Imagine for a second, it is the early 1970s.
You've had a great job. You have a solid income.
And you decide you want to build some credit.
Makes sense. Right. So you walk into a local
bank to apply for a standard credit card. You
fill out all the paperwork. You hand it over.
And the teller looks at you and says, great.
Now, we just need your husband to come down here
and sign this for you. Wow. And if you're single,
you might just be entirely out of luck. I mean,
that scenario, it sounds like something out of
the Victorian era, but we are literally talking
about the era of disco and bell bottoms. It's
wild. It really is. perfectly frames this massive
contradiction that we're jumping into today.
Because, you know, usually when we talk about
the United States on the global stage, there's
this immense foundational pride in being the
ultimate beacon of equality. But then you look
at international treaties and you stumble across
this staggering juxtaposition. The U .S. champions
global human rights, yet it is one of only seven
nations on the entire planet standing right alongside
Iran and Sudan that has never ratified the United
Nations Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of Discrimination Against Women. Yeah,
it really forces you to hit pause. Yeah. It makes
you re -evaluate the assumptions we make about
American progress. We have this tendency to treat
history as a clean, straight, upward line, you
know, especially with civil rights. But when
you get into the actual mechanics of how rights
are distributed, the reality is incredibly fractured.
OK, let's unpack this. Because for this deep
dive, we are pulling from a massive compilation
of history and data from the Wikipedia article
on women in the United States. And our mission
today is to look way past the standard textbook
timelines that we all, you know, memorized in
middle school. Right, the very sanitized version.
Exactly. We want to understand the true legal,
economic and social trajectory of women in America.
We need to figure out the how and the why behind
the surprising gaps between our cultural perception
of equality and the factual reality on the ground.
And the goal here is to look at these historical
data points, not just as isolated trivia facts,
but as interconnected systems. Every banking
regulation, every state law, every Supreme Court
decision, they all interlock to create the exact
parameters of modern American society that you
navigate every single day. So let's start with
what is arguably the most famous milestone in
this whole conversation, which is the right to
vote. If you ask almost anyone when women got
the right to vote in the US, they will confidently
say 19 Oh, for sure. The 19th Amendment, boom,
finish line crossed. Yeah, that 1920 narrative
is so deeply ingrained in the American psyche,
but that year is heavily mythologized. I mean,
the 19th Amendment was a monumental legal victory
on paper, but in practice it excluded millions
of women, specifically women of color. See, I
want to push back on how this is taught, because
the way I learned it, 1920 was the finish line.
But looking at this history, it feels way more
like the 19th Amendment was just a starting gun
for a very staggered race. That's a great way
to put it. And a massive portion of the runners
were physically held back at the starting line
for decades. How did the law actually justify
keeping them from voting if the Constitution
had just been amended? Well, what's fascinating
here is that it comes down to the gap between
federal declarations and local enforcement. Yeah.
And also the very definition of citizenship itself.
Let's look at Native American women. OK. They
were the earliest women living in what is now
the United States. yet they weren't even considered
U .S. citizens until the Indian Citizenship Act
of 1924. Wait, if they were born within the borders
of the United States, how are they not citizens?
Because legally, they were considered members
of sovereign tribal nations, not citizens of
the federal government. Oh wow. So the 19th Amendment
simply did not apply to them. And even after
1924, when they gained federal citizenship, individual
states used their own constitutions to block
Native Americans from the ballot box. Some states
successfully maintained those restrictions. all
the way into the 1960s. That is a 40 year gap
between the supposed finish line and actual voting
rights. Yeah. And the timeline shows similar
barriers for Asian American women. Right. They
face discriminatory naturalization laws that
explicitly block them from becoming citizens
and therefore voters until those laws were finally
dismantled in the mid 20th century. Exactly.
And then you have the systemic disenfranchisement
of black women, particularly in the Jim Crow
South. The 19th Amendment removed sex as a barrier
to voting, but it did absolutely nothing to remove
barriers based on race. So local governments
just pivoted. They used poll taxes, absurdly
complex literacy tests that were, you know, subjectively
graded by white registrars and outright violent
intimidation. Right. For a black woman in the
South, the 19th Amendment offered almost zero
practical voting power until the Voting Rights
Act of 1965 essentially forced the states to
comply. Unbelievable. So when we talk about 1920,
we are really talking about political autonomy
for a very specific, primarily white demographic.
This staggered rollout of voting rights is a
crucial pattern. It shows us that formal recognition
of a right on a piece of parchment does not equal
universal practice. And that pattern of delayed
autonomy didn't just apply to the ballot box.
It fundamentally shaped the American wallet.
Which brings us right back to that scenario I
mentioned at the start of the deep dive, removing
from the voting booth to the checkbook. The year
the Equal Credit Opportunity Act passed was 1974.
1974. Until then, women often could not open
a bank account or get a loan without a male relative's
signature. Why was this the standard business
practice for so long? It was really rooted in
how banks calculated risk, which was deeply tied
to societal expectations. Banks openly assumed
that a woman in the workforce was just a temporary
employee. Just biding her time. Right. Their
internal logic was, well, she will eventually
get married, get pregnant, quit her job to raise
children, and default on her debt. Therefore,
she is an inherent credit risk unless a man legally
guarantees her debt. I'm still trying to wrap
my head around the timeline here. Think about
it. There are women currently in the workforce,
perhaps sitting in corner offices today as CEOs,
who started their professional adult lives legally
unable to hold a credit card in their own name.
This is an ancient history. It's within a single
lifetime. And the financial compounding of that
delay is massive. I mean, access to credit is
the fundamental building block of wealth in the
United States. It determines your ability to
buy a home, start a business, or invest in the
market. By locking an entire gender out of that
system until the mid -1970s, you essentially
delayed their entry into wealth -building economy
by generations. A structural inequality like
that doesn't just vanish the moment a bill is
signed in 1974. It leaves a lingering deficit
in wealth accumulation. But wait, what about
the Constitution? If banks are treating an entire
class of people differently, doesn't the Equal
Protection Clause cover this? This leads right
into the Equal Rights Amendment, the ERA, which
was supposed to provide explicit constitutional
protection against sex discrimination. But its
current status is listed as being in legal limbo.
Yes. I need an ELI -5 here. Explain it like I'm
five. I thought if an amendment gets ratified
by 38 states, it becomes law. How can the Constitution
be in limbo? fascinating procedural mess, honestly.
To amend the Constitution, you need two -thirds
of Congress to propose it, and then three -fourths
of the states, which is 38 states, to ratify
it. When Congress passed the ERA in 1972, they
attached a totally arbitrary seven -year deadline
for the states to ratify it, which was later
extended to 1982. OK, so a countdown clock was
running. Yes. And by 1982, they only had 35 states,
so the deadline expired. But decades later, activists
revived the push, and by 2020, three more states
ratified it, finally hitting that magic number
of 38. So they hit the number, but they missed
the deadline. Precisely. And to complicate things
even further, several states that ratified it
back in the 70s later passed resolutions trying
to rescind or take back. their ratifications.
Oh, wow. So the courts are currently battling
over two massive questions. Can Congress retroactively
remove a deadline after it has expired? And can
a state legally take back a ratification once
it's given? Until the courts or Congress definitively
answer those questions, the ERA just floats in
the void. So let me get this straight. Women
entered the modern workplace en masse without
an explicit constitutional guarantee of equal
rights and functionally decades behind in wealth
accumulation. Yes. structural friction is completely
visible when you look at the paradox of degrees,
dollars, and the modern workplace. You cannot
understand the modern workplace without understanding
that context. You really can't. And the statistics
on educational achievement are incredibly telling
here. Women now make up over 46 .5 % of the total
U .S. workforce. But more significantly, women
currently earn more post -secondary degrees,
bachelor's, master's, and doctorate's than men
do. They're undeniably outpacing men in higher
education. So help me reconcile this. Women are
the majority of college graduates. They're nearly
half the workforce. Yet despite the Equal Pay
Act being passed way back in 1963, the gender
pay gap stubbornly persists. The current data
shows women earn approximately 82 cents for every
dollar earned by men. And that gap widens significantly
for black women and Latino women. How is that
happening? Reconciling that gap is actually the
subject of fierce debate. among economists. Some
experts provide data supporting outright discrimination
and unconscious bias as the primary driver. They
point to studies where identical resumes get
completely different starting salary offers just
by changing the name at the top to a female name.
But other economists push back on that, right?
They do. Others provide evidence pointing to
different variables, like occupational clustering,
meaning women disproportionately enter fields
like teaching or social work that society inherently
values less monetarily. They also point to differences
in total hours worked. But almost all economists
agree on one major structural factor, which is
the motherhood penalty. Ah, which circles back
to infrastructure, because the US is the only
high -income country on earth without federally
mandated paid parental leave. Exactly. You have
a demographic doing exactly what society demands
for success, getting advanced degrees, entering
the workforce. But the infrastructure hasn't
adapted at all. When a society treats caregiving,
childcare, and family leave as an entirely private
burden rather than a structural necessity, it
acts as a massive break on career momentum. It
pulls women out of the workforce or forces them
into part -time roles right during their prime
earning years. And beyond the broader economic
debate, there are also very specific, judicially
created loopholes that legally permit workplace
discrimination. I was reading the source material
about the ministerial exemption and I had never
heard of this. How does an organization just
bypass federal civil rights law? It is rooted
in the First Amendment's protection of religious
freedom. The courts established the ministerial
exemption to prevent the government from interfering
with how religious institutions choose their
leaders. So if a church decides it only wants
male priests, the government cannot force them
to hire a female priest under anti -discrimination
laws. Which makes sense on the surface when you're
talking about clergy, but the definition of minister
in this context is surprisingly broad, isn't
it? Very broad. Courts have applied this exemption
to teachers at religious schools who incorporate
faith into their curriculum. or kosher supervisors
or music directors. If an employee's role is
deemed vital to the religious mission, the employer
is basically granted immunity from sex discrimination
suits regarding that specific employee. It is
a striking example of how federal protections
have very real legally protected boundaries.
And this theme that federal support is either
absent or highly fragmented becomes incredibly
apparent when we transition from the workplace
to the landscape of women's health care. The
health care patchwork in the U .S. is characterized
by a really jarring contrast. We have accessed
some of the highest medical technology in the
world, yet we have surprisingly high mortality
rates. The United States has the highest maternal
mortality rate among developed nations. As of
2023, it sits at 18 .6 deaths per 100 ,000 live
births. And the internal disparities within that
average are severe. The data shows Black women
experience pregnancy -related deaths at nearly
three times the rate of white women. But to understand
the current health care landscape, we have to
look at how authority over the body has shifted
between the federal government and individual
states. Birth control wasn't legalized nationwide
until 1965, and abortion was legalized nationwide
in 1973 with the Roe v. Wade decision. Right.
But that legal landscape fundamentally shifted
again in 2022. The Supreme Court overturned Roe
and the Dobbs decision. That ruling removed federal
constitutional protection for abortion rights
and returned the authority to regulate or ban
the procedure directly to individual state legislatures.
The data indicates that medication abortion primarily
using the drug Mifapristone, now accounts for
the majority of abortions in the U .S. and is
the subject of ongoing legal battles. But the
overarching result of returning this authority
to the states is massive geographical disparity.
If we connect this to the bigger picture, we're
looking at the widest disparities in reproductive
health care access among all high -income democracies.
Some states immediately enacted near -total bans
on abortion, while neighboring states passed
legislation to maintain or even expand access.
It reminds me of a franchise business model.
When it comes to healthcare access, the U .S.
operates almost like a massive fast food franchise.
Corporate headquarters, the federal government,
might set some very loose brand guidelines. But
the local franchise owner, your state legislature,
completely dictates the actual menu, the working
conditions, and what is available behind the
counter. You can take a short drive across a
state border, and your legal medical rights,
your access to certain medications, and your
statistical health outcomes completely and fundamentally
alter. That is a very apt comparison because
that geographical inconsistency isn't just a
matter of logistical inconvenience. It dictates
your level of bodily autonomy based entirely
on your zip code. And if the state franchise
owner controls your health care autonomy, what
else do they control? This brings us to a part
of the history that genuinely stopped me in my
tracks. We need to talk about autonomy, safety,
and the child marriage shock. Yeah, this is a
tough one. According to international organizations
like UNICEF, child marriage is defined as any
formal or informal union where at least one partner
is under the age of 18. Globally, It is widely
recognized as a violation of human rights. OK,
I have to stop here because when you hear child
marriage, you think of regions with developing
legal infrastructure. But the source material
clearly states that as of 2023, child marriage
remains legal in over 40 U .S. states. Wait,
how does a high income democracy reconcile promoting
human rights abroad while actively allowing child
marriage in over 40 of its own states today?
How is that mechanically possible? I thought
18 was the universal legal age of adulthood.
18 is the general federal baseline for adulthood.
However, the regulation of marriage is deeply
embedded in state family law. While most states
say you must be 18 to marry, over 40 states have
written legal exceptions into their books. These
exceptions usually allow minors to marry if they
have parental consent or judicial approval from
a local judge. So if a 16 -year -old's parents
sign off, the state just steps aside and allows
it. Yes. And in several of those states, there
isn't even a hard minimum age floor if those
exceptions are met. The data overwhelmingly shows
that this practice disproportionately affects
young girls marrying adult men, and it leads
to severe measurable adverse outcomes in their
education, their lifetime earning potential and
their personal autonomy. It is staggering. And
when we look broadly at general safety and violence,
the reliance on state level enforcement is just
as fractured. The Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention reports that one in four women
suffer from at least one physical assault by
a partner during adulthood. Furthermore, roughly
20 percent of women in the United States have
been victims of rape, which experts note is highly
underreported. And again, we see a massive patchwork
approach to legal protection. The federal government
stepped in with the Violence Against Women Act,
or VOWA, in 1994 to provide federal funding and
support for survivors. But the actual criminal
enforcement varies wildly depending on where
you live. Right. For instance, there are no uniform
nationwide legal standards for prosecuting stalking.
And historically, the idea of marital rape wasn't
even recognized as a crime in all 50 states until
1993. Even today, the way those laws are written
and enforced differs entirely depending on the
state legislature. Which brings us to the core
mechanism of change. If the laws governing your
economic power, your health care access, and
your physical safety are decided at the legislative
table, then to change these state -by -state
realities, women must have a seat at those tables.
So what does this all mean? Let's look at political
representation because there have been some highly
celebrated firsts. Jeanette Rankin was the first
woman elected to the House back in 1917. Hattie
Wyatt Caraway was the first elected senator in
1931. Frances Perkins was the first cabinet member
in 1933. Sandra Day O 'Connor broke the Supreme
Court barrier in 1981. Nancy Pelosi became the
first female Speaker of the House in 2007. And
Kamala Harris became the first female vice president
in 2021. But there has still never been a female
president. Those milestones are vital historical
markers. I mean, they shift cultural perceptions,
but they can also mask the broader statistical
reality of the rooms where laws are actually
written. Out of 435 seats in the House of Representatives,
only 119 are held by women. And then the Senate,
out of 100 seats, only 24 are held by women.
24 % of the Senate. When you consider that women
make up just over 50 % of the US population,
that is a glaring disproportion. It really is.
And when you aggregate all of these factors,
the 24 % political representation, the 82 cent
pay gap, the fractured health policies, you start
to see how the US compares globally. The World
Economic Forum's gender gap index from 2021 ranks
the United States 30th out of 156 countries in
terms of gender. 30 out of 156. So how do we
synthesize all of this? When you take the staggered
starting line of 1920, the delayed credit access
of 1974, the child marriage loopholes and the
lack of paid leave, what is the psychological
toll on the next generation? There is a 2019
Gallup poll in the data that feels like a gut
punch. Oh, it perfectly captures the culmination
of everything we've discussed today. The poll
found that 40 % of women under the age of 30,
would like to leave the United States. That is
compared to just 20 % of men in the exact same
age group. Four out of 10 young women desire
to emigrate. Double the rate of young men. It
is a profound metric. But when you look at the
architecture we just mapped out, that statistic
is not a fluke. It is a highly rational, data
-driven response to the environment. When a demographic
looks at a system where their financial autonomy
is only a few decades old, where their bodily
autonomy changes if they drive across a state
line, and where their political representation
is crawling upward at a glacial pace, a desire
to exit that system makes complete logical sense.
For everyone listening, thank you for coming
on this deep dive with us. We set out to look
past the middle school textbook version of history
to understand the actual mechanics of American
equality, and I think we did exactly that. We've
seen the incredible hard -fought progress made
over the last century. But we've also had to
stare directly at the very real structural gaps
that still heavily dictate finance, health, and
law today. It is a lot of complex history to
process. But as we wrap up, I want to leave you
with one final thought to mull over, looking
not at the past, but toward the future. We've
established how our modern laws, our credit systems,
and our health care models still carry the heavy
biases of this staggered historical timeline.
We are living in a society built on data from
a time when women were legally excluded. Now,
consider the rapid rise of artificial intelligence.
AI doesn't think organically. It trains. And
it's trained on this exact historical data we
just discussed. So the profound question we have
to ask ourselves as we build the next era of
technology is this. Will AI permanently encode
the 82 -cent pay gap and these vast state -by
-state inequities into the algorithms that will
run tomorrow's world? Or can we consciously program
it to finally truly level the playing field?