r/AskWomen is besoming crazy as well

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[–]MarkTwainiac 15 insightful - 1 fun15 insightful - 0 fun16 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Drives me crazy too. In the US, it was legal for banks to refuse to issue credit cards to women without a male co-signer until 1974; women could legally be fired from jobs for getting pregnant until 1978; courts only granted women the right to sue for sexual harassment in the workplace in 1977, but it took until 1980 for the EEOC to define and recognize workplace sexual harassment; and rape of women by their husbands didn't become illegal in every state in the union until 1993. I personally remember when these changes occurred coz they all happened within my own adult lifetime.

When I was growing up in the US in the 1960s, girls in most US public schools not only didn't have any school sports - many didn't even get PE - and many elite universities such as most of the Ivy League didn't admit females as undergrads. Outside of school, girls & women were barred from many activities, including distance running. And since abortion was illegal, girls & unmarried women who got pregnant - as many did - faced terrible prospects and were shamed and ostracized to extents unimaginable by those who today whine about "misgendering," preferred pronouns, micro-aggressions and claim nobody's ever been as "marginalized" and "discriminated" against as trans people.

The first US public schools to permit girls to wear trousers to school only began doing so in 1970, when I was in 10th grade; and women only got the right to wear trousers to office jobs later on in the 70s. In the mid-1970s when finished college (in the first class of women at a previously all-male Ivy), there were still numerical caps limiting the numbers of women admitted to US graduate programs in fields such as law, medicine, business, architecture and engineering.

The world has changed enormously to the benefit of girls and women since I was a kid and young woman - mostly coz women, and some men - fought hard for it to change. But now so many young people, including many women, seem to think the freedoms and rights they grew up enjoying always existed, and they seem more than willing to play a part in eroding the women's rights and freedoms previous generations paid dearly for. It breaks my heart and pisses me off no end!

[–]forwardback 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I also remember changes made in my lifetime, in the US. Young women should NOT take for granted!

I remember playing 6on6 women's basketball;

1970 five player full court game adopted for women's basketball

1972 The Supreme Court upholds the right to use birth control by unmarried couples. (SC ruled married couples had this right in 1965, 1960 was first FDA approval of BC pill)

1973 * college scholarships offered to female athletes for the first time

Jan. 22, 1973: In its landmark 7-2 Roe v. Wade decision, the U.S. Supreme Court declares that the Constitution protects a woman’s legal right to an abortion.

Also in 1973: The Supreme Court, in a separate ruling, bans sex-segregated "help wanted" advertising. (Yes, this was a thing! Help Wanted, Man and Help Wanted, Woman separate columns!)

1974 – Housing discrimination on the basis of sex and credit discrimination against women are outlawed by Congress. (I purchased my own house and property as a single woman thanks to this historic legislation!)

1975 – The Supreme Court denies states the right to exclude women from juries.

1981 – Sandra Day O'Connor becomes first woman to serve on the Supreme Court.