50 Years of Women Being able to have a Bank Account

In 1974, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) was passed. This year marks the 50th anniversary of that law and I marvel at its significance.

https://www.justice.gov/crt/equal-credit-opportunity-act-3

Many people are surprised by the content of the ECOA because it reveals how late to the game we sometimes are with different freedoms, rights and access - especially in the financial world. 

Think about the most basic of financial tools - a bank account. 

Before ECOA you could be discriminated against by a bank and not be allowed to open a bank account for a variety of reasons including if you were a woman.

Forbes recently had an article about ECOA and the history of the rights of women in the US as it relates to money. This short article details how women have moved from having no rights, to gaining the right to vote and then not needing a male to cosign for them for a bank account. We have come a long way but there is still work to be done.

As a husband and father of one daughter, I have seen different inequities that continue to play out. My wife is a successful award-winning therapist and my daughter is a smart accomplished driven high school student. Yet, they each still run into social and economic gaps because they are women. Women trail behind men in overall savings, what they earn and in their ability to get funding for businesses. Harvard reports that almost 90% of venture capital goes to male founded businesses. This is not entirely because of a bias and it is certainly not just because there are more male founded companies than women founded ones. 

50/50 is not always the right answer to these issues of equal opportunity especially in fields and areas of interest that have more ratios that skew one side or another. 90/10 is certainly a sign that there is some issue especially when there is a growing minority population seeking to get in - like with venture capital.

Here is the link to the Forbes article and it serves as a constant reminder that we all must work hard to bridge gaps for people especially those that may be on the side of advantage.

https://www.forbes.com/advisor/banking/when-could-women-open-a-bank-account/

As always, if you come across a financially related article you’d like to send my way please do! 

Best place to send them is to me.

More next time!

Jonathan

PS - as a reminder to issues of inequity within the financial world, US Census Data and other government agencies all report that higher educated, higher earning, white and asian males, are the dominant population with over $100,000 saved for retirement. Every counterpart to that equation trails significantly for a variety of social, economic and systemic reasons.