9 Issues a Girl Couldn’t Do in 1971

Greater than a cen­tu­ry after girls’s suf­frage within the Unit­ed States, it’s not sufficient to bone up on the plat­types of feminine pri­ma­ry can­di­dates (although that’s an excel­lent begin).

A Twit­ter consumer and self-described Outdated Crone named Robyn urged her fel­low Amer­i­cans to take a very good lengthy gan­der at a listing of 9 free­doms that girls within the Unit­ed States weren’t uni­ver­sal­ly grant­ed in 1971, the 12 months Helen Crimson­dy launched the soon-to-be anthem, “I Am Girl,” above.

Even these of us who remem­ber singing alongside as chil­dren could expe­ri­ence some shock that these details take a look at on Snopes.

1. CREDIT CARDS: Pri­or to the Equal Cred­it Oppor­tu­ni­ty Act of 1974, mar­ried girls couldn’t get cred­it playing cards with­out their hus­bands’ sig­na­tures. Sin­gle girls, divorcees, and wid­ows had been typically required to have a person co-sign. The dou­ble stan­dard additionally meant feminine appli­cants had been fre­quent­ly issued card lim­its as much as 50% low­er than that of males who earned iden­ti­cal wages.
2. PREGNANT WORKERS: The Preg­nan­cy Dis­crim­i­na­tion Act of 1978 professional­tect­ed preg­nant girls from being fired due to their impend­ing mater­ni­ty. However it got here with a main loop­gap that’s nonetheless in want of clos­ing. The lan­guage of the legislation stip­u­lates that make use of­ers should accom­mo­date preg­nant work­ers provided that con­ces­sions are being made for oth­er make use of­ees who’re “sim­i­lar of their abil­i­ty or inabil­i­ty to work.”
3. JURY DUTY: In 1975, the Supreme Court docket declared it con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly unac­cept­in a position for states to disclaim girls the oppor­tu­ni­ty to serve on juries. That is an are­na the place we’ve all come a good distance, child. It’s now com­plete­ly nor­mal for males to be excused from jury obligation because the pri­ma­ry care­givers of their younger chil­dren.
4. MILITARY COMBAT: In 2013, for­mer Sec­re­tary of Protection Leon Panet­ta and for­mer Chair­man of the Joint Chiefs of Workers, Gen­er­al Mar­tin Dempsey introduced that the Pen­ta­gon was rescind­ing the direct com­bat exclu­sion rule that barred girls from serv­ing in artillery, armor, infantry and oth­er such bat­tle roles. On the time of the announce­ment, the mil­i­tary had already seen greater than 130 feminine sol­diers killed, and 800 wound­ed on the entrance strains in Iraq and Afghanistan.
5. IVY LEAGUE ADMISSIONS: Those that con­ceive of elite col­leges as breed­ing grounds for intercourse­u­al assault protests and Title IX activism would do properly to remem­ber that Colum­bia Col­lege didn’t admit girls till 1983, fol­low­ing within the mar­gin­al­ly deep­er foot­steps of oth­ers within the Ivy League—Harvard (1977), Dart­mouth (1972), Brown (1971), Yale (1969), and Prince­ton (1969). Nowadays, sin­gle-sex excessive­er edu­ca­tion choices for girls far out­num­ber these for males, however the web­work­ing pow­er and elevated earn­ing poten­tial an Ivy League diploma con­fers stay the identical.
6. WORKPLACE HARASSMENT: In 1977, girls who’d been intercourse­u­al­ly harassed within the work­place obtained con­fir­ma­tion in three sep­a­price tri­als that they might sue their make use of­ers below Title VII of the 1964 Civ­il Rights Act. In 1998, the Supreme Court docket dominated that same-sex harass­ment was additionally unlaw­ful. In between was the tele­vi­sion occasion of 1991, Ani­ta Hill’s shock­ing tes­ti­mo­ny towards her for­mer boss, U.S. Supreme Court docket jus­tice (then nom­i­nee) Clarence Thomas.
7. SPOUSAL CONSENT: In 1993, spousal rape was offi­cial­ly out­lawed in all 50 states. Not tonight hon­ey, otherwise you’ll have a headache within the type of your spouse’s authorized again­up.
8. HEALTH INSURANCE: In 2010, the Affected person Professional­tec­tion and Afford­in a position Care Act decreed that any well being insur­ance plan estab­lished after March of that 12 months couldn’t cost girls excessive­er pre­mi­ums than males for iden­ti­cal ben­e­matches. This was unhealthy information for girls who bought their well being insur­ance via their jobs, and whose make use of­ers had been grand­fa­thered into dis­crim­i­na­to­ry plans estab­lished pri­or to 2010. After all, that’s all historical his­to­ry now.
9. CONTRACEPTIVES: In 1972, the Supreme Court docket made it authorized for all cit­i­zens to pos­sess beginning con­trol, irre­spec­tive of mar­i­tal sta­tus, stat­ing “if the precise of pri­va­cy means any­factor, it’s the proper of the indi­vid­ual, mar­ried or sin­gle, to be free from unwar­rant­ed gov­ern­males­tal intru­sion into mat­ters so enjoyable­da­males­tal­ly have an effect on­ing a per­son because the deci­sion whether or not to bear or beget a toddler.” (It’s value not­ing, how­ev­er, that in 1972, states may nonetheless con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly professional­hib­it and pun­ish intercourse out­facet of mar­riage.)

Fem­i­nism is NOT only for oth­er girls.

Be aware: An ear­li­er ver­sion of this submit appeared on our web site in 2019.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

No Girls Want Apply: A Dis­coronary heart­en­ing 1938 Rejec­tion Let­ter from Dis­ney Ani­ma­tion

How the Bicy­cle Accel­er­at­ed the Girls’s Rights Transfer­ment (Cir­ca 1890)

Odd Vin­tage Submit­playing cards Doc­u­ment the Professional­pa­gan­da Towards Girls’s Rights 100 Years In the past

The Library of Con­gress Dig­i­tizes Over 16,000 Pages of Let­ters & Speech­es from the Girls’s Suf­frage Transfer­ment, and You Can Assist Tran­scribe Them

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an writer, illus­tra­tor, and the­ater mak­er in NYC.