Women’s History Month: 13 most amazing things women couldn’t do 100 years ago

3. Open a bank account or apply for a loan

Women also faced financial discrimination and were treated by banks as a high-risk investment 50 years ago. It was not until 1975 that women were able to open a bank account in their own name.

Single women were still unable to apply for a loan or credit card in their name without their father’s signature, although they earned more, only in the mid-1970s.

Workers were also denied mortgages in the 1970s unless they could secure the signature of a male guarantor.

A 2011 report by the left-wing think tank The Institute for Public Policy Research found evidence of discrimination against women entrepreneurs by banks that still exist in the 21st century. It also found an illegal denial of fair access to mortgages based on pregnancy or maternity leave.

“This is an image that seems to be based on stereotypes about women as the inevitable primary caregivers of children and secondary earners, and an image that plays into discursive norms of underestimating women,” it is written.

4. Be denied service due to spending your own money in a pub

Women could also be denied the service because they spent their money in a pub until the 1982 amendment to the law.

“In the 1970s, women were legally denied the right to drink unaccompanied,” she said. A project of the first 100 years of history.

5. Become an accountant or lawyer

The Sex Discrimination Act of 1919 amended the Act on the Exclusion of Women from Certain Professions on the Grounds of Gender. It gave women access to the legal profession and accounting for the first time, which meant that they could also perform any civil or judicial function or job.

Dr. Ivy Williams was the first woman to be called to the Bar of England in 1922, and the first woman to receive a doctorate in civil law in 1923 at Oxford.

The Sex Discrimination Act 1975 is illegal discrimination against women in work, education and training.

However, the horribly sexist advertisements that objectify women of that period highlight the contemptuous attitude towards women that still existed.

The Equality Act of 2010 would eventually replace many different anti-discrimination laws.

It wasn’t until 2013 that a 200-year-old law banning women in Paris from wearing pants was finally repealed.

6. Be entitled to equal pay

The strike of 187 workers at the Ford car factory in Dagenham in 1968 is cited as key to the passage of the 1970 Equal Pay Act.

Former Labor MP Shirley Summerskill said women have played “a very important role in the history of the fight for equal pay”.

The Equal Pay Act (amendment) of 1983 allowed women to be paid the same value as men for work. However, equal pay remains a problem, with women losing almost £ 140 billion a year in 2018 due to the gender pay gap.

According to a 2017 report by the World Economic Forum, it could be another 100 years before the global gap in equality between men and women completely disappears. In 2017, due to the gender pay gap, women actually worked “for free” 51 days a year.