5 things women couldn't do in the 1960s

[cui bono]

(CNN) -- Can you imagine pregnancy being a fireable offense? How about job security hinging on your weight or the softness of your hands? What if you couldn't open a bank account or establish a line of credit unless you had a husband to cosign for you? What if you had the grades to attend a school like Princeton, but your gender kept you on the other side of those hallowed, ivy-covered halls?

It was not so long ago that this was the reality for women. If you're 45 or older, you were born into this world.

<snip>

1. Get a credit card: In the 1960s, a bank could refuse to issue a credit card to an unmarried woman; even if she was married, her husband was required to cosign. As recently as the 1970s, credit cards in many cases were issued with only a husband's signature. It was not until the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974 that it became illegal to refuse a credit card to a woman based on her gender.

2. Serve on a jury: It varied by state (Utah deemed women fit for jury duty way back in 1879), but the main reason women were kept out of jury pools was that they were considered the center of the home, which was their primary responsibility as caregivers. They were also thought to be too fragile to hear the grisly details of crimes and too sympathetic by nature to be able to remain objective about those accused of offenses. In 1961, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld a Florida law that exempted women from serving on juries. It wasn't until 1973 that women could serve on juries in all 50 states.

more:
http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/07/living/sixties-women-5-things/

[Liberal_in_LA]

1. as late as the 1980s - a colleague hadtrouble getting her name placed 1st on the mortgage. i bet

Males are still automatically placed 1st

[cui bono]

2. And do they still put "a single woman" on the deed/mortgage when a woman buys alone?

I can't remember if it's like that on mine, which is from around 20 years ago, but I remember knowing about that. They must have stopped it by now... or am I just being optimistic?

Or do they do that with men too? Googling came up with things that say "a single man" as well, but my memory is telling me that they only did it with women. Maybe they do it with men now too?

[Liberal_in_LA]

3. they still'put it. just refinanced.

[cui bono]

4. I just edited my post to add the question of if it's done with men as well.

Googling it showed some phrases that included "a single man" but I think I remember it being only women back in the day.

[Travis_0004]

6. They do it for men also

My mortgage deed is about 45 days old. It says "Travis Smith, unmarried".

[former9thward]

30. They did it in the 70s with men.

Mine read, "John Doe, a bachelor".

[Fawke Em]

21. They didn't on mine.

Mine just had my name on it (and I live in the South!)

[Romulox]

23. Married women have special property rights in my state ("Dower rights")

So status of married or single is relevant to the title.

[politicat]

38. Yes, they do.

It annoyed me when we closed on my mother's house. It is so pointless and such an invasion of privacy.

It does not apply to men.

The piece that really annoyed me was that there is no way for a married person to buy a house in zir own name without the spouse automatically having a community property right. Given the number of marriages down the drain where the absent spouse refuses to consent to the divorce as a means of controlling the other, it condemns anyone in a bad marriage from exercising financial independence.

[jeff47]

68. Community property has upsides too

That controlling spouse can't evict the "subservient" spouse, for example. And you don't run into the "Colorado problem" - the state receives all property that is not explicitly handled by a will in Colorado.

Even in community property states, it is possible for only one spouse to buy the property. It requires the other spouse to relinquish property rights via a notarized contract.

And it does apply to men. In many states, they will have something on the deed to indicate the man is single. &quot my name), a bachelor" is on the deed to my first house. And my divorce was not complete at the time I closed, thus requiring my now-Ex to sign away her rights.

[politicat]

69. Agreed on that aspect of comm prop.

Arizona was different from what I'm accustomed to in CO in that the title agent specifically said that men did not have the single designation appended. (The title agent was... interesting, so could have been wrong, but it was a question I did bring up.)

Having watched my parents' divorce, I could easily imagine my sperm donor refusing to relinquish his rights to my mother's purchase of a house along with his refusal to sign the divorce papers or support agreement or anything else. I could see it being a major complication for all major property, including cars and mobile homes.

Do you have a citation on that Colorado problem? I've read the Colorado probate statutes a few times and haven't seen any popcorn like that.

[jeff47]

71. The CO thing was what I was told by an attorney when I lived in CO.

I don't have a formal cite, and it could very well be there were details left out of a casual conversation.

[politicat]

72. Okay. Thanks. I'll ping ours on it.

That being something I'm pretty sure would have come up in our most recent round, since we are dealing with several issues -- succession of responsibilities, financial instruments, trusts, property, joint tenancies, et al.

I like Colorado, don't get me wrong, and I don't mind the idea of the state getting our "other"ed assets (since my goal is to die as near to broke as possible to prevent future disharmony) but that seems like it would be something our more aggressive anti-gov types would have latched onto.

[LoisB]

64. Mine was "an unmarried woman" which I guess is how they designate a divorcee.

[ancianita]

27. Yes, in Illinois as of 1987. You'd think simple alphabetizing would be the rational thing. nt

[davidn3600]

67. A banker once told me they do it by credit score

I dont know if that's true or not or if its that way at every bank. But according to him, they will usually put the person with the higher credit score as the principle borrower because that gives the better interest rate.

They can put it however the buyers want it to be. However, if the woman is first and she happens to have a lower credit score than the man, they COULD end up paying a higher interest rate.

[hollysmom]

5. 1, 2 and 3 had no problem with but 4&5 yes indeed

I could not afford a phone, they wanted a $200 dollar deposit of for my parents to cosign for me to get a phone, that was almost more than I got paid a week. So I lived without a phone. But credit cards _ i could not keep them form coming, they kept showing up in my mail unsolicited , usually with a big print "your new credit cards is inside" on the front of the envelope. How we did not have more fraud I will never figure.

[BumRushDaShow]

7. My mom continually mentions the disgrace of #1

and when she became a widow, the best they could do was put a "Mrs." in front of my father's name.

The one thing that she has also mentioned happened into the '70s that is missing off the list, was that the husband had to co-sign if a woman wanted a hysterectomy. This sort of nonsense prompted her generation (she is in her 80s) to support the likes of Gloria Steinem and others (I remember when she got a subscription to Ms. magazine during the '70s).

Rethugs are furiously trying to take us back to their "good old days".

[kcass1954]

9. That happened to my parents' neighbor.

She was in the middle of a divorce when diagnosed with cervical cancer. The soon-to-be ex refused to sign the papers. She had to wait until the divorce was final, which ended up being only a couple of months later. Fortunately, everything went well, and she's had no problems since. She was horribly frightened at the time, though.

[jehop61]

14. Women had no reproductive rights

I know someone who was separated from her husband (he left for a younger model), was pregnant with her 4th and wanted to have a tubal ligation after the birth. The husband had to be tracked down to sign a "permission" slip so she could limit her family. That was in 1971!

[BumRushDaShow]

15. My mother had a hysterectomy in 1972

and my father had to co-sign.

But can you imagine if someone suggests that a man must have his wife co-sign if he decided to have a vasectomy? That idea would have been and always has been, DOA.

[Lugnut]

32. I had a tubal ligation in 1974.

My husband had to sign off on it.

[HockeyMom]

17. I had to sign in 1984 for husband's vasectomy

in NYC too. Maybe they thought this was "equality"?

[ancianita]

24. Mine had one in 1987 and no one -- neither he, the hospital or any staffer -- told me. Presumptions

of privilege about control of 'need to know' remain.

[theHandpuppet]

8. Wow -- I wasn't aware of this one.

4. Get an Ivy League education:

Yale and Princeton didn't accept female students until 1969. Harvard didn't admit women until 1977 (when it merged with the all-female Radcliffe College). With the exception of the University of Pennsylvania, which began accepting women on a case-by-case basis in 1876, and Cornell, which admitted its first female student in 1872 (also offering admission under special circumstances), women couldn't attend Ivy League schools until 1969 at the earliest. Brown (which merged with women's college Pembroke), Dartmouth and Columbia did not offer admission to women until 1971, 1972 and 1981, respectively. Other case-specific instances allowed some women to take certain classes at Ivy League institutions (such as Barnard women taking classes at Columbia), but by and large, women in the '60s who harbored Ivy League dreams had to put them on hold.

[BumRushDaShow]

11. Yup

I started college in '79 and back then, there was reference to "the Seven Sisters", which was the moniker given to the all-women's colleges founded as female "Ivy League" analogs that sought to be "equal" to (but were ultimately "separate" from) the essentially all-male "Ivy League" colleges. The schools were Mt. Holyoke, Smith, Barnard, Radcliffe, Vassar, Wellesley, & Bryn Mawr. I went to UMASS, which was near Smith & Mt. Holyoke and of course the then recently-converted-to-co-ed Amherst college (that converted from all-male to co-ed in 1975).

Nowadays, all but Vassar are still all-women (and Radcliffe was folded into Harvard).

[MannyGoldstein]

29. Cornell 1870

Ahead of its time.

My sister went to Harvard in the 1980s - she was technically admitted to Radcliffe, but it made no real difference - she ended up with a Harvard diploma.

[intheflow]

51. Although Yale started admitting women into its law school in 1918.

http://books.google.com/books?id=VDmnpQf8KjsC&lpg=PA83&ots=FUaXYxK4TE&dq=%22yale%20law%20school%22%20began%20admitting%20women&pg=PA84#v=onepage&q=%22yale%20law%20school%22%20began%20admitting%20women&f=false

[Skidmore]

10. Yes. Which is why I get so frustrated

when younger women parrot RW talking points regarding women's concerns. I remember. And I made certain that my daughter was aware of how recent in history these changes were and how tenuous they are. I will talk to my granddaughters about these issues when they are a little older.

For every woman who can remember what it was like, there is a man who is fondly recalling the good old days when the little women knew their place.

[BainsBane]

80. There are even some women who support men in that view

enabling them to turn around and say, well not all women see that as a problem so it can't be sexist.

Clarence Thomas doesn't think repealing the Voting Rights Act has implications for race. That doesn't mean he's right.

[onecent]

12. I could not wear slacks to work and I could not call any bosses by

their first name. It was "Mr Smith".

[HockeyMom]

18. "My Girl" infuriated me

"My Girl" will get that for you. I told him Mrs. H will get it. This was in the 70s at a Corporation in Manhattan.

[Hekate]

49. I couldn't wear slacks to the library at my first college, 1965. The head Librarian was ...

... the last holdout on the antique dress-codes.

[MadrasT]

78. I worked in a bank in 1991-1995

Where women had to wear skirts/dresses and nylons.

Don't know if/when that changed because I quit.

[yourpicturehere]

13. Not much better now

Kentucky STILL thinks a woman can't own property by herself...
My Mom died about 18 months ago and this spring I finally found a buyer for her home. When it came time to sign the papers on the sale, my husband, whom I met after my Mom bought the house, had to sign and they made the check out to BOTH OF US. My Mom paid cash for her house and I was the co-owner, but still my husband had to sign. I asked why and this Southern, car-salesman of a lawyer told me that the state wanted to make sure that my husband KNEW I had that money. Oh, well, that makes it right then doesn't it?

Then I got to thinking...What if a woman was in an abusive relationship and she needed the money to get away? Isn't it nice that he won't be surprised that she has a little money now?

I also own MY house outright with only my name on the deed. The insurance company and several others insist on putting my husband's name on all correspondence.

My devious mind then thought that, in a separation scenario, "Wouldn't it be funny if the ex had to pay capital gains?"

You better believe that some rich legislator or one of his rich friends thought up this law b/c the "old lady" ended up with her own money and he couldn't get his grubby little paws on it.

[ancianita]

22. This is the kind of control that many men personally deny they've exerted. Because they've had

such controls dispersed throughout institutions for them. This is the reason we need all the women lawyers we can get anywhere, anytime.

When any man I know laughs at the claim that men, as a group, control 90% of the world's money, I look at that man in a whole new light.

[A Little Weird]

28. I'm a single woman that owns property in Kentucky

It sounds like you just had a sleazy lawyer. They exist everywhere.

[cui bono]

36. Wow. I know there are outdated laws on the books of many states that are not paid any attention to

but it's hard to believe that those laws/regulations not only exist but are being enforced.

Have you thought about simply refusing? What would happen? Is it an actual law or just a business practice?

[snooper2]

41. Um, if you are married there are laws you have to follow LOL...

I'm selling my house right now, I bought it before I got married, guess what-

My wife has to sign all the paperwork too because since we are married it is a JOINT ASSET-

Also, we are buying a new house, I'm the only one on the loan since my wife has no credit score to speak of. Guess what- She still has to be on all the TITLE WORK because it is going to be a JOINT ASSET-

[Sweet Freedom]

57. Depends on which state you live in

In some states, if you own a home prior to marriage and no marital funds are used to pay for the mortgage or it's improvement, it is yours and is not considered a joint asset. All states are different.

[rurallib]

16. Slightly off subject, but who can forget "Help Wanted - Male"

and " Help Wanted - Female" in the newspapers.

You can guess what kinds of jobs went where.

[sufrommich]

20. That existed way past the 60s,I graduated from High School in

1975 and the classifieds still read like that. I don't think it changed until much later.

[Hekate]

50. Oh hell yeah. I've still got some old newspapers in a box and looking at ads is an eye-opener

Over the decades I've saved some "major headline" newspapers, sometimes the entire thing. Cleaning out the garage once I took the time to flip through one of the early ones, and talk about a trip down memory lane. All my first jobs were gendered.

[Liberal_in_LA]

73. telephone operator was "gendered". i recall the first time hearing a man's voice

[ancianita]

19. From my experience, women couldn't work while pregnant, either.

I was a long distance operator for Ma Bell (the irony of that name, eh?) in Florida, and as late as 1969 they fired women for pregnancy. Fired. No leave, no suspension.

[tammywammy]

33. In 1973 my mom was pregnant and looking for a new job.

She wasn't showing, she told them she wasn't pregnant. She needed the job, since her husband at the time was a loser that couldn't hold down a job and help support the family. She said she worked there a couple of months before she told anyone she was pregnant. Thankfully she wasn't fired. And she told them my brother was surprisingly big for an early birth.

[ancianita]

34. It seems as if pregnancy at work was one of the last accepted realities for male-run America. It

probably because more women were in advanced positions in companies by then, and more inclined to push back on sexist policies made higher ups in staff/line structure.

We may not get everything we've paid for but we've paid for everything we've gotten.

[tammywammy]

35. And now we have mothers rooms at work.

So women that return after having a child can pump breast milk. I never hear negative talk about "so and so is pregnant", it doesn't stop their career and they're not worried about being fired.

I doubt my mom would ever have expect to see this back in the 70s.

[ancianita]

39. Maybe she didn't, but I felt a momentum about women's struggles that gave me hope. We can't go back.

[Hekate]

48. In the early 1950s one of my mom's friends wore a stout girdle until her 7th month...

... so she could continue at work that long.

Good for your mom and your "early" brother!

[NickB79]

40. With all the euphemisms used to describe pregnancy back then

"In a motherly way", "bun in the oven", etc, I'm not surprised. It's almost like people were afraid to say the P-word or even think about it, because that would lead to thoughts about how that happened in the first place (the dreaded S-word).

[ancianita]

42. Yep! And it wasn't boomers who were that way. We were the loosened up generation about all that.

With the help of very few Silent Gen folk, boomers had to break through the Silent Gen euphemistic inertia just to confront outright sexist barriers. It was always about 'correcting' sexist thinking -- time consuming without social network technology ...starting with families, friends of conservative families, coworkers, etc. -- before taking action.

All the more reason boomers are outraged at the current war on women losses that they worked so long to gain.

[NickB79]

43. As a 5th-generation farm kid, I never understood that

On a farm, you learn VERY early where babies come from, whether they're puppies, calves, pigs, or people

And when you have 8-10 kids in a 4-bedroom farmhouse with paper-thin walls like my grandparents and great-grandparents did, things like sex and pregnancy quickly lose their taboos. My grandmother had no problem discussing sex, babies, etc in company.

[ancianita]

45. My mom told me the exact same thing about her growing up on a potato farm in northern Maine.

She helped birth the farm animals, and couldn't understand how people of her generation were so prissy about it all.

[truedelphi]

62. I was a child who was

Adopted, at the age of six weeks.

I was told I was adopted early on and it was probably one of the first two syllable words I knew early on, right up there with Mama and Dada.

When my sister was to be adopted, I was not quite four years old. I was brought along to the court room, and sat and heard the judge discuss the implications of my parents adopting the new baby. I was the one taken into the hallway with a court appointed nurse, who took me in a room, and said, "This is your little sister."

On the ride home, with the new baby in the car, both parents explained that most kids never experience what I had just experienced and that these other kids were lied to and not told about the real process.

Well, I didn't realize my parents meant most kids who help adopt a sibling. I really thought that is where all babies came from - the court room, with the smiling judge and sympathetic lady nurse.

When two or three years later, the older kids I knew started talking about conception and how that was where babies came from, I knew they didn't know a thing about it!

[Sweet Freedom]

25. I recall meeting a woman

who was the first female engineer enrolled in her college (early 70s) and she said she wasn't allowed out of the dorms after 8 pm.

[cui bono]

37. That's crazy. n/t

[ancianita]

46. I got suspended from FSU for breaking women's curfew. Men then had no such curfew.

[Staph]

55. I started college in the fall of 1971.

The curfew in the women's dorms was 11:00 PM on weeknights and 2:00 AM on Friday and Saturday nights. But that only applied to freshmen women (freshwomen?). The upperclass women had no curfew (presumably because they were all over eighteen), and men had no curfew.

I felt the need to stay out until curfew every night. I got much more sleep the next year, when all curfews were discontinued!


FYI -- in 1972, my university's marching went co-ed. The last all male band had 88 members. Eleven women (and me!) joined the band that year, to the near universal disapproval of the existing members of the band. Today there are about 360 members in the band (more women than men) and one has to audition to get in. Fifteen years after adding women, the band was awarded the Sudler Trophy (sometimes called the Heisman Trophy for bands).

[uppityperson]

74. I stayed out the extra hour the night time changed, daylight savings, and got in trouble for it.

I explained that time changed, gave an xtra hour so they had to let me in the dorm without hassling me. Freshmen girls had curfew and no keys, " men" and older "girls" had no such thing. But for some reason my dorm put frshmen on the ground floor, with windows big enough to climb in.

[mountain grammy]

26. My mom was widowed in 1958..

she couldn't buy a car, a house or get a credit card. A woman with two pre teen daughters who had served in the US Marines, needed her brother's signature to buy a car.

[gollygee]

31. My mom was fired for getting pregnant

The birth control restrictions are on their way back.

[jimlup]

44. Good lord I didn't realize that some of those changes were that recent...

I was born in 1957 and accept these things as given but apparently they were not until around 1970 or so.

[Aristus]

47. Buy a car without her husband present - Varies by state.

My mother's parents were two ultra-conservative Southern Baptists who still managed to irk male-dominated Southern culture with some unconventional views. My grandmother (who was also pro-choice, by the way; surprise, surprise) did all the financial dealings of the household, including buying the cars. She told me several times how she would walk into a car dealership to buy a car, only to have the saleman or the sales manager give her one variation or another of: "Sure thing, lil gal! Just come back with your husband, and we'll give you a good deal!"

"No thank you. I'm doing the purchase."

"Well, lil lady, if you just get your husband to come in, we-"

That's usually when she'd leave and not go back.

[procon]

52. As a single woman in the late 60s I could not buy a house.

It was no different than Sharia Law even though I had a professional career and a large deposit in hand, the lending bank would only count half my earnings and still required a male cosigner. Rather to go ask Daddy to stand in for me, I put off buying a house until I married in '73.

Once again, despite the fact that I made more than twice my spouse, only half my earnings counted. At that time the bank even demanded that I sign an agreement to submit to sterilization to ensure my income would remain intact. I could not have conceive due to medical reasons, but it wasn't until they received a detailed report from my doctor that they condescended to approve my home loan; not in my name as requested, but as "Mr. and Mrs."

Just one of the many, many reasons I am a feminist.

[cui bono]

59. OMG! A bank demanding sterilization???

That I had never heard of, that is insane. And only counting half your income is insane too and makes no logical sense no matter how you look at it. Shows it was all about oppression.

[MADem]

77. If you had cash in hand you could--but who has that, realistically?

You wouldn't have had to deal with a banker with an attitude.

Wealthy women had more power than working women...money, as always, talks.

[Freddie]

53. This is why I want to scream at young women who "don't need feminism"

They take the rights that my (and my mother's) generation won totally for granted and can't fathom that there's folks in power right now that would take those rights back in a split second if we let them.
My mother was forced to quit her teaching job when she became visibly pregnant; that was just how it was back then. Thankfully my daughter knows how hard things were for women and how they could turn back if we're not vigilant.

[Warpy]

54. They forgot the BIG ONE

Contraception was unavailable for unmarried women and barely available to married women. Abortion was also unavailable unless one were desperate enough to risk maiming, and thousands of women were just that desperate every year.

Women's health was largely ignored except in whispered conversations about "female trouble." Anything pertaining to women between the waist and knees was far too icky to speak about freely.

[TeamPooka]

63. It's #3 on the list you didn't read at the link.

3. Go on the birth control pill: Issues like reproductive freedom and a woman's right to decide when and whether to have children were only just beginning to be openly discussed in the 1960s. In 1957, the FDA approved of the birth control pill but only for "severe menstrual distress." In 1960, the pill was approved for use as a contraceptive. Even so, the pill was illegal in some states and could be prescribed only to married women for purposes of family planning, and not all pharmacies stocked it. Some of those opposed said oral contraceptives were immoral, promoted prostitution and were tantamount to abortion. It wasn't until several years later that birth control was approved for use by all women, regardless of marital status. In short, birth control meant a woman could complete her education, enter the work force and plan her own life.

[Warpy]

65. I'm not talking about the pill

which wasn't approved until 1959 and was being fought tooth and nail to the point that many drugstores didn't stock it because patriarchal doctors refused to prescribe it. I'm talking about diaphragms, sperm killing creams that actually killed sperm, and even condoms that couldn't be sold to single women. It was the age of the Coca Cola douche for a very good reason. Too bad it didn't work.

[tk2kewl]

56. Women were not allowed in McSorley's Old Ale House until August 10, 1970

And they didn't build a women's restroom until 16 years later

[KauaiK]

58. I remember this well

AND was shocked when I realized the simple things I could NOT do b/c of my gender. It is why I am still the bra-burning, bleeding heart feminist fighting for the rights of everyone regardless of sex, ethnic background, sexual orientation or preference or whatever.

[LeftishBrit]

60. Vote, if you lived in Switzerland - or as I've just discovered, Liechtenstein

[LeftishBrit]

61. In the 50s, a female relative applied for a university post (UK; traditionally male subject area)

and was openly told that the reason for her rejection was that the department had appointed one woman in the past, and she hadn't turned out well!

This was before the 60s, but it wouldn't have been illegal till 1975.

[rickyhall]

66. In 1970 my mother had to get "power of attorney" to run the family business

in my dad's absence.

It wasn't until 1972 that public schools in Ft. Worth allowed girls to wear pants.

[noamnety]

70. One more for the list

Keep your college scholarship if you get married. Because married women didn't need a job, so why waste an education on them, and why have them take a job away from a man who would need it?

[kelliekat44]

75. The forgot, buy a home or rent an apartment (without a co-signer). nt

[uppityperson]

76. 1977, applying for a nursing job was asked what my plans for marriage and childbearing were.

It took me aback, wtf? But then I've always been uppity. None of your damn business! but no, I was polite and told them what I needed to get the job. We were prohibited from not just wearing our nametags if we stoppped at a restaurant or bar on the way home from work, but even wearing the basic white uniform, could be fired it they found out we had a drink dressed in polyester white clothes.

[demigoddess]

79. or have your own savings account in a bank

if married, a husband could clean out that bank account without your consent. Actually, it even happened to me in 2002. not much has changed.