Until 1974, banks and credit card companies could refuse credit cards to single women and could require married women to get the cards in their husbands’ names.
Get an ivy league education
Harvard didn’t admit women until 1977. Yale and Princeton only admitted their first women undergrads in 1969. However, to its credit, Cornell started admitting women way back in 1870.
Legally use contraceptives with your husband in every state.
Only in 1965 did the Supreme Court make it illegal for states to ban married people from using contraceptives.
Keep your job while pregnant.
Laying off women employees who became pregnant wasn’t illegal in the US until 1978.
Seek legal redress if you were sexually harassed on the job.
US courts recognized workplace sexual harassment as an offense in 1977.
Refuse to have sex with your husband.
Until the 1970s, marital rape wasn’t illegal. Rape was defined in all US states as follows: “a male who has sexual intercourse with a female not his wife is guilty of rape if…”
Get the contraceptive pill easily.
Oral contraceptives were only approved by the FDA in 1960, and weren’t widely prescribed by doctors for several more years.
Serve on a jury.
It wasn’t until 1973 that women could serve on juries in all 50 states.
Practice law.
Until 1971, women could be denied women the right to practice law, even if they had qualified as lawyers, purely because they were women. Barring women from practicing law was only prohibited in the US in 1971
Get divorced easily.
Before the 1969 No Fault Divorce law, divorce could only be obtained if you proved your spouse had committed serious faults such as adultery. This law negatively impacted men as well as women, of course.
Work in many military jobs.
Women couldn’t attend any US military academy until 1976, when the women were admitted. In 2015, 16% of the graduating West Point class is made up of women. Female recruits couldn’t serve in active combat roles until 2013.
Live with their boyfriend anywhere in the US.
Incredibly, in 2013 living together before marriage was still illegal in 4 US states. In 2011 several Florida couples were even charged with misdemeanors under the state’s anti-cohabitation law.
Have paid maternity leave.
As of 2015, the US is the only developed country that doesn’t require employers to provide some period of paid leave when a woman has a baby.
Become a Supreme Court Justice.
There wasn’t a law stopping women from serving on the Supreme Court, but no women were appointed until Sandra Day O’Connor in 1981. As of 2015, there are three women out of the nine SCOTUS judges.
Become an astronaut.
“We have no existing program concerning women astronauts nor do we contemplate any such plan,” NASA told one young woman in 1962. They first admitted women as astronaut candidates in 1978, including Sally Ride, who went on to become the first American woman in space.
Get a job without being rejected simply for being female.
Until the Civil Rights Act of 1964, it was perfectly legal to discriminate against women on the grounds of your gender when you were considering whom to hire or promote.
Ski jump at the Olympics.
Women couldn’t enter any Olympic ski jumping events until the 2014 Sochi Olympics.
Marry another woman.
The US movement to gain civil marriage rights for same-sex couples began in the 70s, but it wasn’t legal anywhere until 2004, when Massachusetts became the first state to allow it. As of 2015, same-sex marriage is legal in 36 US states. Of course, this legal barrier applied to men just as much as women.
Get emergency contraception.
The emergency contraception known as “Plan B” wasn’t approved by the FDA until shockingly late, 1998. And until 2013, you couldn’t find it in the drugstore aisles.
Compete as a boxer in the Olympics.
Women couldn’t box in the Olympics until 2012.
Get a legal abortion.
The first state to allow legal abortions was Colorado in 1967. Roe v. Wade made terminations legal nationally in 1973.
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