“The following list is of NINE things a woman couldn’t do in 1971” Robyn, aka sunsong23 writes “a woman could not:

Get a Credit Card in her own name – it wasn’t until 1974 that a law forced credit card companies to issue cards to women without their husband’s signature (via).
Be guaranteed that they wouldn’t be unceremoniously fired for the offense of getting pregnant – that changed with the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of *1978*. Despite the act, pregnancy discrimination is still a major issue in woman’s sports (via).
Fight on the front lines – admitted into military academies in 1976 it wasn’t until 2013 that the military ban on women in combat was lifted (via).
Serve on a jury - It varied by state (Utah deemed women fit for jury duty way back in 1879), but the main reason women were kept out of jury pools was that they were considered the center of the home, which was their primary responsibility as caregivers. They were also thought to be too fragile to hear the grisly details of crimes and too sympathetic by nature to be able to remain objective about those accused of offenses. In 1961, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld a Florida law that exempted women from serving on juries. It wasn't until 1973 that women could serve on juries in all 50 states (via).
Get an Ivy League education - Yale and Princeton didn't accept female students until 1969. Harvard didn't admit women until 1977 (when it merged with the all-female Radcliffe College). Brown (which merged with women's college Pembroke), Dartmouth and Columbia did not offer admission to women until 1971, 1972 and 1981, respectively (via).
Take legal action against workplace sexual harassment. Indeed the first time a court recognized office sexual harassment as grounds for any legal action was in 1977 (via).
Decide not to have sex if their husband wanted to – spousal rape wasn’t criminalized in all 50 states until 1993 (via).
Until a 1972 Supreme Court case, unmarried women in some states were prohibited from purchasing birth control pills (via).

Sheesh.

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Before the 1970s, women were not welcome at the world's great marathons, but a few brave pioneers sought to challenge that system. Six Who Sat tells the story of two iconic moments in women's running, both captured in photographs. The first, from 1968, is of a race director trying to physically restrain a woman from running the Boston Marathon. The second, from 1972, is of a protest at the New York City Marathon that forever changed women's ability to participate in the sport they loved.

While listening to this podcast, Six Who Sat, by the 30 for 30 ESPN podcast, I couldn’t help but think about golfing. I hardly ever golf, but when I do I always notice the different tee boxes: Competition tees (white), men's tees (yellow), women's tees (red) and sometimes blue tees for veterans and juniors. Why hasn’t anyone “sat” for this obvious display of gender bias? Of course the woman’s tee is closer, they can’t hit nearly as far!!!

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-N- Stuff : Podcasts

NINE things a woman couldn’t do in 1971, or later!

Six Who Sat : Why six women had to sit, so that they could run.