How Much Longer Do Women Need to Wait For Equality?

Women have come a long way, but we have MUCH further to go. Here are some of the things women either couldn’t do or had problems doing in the 60’s and 70’s. The question was asked in 1981 at a rally for women’s rights, how long must women wait for equality…it’s 2016 and we’re still waiting. Remember this when it’s time to vote. No matter who it is you support out there on the campaign trail or who you have decided to vote for if nominated, be well-informed and make sure you’re voting for the candidate that’s the most qualified and not the candidate that promises you the most.

1. Keep her job if she was pregnant.
   Until the Pregnancy Discrimination Act in 1978, women could be fired from their workplace for being pregnant.

2. Report cases of sexual harassment in the workplace.
The first time that a court recognized sexual harassment in the workplace was in 1977 and it wasn’t until 1980 that sexual harassment was officially defined by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

3. Be acknowledged in the Boston Marathon.
Women could not don their running shoes until 1972!

4. Get a credit card.
Until the Equal Credit Opportunity Act in 1974, women were not able to apply for credit. In 1975, the first women’s bank was opened.

5. Refuse to have sex with her husband.
The mid 70s saw most states recognize marital rape and in 1993 it became criminalized in all 50 states. Nevertheless, marital rape is still often treated differently to other forms of rape in some states even today.

6. Compete as a boxer in the Olympics.
It wasn’t until the 2012 London Olympics that women could compete in boxing in the Olympics. This was marked with the amazing victory by Britain’s Nicola Adams.

7. Get a divorce with some degree of ease.
Before the No Fault Divorce law in 1969, spouses had to show the faults of the other party, such as adultery, and could easily be overturned by recrimination.

8. Celebrate International Women’s Day.
In 1980 President Carter declared one week in March to be National Women’s History Week, including International Women’s Day on March 8th.

9. Have a legal abortion in most states. The Roe v. Wade case in 1973 protected a woman’s right to abortion until viability.

10.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.

11.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 1870 (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.

12. Experience equality in the workplace: Kennedy’s Commission on the Status of Women produced a report in 1963 that revealed, among other things, that women earned 59 cents for every dollar that men earned and were kept out of the more lucrative professional positions. When the 1964 Civil Rights Act was going through Congress, an amendment made it illegal to discriminate on the basis of gender as well as race. When the amendment was not taken seriously regarding women in the workplace, the National Organization of Women was founded to enforce full equality for women in truly equal partnership with men.

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