# What rights and privileges were women denied up until the last 50ish years **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 14, 2014, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-rights-and-privileges-were-women-denied-up-until-the-last-50ish-years/695552 "2014-08-14T22:53:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2014, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-rights-and-privileges-were-women-denied-up-until-the-last-50ish-years/695552/61 "2014-08-17T04:17:07Z")
> [@Merneith](#): > > I believe “strong pattern” is putting it rather optimistically but I don’t have time to look up cites just at the mo. It certainly happened in some households, I don’t doubt. I suspect it was more often the case that she would give him her money and then he would give whatever he felt was reasonable for “pin money” to her. Handling the bills was his job, in 19th century middle class houses (in the lower classes, everything was more ad hoc). > . I’ve no cite, but I too believe that the social expectation was that the man surrendered his paycheck to his wife, and was handed pocket money by her. I’m derive this belief from many examples of such in autobiographies, novels, etc…set in early 20th century. For instance, women all waiting outside on payday for their husbands working at the local mine/factory/whatever to get hold of the money before their husbands could drink too much of it. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2014, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-rights-and-privileges-were-women-denied-up-until-the-last-50ish-years/695552/62 "2014-08-17T05:18:03Z")
The pocket money thing again changed a lot by location. I’ve heard all kinds of stories about my relatives’ arrangements, and they didn’t always match social expectations. For the first few months of their marriage, my grandmother’s clients would pay her husband and he would dole out pin money… a specially ironic name when her profession was clothesmaker. Then he went to war and she became the main handler by default, and that’s how it stayed after the war. Some time later, they moved and he got the bank’s “booklet” again… until she realized that all those restaurant meals were coming from their savings! She took it back saying “you’re stealing our daughters’ future!” I know families where the wife never knew how much money her husband made, others were he said straightaway “I’m bad with money, you handle it,” and that was it. When my great-uncle moved to Brazil (1950s), they soon realized that if they gave the men their pay they wouldn’t be there on Monday (still drunk or hungover) and often their wives and children would go hungry. So they started giving the money to “the legitimate one” (the wife), who would split it up with the other women as a function of need, and the women would make sure the men were at the factory on Monday. They had to stop doing this because it turned out to be illegal, but he said it worked a lot better. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2014, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-rights-and-privileges-were-women-denied-up-until-the-last-50ish-years/695552/63 "2014-08-17T20:26:51Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > Which financial decisions made by men required their wife’s signature but didn’t involve the wife’s income or joint property?.. IIRC many states had laws on the book requiring a “privy exam” (ie the wife had to meet privately with a judge to give her consent) before her husband could sell the family home. > [@brujaja](#): > > _ **I could not wear pants to school until the seventh grade!** _ > > —And that was in 1976! My mother was only allowed to wear pants to school in the winter, and even then she had to change into a skirt or dress once she got there before homeroom. Most girls just wore them under their skirts. They were also allowed to wear pants during gym class. > [@Lacunae\_Matata](#): > > In the summer of 1967, my mother turned 17, and married my father about a month later - it wasn’t a “shotgun wedding,” no pregnancy or pregnancy scare, they chose to marry. My mother wasn’t allowed to return to school to finish her senior year, because… morals? I don’t know. (But there were at least two married men in what would have been Ma’s senior class.)… My mother did have a shotgun wedding & baby in the early '70s and wasn’t allowed back for her senior year (meanwhile the administration bent over backwards so the piece-of-shit she was married to could graduate and play on the football team). My grandmother eloped with my grandfather during WWII. She wasn’t pregnant, but he’d joined the Navy and was off to the Pacific. As displeased at my great-grandparents were with the marriage they foot tooth & nail so she could finish HS. They had to get a doctor’s certificate that she wasn’t pregnant, and apparently at one point my great-grandfather accused the superintendent of being an enemy sympathiser over the way he was treating a military wife (both men being WWI veterans). > [@Lacunae\_Matata](#): > > She refused to attend urology classes, because the subject matter was “unladylike.”) In a similar vein, even after graduating from college and medical school, when Dr. K entered her residency, her first assignment was to the “colored” VD clinic at that hospital - apparently, TPTB thought that she’d refuse, and that they’d drive her away from medicine… One of my great aunts went to medical school in the '30s. She too was assigned to the “Colored wards” for her residency. At least she wasn’t expected to serve as a model her male classmates (for OB/GYN stuff they either hired prostitutes, or brought a poor Black woman from the maternity clinic in). ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2014, 11:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-rights-and-privileges-were-women-denied-up-until-the-last-50ish-years/695552/64 "2014-08-18T11:32:02Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > Which financial decisions made by men required their wife’s signature but didn’t involve the wife’s income or joint property? > > The only ones I can think of in the US involve retirement benefits- and that’s a fairly recent [development](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/12/business/retirementspecial/spouses-consent-is-required-to-change-retirement-account-beneficiary.html) Right off of the top of my head, is the leasing/selling of land for oil rights. Legally, there may/may not be a requirement, but, the company’s wouldn’t lease without the spouse’s signatures. It’s a matter of practicality, not necessarily the law, but, the company’s would hold fast to it. Ergo, required. Most of these, I suggest, are practical, not legal. If it was enforced, as such, it was a matter of contract law, not a male-domination law prohibiting the oppressed female from exercising their rights. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Woo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7c8e57/32.png) [@Dr.Woo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Woo)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2014, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-rights-and-privileges-were-women-denied-up-until-the-last-50ish-years/695552/65 "2014-08-18T23:43:15Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > My family moved to Camarillo, CA, in 1962. I’m told that in 1963, my mother asked to receive in-patient treatment at the state mental hospital (perhaps you’ve heard of it). I think it had to do with the loss of my youngest brother to SIDS. She was turned down because my dad withheld his permission. > > It’s not impossible to fathom his rationale – there were seven of us kids (all younger than twelve) who needed a parent in the house, and he didn’t really have anyone else to call on to fill in for her for any length of time. But when she sought treatment in 1991, he just had to suck it up for two or three weeks. Which he did, I hasten to add, even though it was very hard on him. > > The point is that in the intervening twenty-seven years, norms shifted to the point where asking for his permission would no longer even occur to a mental health professional. There were less than 4,000 people living in Camarillo in 1962. You and I were two of them. 🙂 I’m sorry that happened to your mom. Shortly after she graduated high school in 1934, my mother attempted to register for a night class in drafting. She got a lot of lip from the registrar for being a female, and they argued a bit about whether or not women could learn to draw straight lines, and finally resolved that if the instructor agreed to the onerous task of trying to teach a woman, the registrar would allow it. The instructor did agree, my mom took the course, and then embarked on an 18-year long career designing refrigeration systems and other things. Refrigeration stuff was for York Corporation, Other Things were for the US Department of Defense. For every stinking job, every transfer, every promotion, _everything_, she had to overcome objections about her being a woman. “We have no women’s restroom”. “The men like to use rough language in the drafting room - we don’t want them to feel stifled”. “How will you get to work? You’re not saying you’ll take a public bus!?!” She told me once she made about 40% of what the men did. She asked her boss about it and was told “Those men have families to support!”, but when she asked if she (an unmarried woman) would get a raise if she had children, there was NO LAUGHING. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2014, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-rights-and-privileges-were-women-denied-up-until-the-last-50ish-years/695552/66 "2014-08-19T02:45:03Z")
Most prestigious colleges and universities in the U.S. were men-only 50 years ago. Many such institutions had ‘sister colleges’ of somewhat lesser prestige. A degree from Radcliffe wasn’t the same as a degree from Harvard, nor one from Mary Washington equivalent to one from U.Va. My alma mater, Trinity College (the one in Hartford) went coed in 1969, and for several years after that, maintained a policy where at least 1000 of its undergrads (out of ~1600) had to be male. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2014, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-rights-and-privileges-were-women-denied-up-until-the-last-50ish-years/695552/67 "2014-08-19T05:12:06Z")
> [@Merneith](#): > > Sure and that’s probably true today although blue collar jobs, per se, are not necessarily as common as previously. But by career, I meant not just educated professions, but any form of work which had opportunities for advancement and managerial power. It’s the difference between being a worker and being someone with prospects. Dressmaker was, in many countries, a good career choice for a woman, in the sense in which you speak. Depending on whether she chose to specialize or not and work for others or for herself, she could work part time setting her own hours (something not possible for a factory worker), she could be a manager and teach her own apprentices… My own grandma only had apprentices once, preferring to work on her own (she’s a lousy teacher, being one of those people who look over your shoulder while you’re doing the dishes - or rather under your shoulder, since she’s very short), but I know several ateliers which are all women; one of them has five full time, on location workers and seven specialists which take their work home. And the specializations are all kinds of things: embroiderer, trousermaker, cuffsmaker, ironer. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2014, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-rights-and-privileges-were-women-denied-up-until-the-last-50ish-years/695552/68 "2014-08-19T14:39:45Z")
A story from _1976_: my parents were in the final stages of getting their divorce, and my mother was buying a house of her own. But her name on one of the documents - can’t remember, at this much later date, whether it was the deed or the mortgage - was insufficient. But adding my name and signature made everything kosher, despite the fact that I was an unemployed 22 year old with no assets. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2014, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-rights-and-privileges-were-women-denied-up-until-the-last-50ish-years/695552/69 "2014-08-19T14:56:11Z")
Peggy Seeger (Pete’s sister) summed the whole thing up nicely in [I’m Gonna Be An Engineer](http://www.robingreenstein.com/iow_2/lyrics_engineer.html) > [@](#): > > But now that times are harder, and my Jimmy’s got the sack > I went down to Vickers, they were glad to have me back > But I’m a third-class citizen, my wages tell me that > And I’m a first-class engineer > > The boss he says, We pay you as a lady > You only got the job cause I can’t afford a man > With you I keep the profits high as may be > You’re just a cheaper pair of hands > You’ve got one fault, you’re a woman > You’re not worth the equal pay > A bitch or a tart, you’re nothing but heart > Shallow and vain, you got no brain > You even go down the drain like a lady today > > I listened to my mother and I joined a typing pool > I listened to my lover and I put him through his school > But if I listen to the boss, I’m just a bloody fool > And an underpaid engineer > > I’ve been a sucker ever since I was a baby > As a daughter, as a wife, as a mother and a dear > But I’ll fight them as a woman, not a lady > I’ll fight them as an engineer! And there was a time a police officer could only arrest a man for beating his wife if they actually saw him do it. They would arrive at a house to find the woman bloody, bruised and battered and they could not do a thing about it. That changed when a few abused woman took the law into their own hands and killed a few of their abusers. Now if there is evidence of abuse, the cops have to take the abuser away and the state files charges. I’ve heard men saw the even if O.J. did it, Nicole Brown Simpson deserved what she got because she (a divorced woman, mind you) was cheating on him. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2014, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-rights-and-privileges-were-women-denied-up-until-the-last-50ish-years/695552/70 "2014-08-19T15:14:29Z")
I had problems in the late 1980s. I wanted to be first on the mortgage with my first husband (at least I could be on the mortgage). I was the primary wage earner, it made sense. The bank couldn’t do it - the way the system was set up a mortgage in the names of two people were husband and wife and his name went first (what gender has to do with anything, I don’t know). That shouldn’t be a big deal, right? Except when we divorced he moved out and I needed to get the statements - all the statements got forwarded to him - because he had a forwarding address at the post office. It wasn’t just the mortgage - most of the shared bills we had listed him first. For years I had problems getting my own bills. I got remarried in the 1990s and sold that house (on which I’d managed to become the only owner through a quit claim deed - that didn’t solve the mortgage issue though - I had to do that through a refi) and bought a new one with the love of my life. I think I’m first on all the paperwork 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2014, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-rights-and-privileges-were-women-denied-up-until-the-last-50ish-years/695552/71 "2014-08-19T15:18:59Z")
When I first went into real estate in 1982, the form contracts used was “John Smith and H/W (his wife) Mary”! I put an end to that really quickly by pointing out it was not only illegal, but incredibly stupid! ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2014, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-rights-and-privileges-were-women-denied-up-until-the-last-50ish-years/695552/72 "2014-08-19T15:29:05Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > When I first went into real estate in 1982, the form contracts used was “John Smith and H/W (his wife) Mary”! I put an end to that really quickly by pointing out it was not only illegal, but incredibly stupid! That one might not actually be stupid ( although it \*is \*stupid to insist that it be “John and his wife” rather than “Mary and her husband”) because some states have a form of ownership only available to married couples (tenancy by the entirety) which is different from the joint ownership with right of survivorship that I could get when buying a house with my sister ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2014, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-rights-and-privileges-were-women-denied-up-until-the-last-50ish-years/695552/73 "2014-08-19T15:33:05Z")
In high school we had to take tests to determine our best future job. My brother scored extremely high in math. He was told to go into engineering. I scored higher than him. I was told to go into teaching! ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2014, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-rights-and-privileges-were-women-denied-up-until-the-last-50ish-years/695552/74 "2014-08-19T15:43:40Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > Which is why it shocks me how folks can be so quick to hand-wave away racism and sexism today. Or say that the lack of parity between white men and women/minorities is due to intrinsic deficiencies, not systemic biases and discrimination. We really are a stupid people doomed to repeat past mistakes. This is called _presentism_–applying the standards of the present to the past. It is always wrong. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2014, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-rights-and-privileges-were-women-denied-up-until-the-last-50ish-years/695552/75 "2014-08-19T17:08:04Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > This is called _presentism_–applying the standards of the present to the past. It is always wrong. Bullshit. No more wrong than it’s cultural imperialism to be against Al Queda stoning women or female general mutilation or selling your kids as slaves. All people long for freedom, dignity, health and economic opportunity- everywhere through all of history. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2014, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-rights-and-privileges-were-women-denied-up-until-the-last-50ish-years/695552/76 "2014-08-19T17:20:09Z")
I think you’ll be very interested in this article, [THE REVOLUTION FOR WOMEN IN LAW AND PUBLIC POLICY](http://www.jofreeman.com/lawandpolicy/revlaw.htm#Top) which details the legal changes which occurred in the 60s and 70s. > [@](#): > > A revolution in public policy toward women happened in the 1960s and 1970s. Beginning with passage of the equal pay act in 1963 and the prohibition against sex discrimination in employment in 1964, Congress added numerous laws to the books which altered the thrust of public policy toward women from one of protection to one of equal opportunity. While implementation is incomplete, and equal opportunity by itself will not eradicate women’s secondary position in society, the importance of this fundamental change should not be underestimated. > > Parallel to this development the Supreme Court fundamentally altered its interpretation of women’s position in society. **Until 1971, the judicial approach to women was that her rights and responsibilities, opportunities and obligations, were essentially determined by her position in the family – her role as a wife and mother. Women were viewed first and foremost as members of a dependent class whose individual rights were subservient to their class position. From this perspective virtually all laws which classified by sex were Constitutional. Today most such laws have been found unconstitutional.** The remaining laws and practices that treat the sexes differently are subject to more searching scrutiny than in the past, and the Court is particularly disapproving of rationalizations for them that encourage dependency. (My emphasis.) The article shows the basis for the legal discrimination originated in English Common Law: > [@](#): > > Under the English common law a woman lost her legal identity upon marriage; it merged into that of her husband under the feudal doctrine of coverture. The result was succinctly stated by Justice Black in 1966 as resting "on the old common-law fiction that the husband and wife are one…[and] that…one is the husband."2 The consequences were described by Edward Mansfield when he wrote the first major American analysis of The Legal Rights, Liabilities and Duties of Women in 1845. > > ``` > It appears that the husband's control over the person of his wife is so complete that he may claim her society altogether; that he may reclaim her if she goes away or is detained by others; that he may use constraint upon her liberty to prevent her going away, or to prevent improper conduct; that he may maintain suits for injuries to her person; that she cannot sue alone; and that she cannot execute a deed or valid conveyance without the concurrence of her husband. In most respects she loses the power of personal independence, and altogether that of separate action in legal matters.3 > > ``` > > The merger of husband and wife into one person resulted in many common law principles that seem strange today. In the criminal law a husband and wife could not be guilty of conspiring together or of stealing one another’s property. Husbands could not rape their wives. If a wife committed a criminal act in her husband’s presence, it was assumed to be under his direction; he was the guilty party, not her. In the civil law, neither spouse could maintain a tort action (a civil wrong) against the other, nor could either testify against the other. A husband, but not a wife, could sue a third party for loss of consortium (services, society, companionship and affection) resulting from injuries to the spouse. The article is eye opening, and a reminder of the legal discrimination codified into the various laws: > [@Jury duty](#): > > By 1965 Alabama, Mississippi and South Carolina still completely excluded women and in only twenty-one states were women eligible on the same basis as men. In eighteen states and the District of Columbia, women were exempted based solely on their sex, in eight states, the exemption was limited to women with family responsibilities. It was not until the Civil Rights Act of 1957 that all citizens were deemed qualified to sit on federal juries, regardless of state law, and even this law was not implemented until the Federal Jury Selection and Service Act of 1968 specifically prohibited exclusion on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, or economic states. [quote=employment opportunities[In 1919, all federal civil-service examinations were finally opened to women, but each department head could specify the sex of those he wished to hire for any position. This was not changed until 1962.[/quote] The account shows how SCOTUS ruling evolved over this critical period, from looking at laws through a rational basis, to Intermediate Scrutiny. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2014, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-rights-and-privileges-were-women-denied-up-until-the-last-50ish-years/695552/77 "2014-08-19T19:07:16Z")
My mother’s medical school class was 50% female (in 1965). This was in India, though, which is remarkably progressive in some respects and horribly backward in others. However, when my parents went to the UK in 1972 physician field was maybe 10% female. > [@even\_sven](#): > > This thread is enlightening. Just last week I got called out in a thread for saying I had no interest in going back in time since I can’t think of any era where being a woman wouldn’t suck. And even here, we have people claiming it wasn’t so bad to have no right to own assets, make essential decisions, be essentially dependent on your husbands charity, etc. > > Can we please just agree these things sucked? But you didn’t have to worry your pretty little head about such things. Isn’t that a fair trade? :dubious: As a secure man, I can’t imagine living in a world where I was supposed to be permanently in charge of another adult who was capable of taking care of herself. It would be like owning a slave. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Filbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/filbert/32/3433_2.png) [@Filbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Filbert)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2014, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-rights-and-privileges-were-women-denied-up-until-the-last-50ish-years/695552/78 "2014-08-19T19:26:16Z")
> [@brujaja](#): > > _ **I could not wear pants to school until the seventh grade!** _ > > —And that was in 1976! My school, a state- run girls’ school in the UK, finally added trousers as an alternative to skirts in the uniform, which was compulsory until age 16, two years after I left. Tp be fully accurate, Muslim girls were permitted to wear trousers plus the normal skirt, adding a little casual religious discrimination in to the mix, as well as meaning they had approved uniform trousers available. The rule was dropped in 2003. Incidently, the change happened immediately after the headmistress I had left, and a new male headteacher started. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c57346/32.png) [@Little\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Pig)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2014, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-rights-and-privileges-were-women-denied-up-until-the-last-50ish-years/695552/79 "2014-08-19T22:03:34Z")
> [@Alley\_Dweller](#): > > That reminds me, Chicago used to have two “technical” high schools. One served students who lived on the north side and one served students who lived on the south side. Originally they were founded as schools for training in the “manual” arts such as carpentry, but in the 1930s morphed into college preparatory schools for the best students in the system. Girls were not allowed into the north side technical school until 1971 (there was no option to attend the south side school for girls living on the north side). But even then the school board had to be dragged kicking and screaming by a judge. It was feared that the girls would lower the high academic standards of the school. > > Drafting was a popular course in all the high schools. Even if a student did not make it to college, there was always a job for a good draftsman. Girls were not allowed to take drafting. I think I remember this. The north side school was Lane Tech., yes? ---
**Author:** ![Alley\_Dweller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alley_dweller/32/430_2.png) [@Alley\_Dweller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alley_Dweller)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2014, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-rights-and-privileges-were-women-denied-up-until-the-last-50ish-years/695552/80 "2014-08-19T22:19:14Z")
> [@Little\_Pig](#): > > I think I remember this. The north side school was Lane Tech., yes? Yes. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-rights-and-privileges-were-women-denied-up-until-the-last-50ish-years/695552.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-rights-and-privileges-were-women-denied-up-until-the-last-50ish-years/695552.md?page=5)