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13 Things Women Were Not Allowed to Do (and How We’ve Changed That)

Women have made huge strides in the fight for equality, and sometimes we take for granted all the monumental achievements  that have been accomplished. That’s why it is important to take a look back, and recognize the progress that has been made. So, let’s all collectively take immense pride in — these (seemingly basic!) 13 things that females were not always allowed to do.

1 Get Birth Control

The advent of birth control was a big part of the Women’s Liberation movement of the 1960s. It wasn’t until then that women could really take control of whether or not they wanted to have children. The pill was approved by the FDA in May 1960.

2 Attend an Ivy League School

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For the longest time, Ivy League schools were meant to create the old boys’ club. For example, women weren’t to attend the Harvard Graduate School of Education until 1920, and Yale and Princeton until 1969. Today, women are admitted into all of the Ivy League colleges.

3 Become a Lawyer or Doctor

Sexism kept women from enjoying prestigious careers in fields including the law, medicine, accounting, and finance. Today, there are laws in place that prohibit discrimination against women in the workplace, including the Equal Opportunity Act of 1972.

4 Be Pregnant and Have a Job at the Same Time

Becoming pregnant could have cost you your job, not that long ago. It wasn’t until the Pregnancy Discrimination Act was ratified in 1978 that it became illegal to discriminate against women for being pregnant, or childbirth.

5 Vote

As you may recall from history class, women were not granted the right to vote until the 19th Amendment was ratified on August 18, 1920. Suffragettes who fought for this right were jailed, arrested, beaten, and tortured. Now, women have the right to not only vote, but to run for the presidency of the United States.

6 Own or Inherit Property

For a long time, men and women were seen as one person under the law. This meant that husbands could control what wives did, extending to the purchase and ownership of property, including inheritance. The Married Women’s Property Acts helped women gain more freedom over this. Today, a woman can own and inherit property, regardless of her marital status.

7 Open a Bank Account or Get a Credit Card

Can you believe that married women couldn’t open bank accounts, or apply for credit, under their own name until the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974? Permission from a husband was needed prior to the act, which made it illegal to discriminate against women, and married women (as well as by race, age, color, religion, marital status, or age).

8 Wear Certain Types of Bathing Suits

Swimming must have been really annoying back in the day. Women were expected to be covered up, even at the beach, and even when in the water. Up until the 1930s, ladies could be arrested for showing too much skin. Today, it is generally accepted that you can wear whatever you want to the pool or beach (within today’s norm).

9 Serve in the Military in a Combat Capacity

Today, women serve our country on the front line, and we honor them just as we honor male soldiers. But there was a time when women were not allowed to attend military school, or go into combat. It wasn’t until the  mid-1970s when females were allowed to get military status; in 1976, the first group of women were admitted to a military academy.

10 Serve on a Jury

Whether or not you actually want to be called to jury duty, is one thing. But for women, it wasn’t always an option. Women were not allowed to serve on a federal jury until the Civil Rights Act of 1957; not until 1973 could women serve on a jury in all 50 states.

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