The Price of Permission: How Women Bought Their Way to Financial Freedom
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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” was judged by her husband’s income — even if she earned her own. If she divorced or was widowed, she often found herself shut out of her own financial life. In other words: women didn’t just lose marriages; they lost their money.
The Women’s Bank: Feminist Capitalism in Action
So, in 1978, a coalition of Colorado women — lawyers, business owners, activists — built their own system. They raised millions in seed money from women investors and opened The Women’s Bank with a radical mission: to treat women as full economic citizens.
They didn’t just approve loans — they educated. They hosted workshops on credit, investment, and entrepreneurship. They gave loans to divorced women starting over, to single mothers, to women building companies that male bankers couldn’t understand or wouldn’t respect.
It was feminist infrastructure before we had the language for it.
The Myth of “Equality Achieved”
Fast forward. Women now outpace men in college degrees, start businesses at faster rates, and make up nearly half the workforce. And yet — financial inequity persists.
The gender pay gap still echoes down every line of a woman’s budget. Women carry nearly two-thirds of student debt. They enter retirement with 30% less savings than men.
And the conversation around alimony and child support — so often painted as outdated or unfair — misses the historical reality: these systems were created because women were legally barred from earning, saving, or owning. They’re not relics; they’re reminders. The scaffolding of equality was built on centuries of exclusion.
Money as Power, Power as Permission
When we talk about “financial independence,” we’re really talking about sovereignty. About the right to say no, the right to leave, the right to dream without asking permission.
The Women’s Bank wasn’t just a financial institution; it was a portal. It taught women that wealth isn’t greed — it’s agency. That money isn’t moral or immoral; it’s a medium of choice.
Wealth doesn’t make women free. Control does.
From 1978 to Now: What’s Next?
Today, feminist finance looks like venture funds for women-owned startups, micro-lending circles, and grassroots mutual aid networks. It looks like women reclaiming language — talking openly about money, ambition, and worth.
But the roots trace back to Denver, 1978 — to a handful of women who decided they didn’t need permission to build a system that worked for them.
Every time a woman negotiates a raise, applies for a loan in her own name, or teaches her daughter about compound interest — she’s still making that deposit.
This week we are recording a podcast episode that covers The Women’s Bank.
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