Here’s your bill!

The bill from our date night out came and my wife grabbed it, took a quick peak and then handed her credit card to the waiter. She was taking me out for my birthday and wanted me to enjoy myself.

We had a great time together. The Maryland Crab Cake was a special treat.

Later that night, I thought about the simple act of my wife giving the waiter her card. She thought nothing about it, neither of us did, but not that long ago, it would have been a different experience for our mothers and other women like them.

You’ve come a long way

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974, which protected women’s right to access credit. Before the law, a woman applying for a credit card could be asked a barrage of questions: Was she married? Did she plan to have children? Many banks required single, divorced or widowed women to bring their fathers or brothers along with them to cosign for a loan or credit card. It gets worse. Some banks discounted the wages of women by as much as 50 percent when calculating their credit card limits.

Fifty years is a long time, but here’s some perspective. A quick search found Skittles were invented in the U.K. in 1974, but didn’t hit shelves in the U.S. until 1979. The Rubik’s Cube and Post-it Notes both turn 50 this year. The crime classic, The Godfather Part II; Mel Brooks unique take on the Western, Blazing Saddles; and The Man with the Golden Gun, Roger Moore’s second go as Bond, were all released in 1974. The Rockford Files and Happy Days ruled the small screen.

What else turns fifty this year, a little thing called the Watergate impeachment hearings for President Richard Nixon rocked the news and later that year, President Ford pardoned Nixon for any crimes he may have committed as president. I mention these events not to make fun or light of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974. I highlight them to give the act some perspective in our own modern-day lives.

Positives and negatives

Credit can be a tricky thing. Too much and you quickly find yourself underwater, too little and you can’t buy what you need. Most financial advisors believe the act gave women greater financial independence and decision making. For the first time, women in toxic or unhealthy relationships had more tools at their disposal to escape.

Here’s why the act means so much to me. My mother as a young woman in the late 1950s and early 1960s would have had few options. As I’ve mentioned in various posts over the years, my mother grew up Amish and left the church in her teens. She was walking a tightrope, she didn’t have much of an umbrella to help save her. Yes, she had a job and the generosity of a young “English” family who let her stay in an extra room, but I’m sure her emergency fund was limited and a medical emergency or an unforeseen expense and she would’ve been in hot water.

Somehow she survived. She would later meet my father and have three kids. Things worked out for her, but I can’t help but think about other women who weren’t so lucky.

The numbers tell the story

I’m the last person in the world who should write this post. I have my own biases and have been known to stick my foot firmly in my mouth a time or two. But, I feel compelled to point out that women are still economically disadvantaged. Though the gender pay gap has narrowed since the Equal Pay Act, women still earn just $0.82 for every dollar a man makes, according to 2020 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Saying all that, however, women have come a long way. McKinsey & Company reported last year that women now control a third of total U.S. household financial assets, which is more than $10 trillion. Also, the average credit score for women in the U.S. is 704 compared to 705 for men.

And oh yea, my mom never did become a big credit card user. Like most people in her generation, she eschewed credit for cold hard cash. When I was a kid, she more often than not paid with cash, but it was always there if she needed.

As it should have been!

Related Posts:

—An Amish girl leaves home to create a new way of life

—A tribute to strong women

—What my life might have looked like