When I first entered the job market in 1968, the employment ads in the newspaper were divided into 'Help Wanted-Men' and 'Help Wanted-Women.' Employment agencies and company HR departments also still designated jobs as being for men or for women. Even white-collar jobs, where there couldn't have been even an iota of a justification for this, were divided this way. This should have already been illegal due to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, but it took some years before the new law started being implemented and enforced and altered actual practices.
Even in 1979, when I was newly graduated with a B.A. in Accounting, several employment agencies refused to submit me for accounting jobs, telling me the companies would not even interview women for these positions. I did eventually land a job as a junior accountant. On my second day on the job, someone came to tell me that they were going to start training me to relieve the receptionist at lunch. I told her that could not be correct because I was an accountant.
Discrimination in credit wasn't prohibited by law until 1974, but as a single woman, I obtained a credit card in my name before that, probably in 1970.
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