Celebrating Women’s Ability to Have Their Own Credit Card… with a Twist

I read a blip on social media and immediately thought “that can’t be right!” I’m not one of those people that believes everything I see on the internet, so my research began. What was the blip you ask? It was the 50-year celebration of women being able to apply for a credit card without their husband as a co-applicant.

In 1974, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) was passed which allowed women to apply for credit cards in their own name regardless of marital status. It blew my mind that it was just in the 70s when women were finally given this “privilege.” While this benefited all women, I feel the biggest benefit was for stay-at-home moms. The passage of this act allowed them to establish their own credit history. Imagine being a stay-at-home mom and your spouse suddenly dies or you get divorced. The financial mountains of events like this are massive by themselves; trying to climb those mountains with no credit is almost insurmountable!

My goal is to write one blog a month that’s educational and/or informative. So, there you have it, my informative blog for the month. Done, finished, moving on to next month’s blog… or am I. I’m sure most of you already knew about the passage of ECOA, so how educational or informative was this blog?

Randy Pausch was a professor at Carnegie Mellon University and if you’ve never seen his last lecture “Achieving Your Childhood Dreams” then grab your tissues and watch it (the 1 hour and 16 minute version). Throughout the lecture he talks about “head fakes.” Like Randy’s last lecture, but not nearly as amazing, this blog is a head fake. Take a second to see if you can figure it out.

My business partner Gail retired a little less than a year ago. This blog is really to thank her, and all the strong, independent ladies that came before me. Thank you for fighting so when women of the future see something like the aforementioned social media blip they think “there’s no way this change was just in the 70’s, it had to be long before then.” I can only aspire to be this kind of change for women in the future.

Cheers to everyone out there supporting women’s progress; I will think of you the next time I use MY credit card…and happy retirement Gail!