecution Religious terrorism Religious violence Religious war Scapegoating Segregation academy Sex-selective abortion Slavery Slut-shaming Trans bashing Victimisation Violence against women White flight White power music Wife selling Witch-hunt Policies Age of candidacy Blood purity Blood quantum Crime of apartheid Disabilities Catholic Jewish Ethnocracy Ethnopluralism Gender pay gap Gender roles Gerontocracy Gerrymandering Ghetto benches Internment Jewish quota Jim Crow laws Law for Protection of the Nation McCarthyism MSM blood donation restrictions Nonpersons Numerus clausus (as religious or racial quota) Nuremberg Laws One-drop rule Racial quota Racial steering Redlining Same-sex marriage (laws and issues prohibiting) Segregation age racial religious sexual Sodomy law State atheism State religion Ugly law Voter suppression Countermeasures Affirmative action Anti-discrimination law Cultural assimilation Cultural pluralism Diversity training Empowerment Feminism Fighting Discrimination Hate speech laws by country Human rights Intersex rights LGBT rights Masculism Multiculturalism Nonviolence Racial integration Reappropriation Self-determination Social integration Toleration Related topics Allophilia Anti-cultural, anti-national, and anti-ethnic terms Bias Christian privilege Civil liberties Cultural assimilation Dehumanization Diversity Ethnic penalty Eugenics Internalized oppression Intersectionality Male privilege Masculism Medical model of disability autism Multiculturalism Net bias Neurodiversity Oikophobia Oppression Police brutality Political correctness Polyculturalism Power distance Prejudice Prisoner abuse Racial bias in criminal news Racism by country Religious intolerance Second-generation gender bias Snobbery Social exclusion Social model of disability Social stigma Stereotype threat The talk White privilege v t e McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of subversion or treason , especially when related to communism , without any proper regard for evidence. [1] The term refers to U.S. senator Joseph McCarthy ( R -Wisconsin) and has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare , lasting from the late 1940s through the 1950s. [2] It was characterized by heightened political repression and a campaign spreading fear of communist influence on American institutions and of espionage by Soviet agents. [2] After the mid-1950s, McCarthyism began to decline, mainly due to the gradual loss of public popularity and opposition from the U.S. ... The hunt for "sexual perverts", who were presumed to be subversive by nature, resulted in over 5,000 federal workers being fired, and thousands were harassed and denied employment. [76] [77] Many have termed this aspect of McCarthyism the " lavender scare ". [78] [79] Homosexuality was classified as a psychiatric disorder in the 1950s. [80] However, in the context of the highly politicized Cold War environment, homosexuality became framed as a dangerous, contagious social disease that posed a potential threat to state security. [80] As the family was believed to be the cornerstone of American strength and integrity, [81] the description of homosexuals as "sexual perverts" meant that they were both unable to function within a family unit and presented the potential to poison the social body. [82] This era also witnessed the establishment of widely spread FBI surveillance intended to identify homosexual government employees. [83] The McCarthy hearings and according "sexual pervert" investigations can be seen to have been driven by a desire to identify individuals whose ability to function as loyal citizens had been compromised. [82] McCarthy began his campaign by drawing upon the ways in which he embodied traditional American values to become the self-appointed vanguard of social morality. [84] Dalton Trumbo and his wife, Cleo, at the HUAC in 1947 In the film industry, more than 300 actors, authors, and directors were denied work in the U.S. through the unofficial Hollywood blacklist . ... Nearly 3,000 seamen and longshoremen lost their jobs due to this program alone. [85] Some of the notable people who were blacklisted or suffered some other persecution during McCarthyism include: Larry Adler , musician Nelson Algren , writer [86] Lucille Ball , actress, model, and film studio executive. [87] Alvah Bessie , Abraham Lincoln Brigade , writer, journalist, screenwriter, Hollywood Ten Elmer Bernstein , composer and conductor [88] Leonard Bernstein , conductor, pianist, composer [89] David Bohm , physicist and philosopher [90] Bertolt Brecht , poet, playwright, screenwriter Archie Brown , Abraham Lincoln Brigade , WW II vet, union leader, imprisoned. Successfully challenged Landrum–Griffin Act provision [91] Esther Brunauer , forced from the U.S. State Department [92] Luis Buñuel , film director, producer [93] Charlie Chaplin , actor and director [94] Aaron Copland , composer [95] Bartley Crum , attorney [96] Howard Da Silva , actor [97] Jules Dassin , director [98] Dolores del Río , actress [99] Edward Dmytryk , director, Hollywood Ten W.E.B.