Bringing Us to Today
Did you know that at one time, companies could change the title of a job so they could pay a woman less than a man? A court case in 1970, Schultz vs Wheaton Glass, changed all that. In 1972, Katharine Graham became the first female CEO of a fortune 500 company. 1974 saw the passing of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act. Until this time, banks required a woman to bring a man with her to co-sign any credit application. It didn’t matter what her income was and a bank could disregard some of it. Sometimes up to 50% of her income! A year later, the first woman-owned commercial bank opens in New York City – appropriately named the First Woman’s Bank. In Ireland in 1976, women were finally able to own their own homes outright. The Pregnancy Discrimination Act passed in the US in 1978. Now an employer couldn’t fire a woman just bec...