7 Shocking Things Women Weren't Allowed to Do Until Pretty Recently

Women have made a lot of strides in the last few decades ... and we do mean last few. While no one had a problem with us cooking, cleaning, and oh, yeah, doing that little thing called giving life, they did take issue with us doing things like, serving on a jury. Take a look at what else we weren't allowed to do until very recently.

1. Riding in Trains

Genevieve Bell, anthropologist and director of Intel Corporation's Interaction and Experience Research, says the burgeoning use of the steam engine in the early 19th century incited an unusual panic. Some "experts" believed that women's bodies weren't fit to travel at 50 mph. "They thought that our uteruses would fly out of our bodies as the train accelerated to that speed," says Bell.

2. Serving on the front line

The U.S. military has a long history of restricting women's rights within their ranks. Ann Dunwoody, the first female four-star general in the U.S. military, recalls in the 1980s the Army even banning barrettes and bobby pins women used to keep their hair in place under jump-school helmets, claiming they were hazardous while parachuting. In 1948, even as women were allowed to serve as permanent members of the military, they were expressly prohibited from combat positions. Finally, in 2013, the joint Chiefs of Staff lifted the combat ban, and service branches were given three years to implement the change. "If members of our military can meet the qualifications for a job," said Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, "they should have the right to serve."

3. Smoking in public in New York

"After today," reads the January 21, 1908, edition of The New York Times, "it will be against the law for a hotel or restaurant proprietor, or anyone else managing or owning a 'public place' to allow women to smoke in public." Though the ordinance was "rushed through," a few people present at the board hearing for the new rule voiced dissent. Attendee John Henry Smith commented that it would be much better for the board to to concern itself with the hardships of the poor than with "such nonsensical things" as smoking by a few women in a restaurant.

4. Running marathons

For years, the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU), which served as the governing body of U.S. track and field, including most road races, had banned women from competing in marathons. The organization, founded to "promote physical fitness," disseminated bogus scientific research that claimed that long-distance running could cause infertility in women. By the 1970s, the AAU finally relented, allowing that "certain women" could participate in marathons.

5. Getting a credit card

Well into the 20th century, credit card companies routinely denied single women access to their own lines of credit. The cards were reserved for men and married women who could have their husbands cosign on their applications. The Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974 changed that, making it unlawful for any creditor to discriminate against any applicant on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, or marital status.

6. Serving on a jury

For nearly 20 years, from 1879 to 1898, women were entirely banned from carrying out their civic duties in courts all over the country. Shortly before the turn of the 20th century, Utah relented, but by 1927 less than half of states allowed them to serve. Among the reasons for excluding women: they weren't fit to hear details of criminal cases, particularly those involving sex offenses, they would be too sympathetic to accused criminals, they should instead focus on their primary obligations of wife and mother, and it would be improper for men and women to serve on juries together for long periods of time. Finally, in 1975 — only 41 years ago — the Supreme Court struck down the ban.

7. Becoming an astronaut

There wasn't an official ban on female astronauts, but NASA's recruiting methods effectively blocked women of any chance of even interviewing for the job. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, managers at NASA decided to accept applications from only one pool of people: military test pilots. And because the U.S. military didn't accept women into pilot training, there were none in the group that NASA interviewed. It took until 1979 before NASA hired female applicants to train as astronauts. In 1983, Sally Ride became the first female astronaut to enter space.

​Via