The Price of Permission: How Women Bought Their Way to Financial Freedom
Catch up on podcast episodes! Bitchstory Join Patreon and get weekly Bitchscopes & more! In 1978, a group of women in Denver did something quietly revolutionary: they opened a bank. Not just any bank — The Women’s Bank of Colorado. At a time when women were still routinely denied business loans, mortgages, and even credit cards without a male co-signer, this wasn’t a “symbolic” move. It was self-defense. Before the Bank: The Cost of Dependence It’s easy to forget how recently financial independence became possible for women. Until 1973, a woman couldn’t even open her own checking account in many states without her husband’s or father’s signature. The Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) didn’t pass until 1974, making it (theoretically) illegal to deny credit based on sex or marital status. But legality didn’t equal access. Banks dragged their heels; women were still asked for a husband’s permission well into the 1980s. Before that, a woman’s “creditworthiness...