In 1967, Margaret Heckler was elected to Congress. She was a practicing lawyer. She still couldn't get a line of credit in her own name. A sitting member of the United States Congress needed a male co-signer to borrow money.
She joined the Banking Committee specifically to fix this. She arranged meetings with CEOs at JP Morgan, Chase, and Wells Fargo. Their concern? Women might not pay their bills.
It took seven more years. Before the Equal Credit Opportunity Act passed in 1974, a single woman needed her father or brother to co-sign loans even if she out-earned them. A married woman needed her husband's permission for a bank account, a credit card, or a mortgage. A widow with perfect payment history could be denied credit because her husband was dead.
That was 52 years ago. Your mother was probably already alive.
The timeline gets worse from there. Marital rape wasn't criminalized in all 50 states until 1993. Some states still treat it differently in sentencing. South Carolina requires married women to prove a threat of physical violence within 30 days of an assault before pursuing a case.
1974 feels like ancient history until you realize the country spent another 19 years debating whether a husband raping his wife was a crime.
This map disenfranchises hundreds of thousands of KC residents by forcing us into districts with counties hundreds of miles away that we have nothing in common with. All to prop up a GOP and a President who started a pointless war and spiked inflation and gas prices. Shameful.