{"id":42823,"date":"2016-07-09T02:15:22","date_gmt":"2016-07-09T02:15:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/credit-card-sexism-when-men-had-to-sign-for-women\/"},"modified":"2016-07-09T02:15:22","modified_gmt":"2016-07-09T02:15:22","slug":"credit-card-sexism-when-men-had-to-sign-for-women","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/credit-card-sexism-when-men-had-to-sign-for-women\/","title":{"rendered":"Credit Card Sexism: When Men Had to Sign for Women"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul class=\"story-body__unordered-list\">\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">When the first British credit card launched 50 years ago it was mostly used by men<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">In the 1960s and 1970s, women were viewed as a riskier investment by banks and stores<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">Women had to get their father or husband to sign for most loans even if they earned more than them<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<figure class=\"media-with-caption\"><figcaption class=\"media-with-caption__caption\"><span class=\"off-screen\">Media caption<\/span>Christine Edwards describes to her daughter how women were treated by lenders<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"story-body__introduction\">Christine Edwards was 23 when she decided to buy a moped to ride to work.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere was one for sale at a local dealership \u2013 one where you pedalled before the engine kicked in. I had saved the 30% deposit and wanted a hire purchase agreement to cover the balance.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>However, the salesman said Edwards had to get her father\u2019s signature to secure the contract. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cI explained my parents were divorced and I wasn\u2019t in contact with my father but they wouldn\u2019t change their minds. They refused to take my mother\u2019s signature,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape has-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>                 <span class=\"off-screen\">Image copyright<\/span><br \/><span class=\"story-image-copyright\">Alamy, Barclaycard<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><\/span><figcaption class=\"media-caption\"><span class=\"off-screen\">Image caption<\/span><br \/><span class=\"media-caption__text\"><br \/>\n                    Shoppers on the Kings Road in Chelsea in 1970 and a Barclaycard Advert from 1973<br \/><\/span><br \/><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>This was Britain in 1970 \u2013 just a generation ago but a world away in its attitude to women.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere was still this mindset that women got certain rights through the relevant man in her life,\u201d says Prof Lucy Delap from Cambridge University.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWomen had long been in charge of household budgets, but it was the husband who gave his wife the housekeeping money and held the financial power.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Women had an increasing amount of purchasing power. In 1951 about 36% of women aged 20 to 64 were in work. By 1971 this had risen to 52%, but women were still considered second-class citizens by lenders.<\/p>\n<p>Susan Woolley, from Chester, who earned a third more than her husband, ran into problems.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI wanted to buy a three-piece suite on hire purchase soon after I got married,\u201d she says. \u201cBut I had to get my husband\u2019s signature even though I earned \u00a313 per week while he earned \u00a310 a week. I was extremely annoyed.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape has-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>                 <span class=\"off-screen\">Image copyright<\/span><br \/><span class=\"story-image-copyright\">Susan Woolley<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><\/span><figcaption class=\"media-caption\"><span class=\"off-screen\">Image caption<\/span><br \/><span class=\"media-caption__text\"><br \/>\n                    Susan Woolley earned more than her husband, but wasn\u2019t allowed to sign for a hire purchase<br \/><\/span><br \/><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>While women were fed up with attitudes out of step with reality, few were prepared to take on the conservative culture. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019d grown up in an environment where poor treatment was accepted,\u201d Edwards says.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe were used to it. Don\u2019t forget that at this time all the boys earned more than what we did for doing the same job. It wasn\u2019t until those wonderful women at Dagenham went on strike that we realised we could do something.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Industrial action by women at Ford\u2019s Dagenham plant in 1968 led to the Equal Pay Act of 1970. Five years later the Employment Protection Act introduced statutory maternity pay and job reinstatement rights. <\/p>\n<p>Yet everyday financial discrimination continued. <\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape has-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>                 <span class=\"off-screen\">Image copyright<\/span><br \/><span class=\"story-image-copyright\">Kath Dawson<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><\/span><figcaption class=\"media-caption\"><span class=\"off-screen\">Image caption<\/span><br \/><span class=\"media-caption__text\"><br \/>\n                    Kath Dawson got her first credit card in 1973 \u2013 the year Barclays started promoting them to women<br \/><\/span><br \/><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Kath Dawson, from Bury, says: \u201cWe needed a washing machine and I saw an ex-display one in a shop. I went to buy it on hire purchase but I was told my husband had to sign for it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI had to plead with the staff to allow me to take the paperwork home to get his signature as he worked in a different town. It meant the washing machine was in his name even though I made the payments.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She later decided to sign up with the AA in case the car broke down and filled in the form, putting herself as the principal driver.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen the membership cards came through my husband was named as the full member and I was the associate member even though I had paid for it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The credit card, first introduced to the UK by Barclays Bank 50 years ago, represented a break with the past. While it wasn\u2019t actively marketed at women for the first five years, a woman didn\u2019t require a male guarantor to sign her application.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape has-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>                 <span class=\"off-screen\">Image copyright<\/span><br \/><span class=\"story-image-copyright\">Barclaycard<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><\/span><figcaption class=\"media-caption\"><span class=\"off-screen\">Image caption<\/span><br \/><span class=\"media-caption__text\"><br \/>\n                    The first Barclaycard was produced in 1966<br \/><\/span><br \/><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cI got a credit card when they first came out in 1966,\u201d Catherine Petts says.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was a graduate with a degree in economics, working in the finance industries. I got one because I thought I looked quite sophisticated using it in shops!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Dawson got her first credit card in 1973, the year that Barclays began actively promoting them to women.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI got it to help balance my finances and I didn\u2019t need a male guarantor. I was afraid of using my credit card when I first got it. I had it for emergencies.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-with-caption\"><figcaption class=\"media-with-caption__caption\"><span class=\"off-screen\">Media caption<\/span>A look back to when men were assumed to hold all the financial power<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The Sex Discrimination Act of 1975 finally outlawed discrimination against women seeking to obtain goods, facilities or services, including loans or credit.<\/p>\n<p>However, a news report in the Times in 1978 revealed some retailers were still asking for male guarantors.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn the end it was the economy that drove the change,\u201d Delap says.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn the 1970s banks and retailers could use the excuse that fluctuating interest rates made it difficult to lend in general.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut they couldn\u2019t use that in the 1980s. The government was telling banks to lend more to stimulate growth and credit card use boomed.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape has-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>                 <span class=\"off-screen\">Image copyright<\/span><br \/><span class=\"story-image-copyright\">Sheena Fraser<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><\/span><figcaption class=\"media-caption\"><span class=\"off-screen\">Image caption<\/span><br \/><span class=\"media-caption__text\"><br \/>\n                    Sheena Fraser started working for a bank as a teenager. She wore a suit like the male staff instead of the overall given to female staff as a protest<br \/><\/span><br \/><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>However, some women found it impossible to get a credit card because of financial discrimination they had faced in the past.<\/p>\n<p>Sheena Fraser, who worked for a bank in the 1960s, says her staff current account was transferred to a joint account while she was on honeymoon.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt said \u2018Mr (my husband\u2019s name) and another\u2019 and they also changed my contract to temporary staff.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI later realised I couldn\u2019t build up a credit rating of my own because I was the second person named on the account, as well as on rents, loans, mortgages and so on. So getting a credit card in my own name still eludes me.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy widowed friend faced the same problem. Her husband\u2019s credit card was withdrawn immediately on his death and she had difficulty getting her own card without a credit history.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGender discrimination back in the 60s and 70s still has ramifications for women today.\u201d<\/p>\n<hr class=\"story-body__line\" \/>\n<h2 class=\"story-body__crosshead\">Find out more<\/h2>\n<ul class=\"story-body__unordered-list\">\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">Listen: 50 years of the credit card<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">Read: How credit cards changed our attitudes to money<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr class=\"story-body__line\" \/>\n<p>F<i>ollow Claire Bates on Twitter <\/i>@batesybates<\/p>\n<p><i>Follow <\/i>@BBCNewsMagazine<i> on Twitter and on <\/i>Facebook<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When the first British credit card launched 50 years ago it was mostly used by men In the 1960s and 1970s, women were viewed as a riskier investment by banks and stores Women had to get their father or husband to sign for most loans even if they earned more than them Media captionChristine Edwards [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42823"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42823\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}