# 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:** 15\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2014, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-rights-and-privileges-were-women-denied-up-until-the-last-50ish-years/695552/81 "2014-08-19T22:27:09Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > …In the late 19th century, one of my great-great-greatgrandmothers was able to sell her deceased husband’s “Notary Public office” and use the money on a successful bid for the position of “innkeeper at the train station” (she’d inherited the office but couldn’t hold it, as she didn’t have the required law degree nor would she have been allowed to get one). Her granddaughters wouldn’t have been allowed to post such a bid personally, they would have needed a man to do it for them… Could she have hired an attorney to run the “Notary Public office”? E.g. “I’ll own the office, you run it, you keep X% of the earnings.” or “I’ll own the office, and pay you Y pesetas a week to run it.” Also, were these offices “for sale” in a hush-hush way, or was buying and selling those kinds of positions considered fully legitimate? > [@Nava](#): > > …In the 1910s, a “_tribunal de reválida_” from Salamanca University was very surprised to discover that a certain R. who’d been doing his coursework long-distance and needed to pass his _reválida_ (an oral exam “revalidating” the long-distance work) was a large blonde called Rosa. They rapidly searched all available regulations and discovered that, under a 16th century law (thank you, Queen Joanna), public universities were actually open to women. My great-aunt passed the exam… Quite interesting! I’ve had a dream for a while of finding some ancient loophole and getting a significant benefit. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2014, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-rights-and-privileges-were-women-denied-up-until-the-last-50ish-years/695552/82 "2014-09-12T00:21:33Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > 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 And, again, in the contracts which I read in the Landman business, it would also have “X and Y, her husband”. It wasn’t the Iron Booted Female Conspiracy that did it-it was that X was the owner, and Y, her husband, and could later fuck up the works if he contested the payments in some divorce action. ---
**Author:** ![jabiru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/bbce88/32.png) [@jabiru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jabiru)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2014, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-rights-and-privileges-were-women-denied-up-until-the-last-50ish-years/695552/83 "2014-09-12T00:51:59Z")
> [@Marion\_Wormer](#): > > When my mother bought cars up to the 70’s, even though she had an income and paid a mortgage, her father had to cosign loans for her. I don’t know what would have happened if she had no man to do that for her. Same here. I bought my first car in 1975, when I was 21 (turning 22 later that year) and had been working for five years. My father had to co-sign my loan application. He was an unemployed alcoholic but was clearly more reliable than I. ---
**Author:** ![GrumpyBunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bc8723/32.png) [@GrumpyBunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrumpyBunny)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2014, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-rights-and-privileges-were-women-denied-up-until-the-last-50ish-years/695552/84 "2014-09-12T01:40:24Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > I recently watched CNN’S series “The Sixties”. I’ve always known intellectually that times were different then and that it generally sucked for women and black people, but the documentary has made it more real to me. You should hear my reaction when I hear 20-something college-educated middle-class women say they “don’t need feminism”. :smack: I’m actually not able to watch some TV shows because of how women are treated in the era. I yell and throw things. (Then again, I yell and throw things when I see women in current movies/tv doing the “helpless” routine while the Big Strong Hero Fixes All Scary Stuff For Her. [Luckily I only throw pillows, at the chair across the room.] ) ---
**Author:** ![carnut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnut/32/3531_2.png) [@carnut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnut)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2014, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-rights-and-privileges-were-women-denied-up-until-the-last-50ish-years/695552/85 "2014-09-12T01:45:29Z")
> [@Alley\_Dweller](#): > > There were a lot of careers for women 50 years ago: Shop clerk, phone operator, receptionist, seamstress, factory labor, garment worker, policewoman, women’s prison guard, social worker, librarian, waitress, actress, hair dresser, cosmetologist. It’s pretty ludicrous to say that women could only be a nurse, teacher, or secretary. I agree with this. Lots of women held jobs, but the media, education, and marketing world, basically pretended this wasn’t the truth. Instead, they pushed “Father Knows Best” and other stereotypes and the public fell for it. There was great social pressure for women in the middle and upper classes to not work. In the working class, it was a goal for a man to not have his wife work, because her doing so implied that he couldn’t earn enough money for them to survive himself, neverminding that she was bored with being at home all day. Working class women have always been a vital, if unrecognized (and often unpaid) part of the work force, even in the Middle Ages and in Biblical times as well. Why weren’t women workers often accurately portrayed? Because the pen that created the stories and the paintbrush that portrayed women was wielded by men. ---
**Author:** ![Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tastes_of_chocolate/32/3232_2.png) [@Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tastes_of_Chocolate)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2014, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-rights-and-privileges-were-women-denied-up-until-the-last-50ish-years/695552/86 "2014-09-12T06:37:26Z")
In the 1950s, my mother was not allowed to get a college degree in chemistry. She had to get one into textile chemistry. In the 1970s, she tried to rent a car while on a business trip, and had to leave a large cash deposit, because “Women run away from their husbands, and use this credit card to get a car”. Who cares that she was travelling on a business trip for a company she started and owned. And on the funny side, in 1997, my SO and I (unmarried) signed our first mortgage. He was listed as a bachelor, I was listed as a spinster. I wish I’d kept that paperwork. It was to damned funny. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2014, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-rights-and-privileges-were-women-denied-up-until-the-last-50ish-years/695552/87 "2014-09-12T06:58:37Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > Could she have hired an attorney to run the “Notary Public office”? E.g. “I’ll own the office, you run it, you keep X% of the earnings.” or “I’ll own the office, and pay you Y pesetas a week to run it.” > > Also, were these offices “for sale” in a hush-hush way, or was buying and selling those kinds of positions considered fully legitimate? No, she could not hold the position and what she sold was the office itself, not the job. It’s somewhat different now, but Notary Offices are not “just set it up” like a regular lawyer’s firm, in Spain: even though they are self-employed, Notaries need to have passed a special State Exam, received several years’ worth of training after the exam, and how many can be in a given location is defined by the central government. The government distributes them around but does not provide them with physical offices. Upon her husband’s death, she inherited the office itself but couldn’t inherit “the business”; she was able to sell the set of rooms and her husband’s folders and lists of contacts to the person taking over. Having to find a different location, set it up with appropriate furniture, put up his shingle and get anybody who used the Notary’s services regularly without those folders would have taken an enormous amount of money and time; it is a lot more convenient to take over another Notary’s office if possible than to set one up. People already knew where “the Notary” was, having to look for it elsewhere would not have worked so well. My apologies, I was unclear the first time. ---
**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:** [September 12, 2014, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-rights-and-privileges-were-women-denied-up-until-the-last-50ish-years/695552/88 "2014-09-12T15:28:10Z")
What about what should be the greatest right of all? The right to keep the child you carried for nine months and gave birth to, regardless of your marital status, without being branded with a Scarlet A? There was no help for a pregnant unmarried woman in those days. None. She was seen as an “unwed mother,” and the idea of single parenthood (or an unwed father) did not exist. Homes for unwed mothers would take them in and force or pressure them into giving up their babies for adoption. Any woman giving birth outside of marriage was considered “spoiled goods” and unmarriageable. ---
**Author:** ![ZPG\_Zealot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e47c2d/32.png) [@ZPG\_Zealot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZPG_Zealot)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2014, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-rights-and-privileges-were-women-denied-up-until-the-last-50ish-years/695552/89 "2014-09-12T15:44:38Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > What about what should be the greatest right of all? The right to keep the child you carried for nine months and gave birth to, regardless of your marital status, without being branded with a Scarlet A? There was no help for a pregnant unmarried woman in those days. None. She was seen as an “unwed mother,” and the idea of single parenthood (or an unwed father) did not exist. Homes for unwed mothers would take them in and force or pressure them into giving up their babies for adoption. Any woman giving birth outside of marriage was considered “spoiled goods” and unmarriageable. Actually, that only applied to white, at least upper working class, women whose children were considered adoptable. Unwed mothers have always been an accepted feature of the socioeconomic poor. The low standard living conditions available to them have until recently always been one of the primary ways the middle and upper classes discourage unwed motherhood. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2014, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-rights-and-privileges-were-women-denied-up-until-the-last-50ish-years/695552/90 "2014-09-14T05:02:19Z")
> [@Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](#): > > He was listed as a bachelor, I was listed as a spinster. I wish I’d kept that paperwork. It was to damned funny. When I was doing Land work, about 5 years ago, I would occasionally slip ‘spinster’ into a Mineral Ownership Report. I kept trying to find a way to put ‘old maid’ or something like that in, but, I never could find the right way/context to do it. ---
**Author:** ![Pai325](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c68b51/32.png) [@Pai325](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pai325)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2014, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-rights-and-privileges-were-women-denied-up-until-the-last-50ish-years/695552/91 "2014-09-14T05:14:31Z")
> [@brujaja](#): > > _ **I could not wear pants to school until the seventh grade!** _ > > —And that was in 1976! I could not wear pants to school until college. After I was married, the bank would not let me open a savings account unless my husband was on it, too. The McDonald’s in the next town (there wasn’t one in our town) would not hire girls. Boys only. ---
**Author:** ![LiliesOfTheField](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c0e974/32.png) [@LiliesOfTheField](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LiliesOfTheField)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2014, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-rights-and-privileges-were-women-denied-up-until-the-last-50ish-years/695552/92 "2014-09-14T17:16:01Z")
My father had an “unpronouncible” immigrant’s last name. He refused to Anglicize it for political reasons. My mother took the Anglicized version of his name for practical reasons, as did her children. In the 1970s, she was given all manner of grief about this, and even though it was clear that the names were similar enough to be essentially the same, she was underhandedly insulted by being accused of being a feminist or living in sin. Or simply causing undue confusion. I remember when the California Supreme Court affirmed that it was legal for a married woman to take the last name of her choosing, she began to carry a newspaper article around with her, taking it out, and unfolding it in front of questioners. Even as a young child I thought it was the stupidest thing that a court had to decide whether it was okay for a woman to have her own name. It really wasn’t that long ago, although some of you youngers may not feel that way. ---
**Author:** ![blindboyard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blindboyard/32/2833_2.png) [@blindboyard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blindboyard)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2014, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-rights-and-privileges-were-women-denied-up-until-the-last-50ish-years/695552/93 "2014-09-14T20:57:25Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > I believe up until 50-60 years ago women were locked out of pretty much all careers except nursing, teaching and secretary. Is that true (were those the only options)? Before the first world war the largest career in this country was domestic servant, which employed about a quarter of the female population and a fair share of the male. Before the nineteenth century I don’t think there were any restrictions on female careers, other than the early modern ban on female actors. By the beginning of the twentieth century women were forbidden from being doctors and from some other careers. Before the modern period most women worked in the same jobs as their husbands, tilled the same earth, worked the same trades. Women were forbidden, part-way through the nineteenth century, from working in coal-mines, also. > [@](#): > > Did women get a share of a parents estate when the parent died or did it all go to male siblings? If the woman did get a share, did it go to her husband? That depends on what was in the will, of course. If there was no will it would, at least in this country, all go to the older son, if there was one, or the oldest daughter if there wasn’t. In this country women were not, before the twentieth century, even allowed to give their property to their husbands as a gift, in case they were acting under duress, to it wouldn’t go to the husband, no. > [@](#): > > What about visitation rights when there was a divorce? How were those determined? As usual, it depends when we’re talking about. Until the nineteenth century this country gave custody to the father by default, thereafter it was reverse and men who were divorced were expected to pay maintenance. > [@](#): > > Did a woman even have the right/ability to request a divorce or could only the husband do that? By the end of the nineteenth century either could initiate a divorce on the grounds of cruelty or abandonment. In practice, however, most men couldn’t afford divorces while women could obtain for a much lower price, which they could require to be paid by their husbands. > [@](#): > > What about signing a lease on an apartment, getting a car loan, credit card, student loan, etc could women do that by themselves? Credit cards and student loans are quite recent developments, as are cars let alone car loans. Women could certainly own property or lease property, although there may have been some practical limitations, as opposed to legal restrictions. > [@](#): > > I know spousal rape wasn’t a crime up until about 40 years ago, which was surprising when I first heard about that. Its not just that the crime wasn’t taken seriously, it was the idea that there was no crime recognized by law. The legal reasoning was that consent was implicit in the marriage vows, hence no rape in marriage. Inicentally it is still legal for a woman to rape her husband today, as the law of rape doesn’t recognise men as potential victims of rape by women. > [@](#): > > I assume the same applied to domestic violence, it wasn’t even codified as a crime. > > What about female on male domestic violence, was that considered a crime? William Blackstone wrote in the eighteenth century that it had once been legal to beat ones wife, although he didn’t give any examples or any information as to when it was legal. He explains that men were then held responsible for the crimes of their wives, and therefore were given the right to “chastise” their wives, but that was long in the past even in his day. Certainly there are cases of men punished both for committing and being victim of what we now call domestic violence or spousal abuse as long ago as the seventeenth century. ---
**Author:** ![blindboyard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blindboyard/32/2833_2.png) [@blindboyard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blindboyard)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2014, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-rights-and-privileges-were-women-denied-up-until-the-last-50ish-years/695552/94 "2014-09-14T21:09:36Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > The women working in factories thing for the most part didn’t occur until WWII, which actually did quite a bit to give women a financial freedom they mostly had not had until then. > > Well, OK, you had women working in textile mills - because they could be paid less than men. But WWII was really the first time you had a lot of women working outside the home. Go Rosie! In Britain women were always a large percentage of factory workers, especially in mills. Women were thought to be less likely to form unions and strike. Textile mills were the largest industry in the country at the time. As mentioned women were also employed in large numbers in the first world war. The nineteenth century wasn’t characterised, other than in the upper classes, by homebound women. > [@Merneith](#): > > It’s true. Women have always worked outside the home. What you said up thread, about women having careers - that’s where you’re wrong. Men had a careers. Women had jobs. Women’s jobs were subordinate positions and grunt work, and even then, their work was often labelled as “helping out” or “making ends meet”. And women got home, there wasn’t any wife waiting for them to cook them supper, wash their dirty clothes, and keep the kids out of their hair. > > The real difference of course is that women, in addition to jobs, had children and housework and a husband who expected to be given control of her paycheck. They didn’t earn as much money, they didn’t have management opportunities, they weren’t offered partnerships. There was no career track for women. They could maybe get a job managing the other ladies in the typist pool but managing the men? No. > > Women could be workers. They couldn’t be the boss, not even of their own homes. It you’re looking at management and partnerships, those weren’t available to the vast majority of men either. As noted by others, women were generally in control of the money and the home. As for children, obviously the men had children too. I’m sure you want to believe your cartoonish version of history where big villainous men come home to women working their fingers to the bone, then beat them for burning dinner and beat their childrne, but it’s bullshit. A job’s a job. > [@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 refer you to “The Making of the English Working Class” by EP Thompson. > [@](#): > > But whichever one was the more common, either way, it was optional on his part. He didn’t have to give her anything. Legally, her position was really not much different than the child’s. It’s a not-inconsiderable form of screwage to know that all of your money is dependent on the goodwill of another person. Belfort Bax, that pre-War socialist, records an incident of a man being dragged off a boat to Canada by the police and taken back to his home to be forced by the law to support his wife. So no, giving your money to your wife was not optional, it was her legal right and the police would enforce it. > [@KarlGrenze](#): > > Only if you belong to some groups. If you belong to the _wrong_ group, then you could even get them tied if you didn’t ask for it! Granted, this may not fit in the 50ish years time frame. Eugenics, you mean? Was done as late as the 70s in some American states. Happened to people of both sexes, of course. > [@](#): > > As to how easy or not, as you say, it is in the U.S. And even there in some regions. In certain areas, regions, and countries, it is not uncommon for young women with few children to opt for sterilization. Of the woman, usually, not of the men (of course). Of course, women can’t opt for sterilisation of other people. > [@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? Women never had “no right to own assets”, at least in English-speaking countries. I’ve covered the husband’s legal obligation to provide for his wife. I’m not sure what essential decisions you’re talking about. ---
**Author:** ![Lorene89095](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a8b319/32.png) [@Lorene89095](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lorene89095)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2014, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-rights-and-privileges-were-women-denied-up-until-the-last-50ish-years/695552/95 "2014-09-14T23:01:44Z")
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