11 surprisingly recent women’s rights milestones
There has been a great deal of progress on women’s rights over the last several decades, but some barriers were particularly slow to come down. Here are a few women’s rights milestones that came surprisingly late.
1944-1945: Women’s suffrage in France and Italy
You’d think these two seemingly enlightened Western nations would have come around to the idea of giving women the right to vote long before this, but France dragged its heels until 1944, Italy until 1945. In contrast, Australia gave women voting rights in 1902, Finland in 1906, Canada in 1917, Germany and Russia in 1918, the U.S. in 1920, and Britain and Ireland in 1928.
1965: U.S. women allowed to use contraception
The FDA approved the use of oral contraceptives in 1960, but it wasn’t until 1965, following the Supreme Court’s ruling in Griswold v. Connecticut, that contraception became legal — but only for married women. (Single women would have to wait until 1972.) Estelle Griswold, executive director of the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut, successfully challenged the Comstock Law of 1873, which had made contraceptives illegal.
1972: AAU allows women to participate in distance running events
Before reversing its position in 1972, the Amateur Athletic Union refused to sanction female participation in distance running events. The ban stemmed in part from the belief that women wouldn’t be able to withstand the physical rigors of distance running, and that it could jeopardize their fertility. Photos of race director Jock Semple trying to physically remove Kathrine Switzer from the 1967 Boston Marathon helped provoke backlash, and the AAU lifted its archaic ban a few years later.
1974: Fair housing for American women
It wasn’t until this late date that housing discrimination on the basis of sex was made illegal. Congress amended the Fair Housing Act in 1974 to include the prohibition of housing discrimination on the basis of gender.
1974: U.S women given unfettered access to credit
Before the passage of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act in 1974, a woman could be denied a credit card unless she brought along her husband to cosign the application.
1977, 1980: Sexual harassment recognized, abolished
Sexual harassment in the workplace was first recognized in a courtroom in 1977, and it wasn’t until 1980 that sexual harassment was officially defined by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
1978: Pregnancy discrimination outlawed
Women could be fired for being pregnant before the Pregnancy Discrimination Act was passed in 1978.
2011: Women allowed to ski-jump competitively
The Olympics have had a ski-jumping competition for men since 1924, but the sport wasn’t opened to women until 2011, and the first Olympic women’s ski-jumping competition was held in 2014. Gian Franco Kasper, the former president of the International Ski Federation, had said in 2005 that he opposed women’s ski-jumping because it “seems not to be appropriate for ladies from a medical point of view.”
2016: Hillary Clinton becomes first female U.S. presidential nominee of a major political party
We need to make the distinction “of a major political party,” because the first female nominee was actually Victoria Woodhull, a leader of the suffrage movement who ran for the presidency in 1872. Clinton won the Democratic nomination in 2016 but fell short of the presidency, losing the general election to Donald Trump despite winning a majority of the popular vote.
2018: Saudi women allowed to drive
In June, women in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia were finally given the right to drive, following a decree by King Salman in September 2017 that women would be granted driver’s licenses. Saudi Arabia had been the only country in the world to prohibit women from driving.
2020: First Black woman, Asian American woman named to a major party presidential ticket
Fifty years after she was part of the second class to integrate Berkeley’s public schools, Kamala Harris is now the first Black woman and first Asian American woman named to a major party presidential ticket.
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