Couldn’t get a credit card orca loan in my name in 1972. Had to have husband cosign. Buy he could get signature loan without me (a loan requiring no collateral)
In the 70`s As a single/divorced mom trying to get ahead was impossible, had to be dependent on family and friends. Paycheck was crap. Dark times, yet we persevered and made it through! I remember my first car, in MY NAME and financed by a car dealer who understood A door was opened for our future.
Don’t believe your lying eyes. Trump’s mask is off and his dystopian fascist reality is taking shape. There are disaffected Magalites getting disillusioned every passing day. Help them onward to join the pro-Democracy coalition and turn it into a supermajority-this is how you turn the tides blue. 💙🌊
Men had to cosign for women to have credit, so it was hard for them to get out of an abusive relationship without help from a male relative, friend, or access to cash. Also, women did not have reproductive rights until 1973 and pregnancy often kept women in unhappy situations. Here we go again 💔
I remember standing in the office of an apartment building, arguing with the manager who had just refused to rent to me bc I had 2 small kids - it was illegal at the time, but he just said “so sue me” and shut the door in my face.
My grandma was a widow I t he late 50's, and their life was tough. My single aunt had to have my dad co-sign on her house
Listen to the older womens stories, it was a different world back then
We can't give back!
Newspaper "want ads" (that's what we called them, dear young people) were grouped under two headings -- "Help Wanted: Men" and "Help Wanted: Women". Signs in windows were the same. Even when it wasn't written that way, employers were specific about which gender they'd hire. This was legal.
Even if they weren't menial, they were paid less than jobs for men that required a similar education/skill level. And if it was the exact same job (librarian, for example), men were paid more. The justification was that men were supporting families; women just wanted a bit of extra cash.
But even single women were not paid as much as single men, because the theory was a justification and not a rationale. Women's work, no matter how important, was not worth as much money as men's work. Women were simply secondary.
I had a part-time job while in college where divorced women with children were paid 25% less than single men with no dependents. And all of these were people who had identical jobs.
The shame of being female
1968 Girls Sex Ed lesson "The only man you should allow to do this to you must be your husband"
1974 Me and co worker asked to wear lab coats over our clothes when walking across the shop floor "you mustn't distract the men"
This is a bit of a misunderstanding. Women could and did get credit cards. Credit card issuers were allowed to refuse to issue the cards, and that definitely did happen.
I am relating my own, at that time, newly divorced mother's experience in the late 60s/early 70s in which she was unable to obtain credit cards in her name and she had to rely upon her parents to fiance cars and purchases.
It happened to my best friend in the late '70s. Also, she was initially denied unemployment insurance payouts because she was a married woman. Her male colleague had no problems.
(They were college teachers and the usual thing was for them to get unemployment in the summer.)
The FB posts about parents having 50 years of loving marriage make me scream. I always thought, “Look at their picture! She’s frickin’ miserable!” If the poster was really nostalgic about how happy and in love these people were, I knew they were writing about miserable assholes that hated their kids
Employers could refuse to hire women past 1964. I had personal experience with that when job hunting after my 1968 college graduation. Numerous times prospective employers told me they were sure I could do the job, but they preferred to hire men.
FACTS
and even still today, the alpha-bro podcasts try to paint women as helpless dainty nothings who NEED a man to support and protect them when that is not the case at all. They are the ones who actually need a woman to do their laundry and cook and clean cuz mommy always did it for them.
Yet in 64 women did work, in 74 they did own homes and in 88 women with children could rent. They could do this because people cared about and for others.
My mother filed for divorce in early 1970, discovered she was pregnant, and had to drop the proceedings because NO JUDGE in the state would grant a divorce to a pregnant woman, despite the fact that her husband was abusive.
A divorced woman’s auto insurance rates were higher BECAUSE SHE WAS DIVORCED. A woman couldn’t get a credit card account in her name. These were in the early-mid 70’s.
Wish I could personally thank everyone who voted for the misogynistic idiots that set us back 50+ years. Like, *personally*.
My grands saw this list on the back of the T-shirt that said “They didn’t burn witches they burned women.” She was amazed that there was a time in our history that women couldn’t wear pants. She’s 9yo. My other granddaughter (13yo) was equally amazed how not so long ago gay marriage was illegal.
2/2 1974, when the Equal Credit Opportunity Act passed, that women in the U.S. were granted the right to open a bank account on their own. Technically, women won the right to open a bank account in the 1960s, but many banks still refused to let women do so without a signature from their husbands.
From Forbes advisor- Although we may not think of credit cards as a gender equality issue today, it wasn’t until 1974 that women were allowed to apply for and own a credit card in their name.1/2
My parents were the same. Both would have been far happier separate rather than together, but were forced to stay together for financial reasons. It was actually sad. 😔
Comments
Why the desire to get rid of the no-fault divorce?
I think it’s to keep women married like JD wants.
Thoughts please?
They allowed dogs, though.
Listen to the older womens stories, it was a different world back then
We can't give back!
1968 Girls Sex Ed lesson "The only man you should allow to do this to you must be your husband"
1974 Me and co worker asked to wear lab coats over our clothes when walking across the shop floor "you mustn't distract the men"
The attitudes! - Such a struggle!
(They were college teachers and the usual thing was for them to get unemployment in the summer.)
and even still today, the alpha-bro podcasts try to paint women as helpless dainty nothings who NEED a man to support and protect them when that is not the case at all. They are the ones who actually need a woman to do their laundry and cook and clean cuz mommy always did it for them.
Wish I could personally thank everyone who voted for the misogynistic idiots that set us back 50+ years. Like, *personally*.
Sorry I felt the words come out
We can all find happiness within the limitations society sets us
We could all find happiness of a sort in jail if we had to
Doesn’t mean we should have to