Dude, it's been 41 years since the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, which guaranteed that women could have equal access to credit cards in the US. My mom would not have been admitted to Caltech when she applied for colleges because of her gender, no matter how much money she or her family would have had. My mom is not that old. I appreciate the attempt to bring class consciousness to the discussion but just 41 years ago restricted access to basic banking and (non-basic) higher education was based on your genitals and your skin color, as well as how much money you had.
I think there was a much stronger case for the patriarchy existing 41 years ago. I'm not saying it never existed, just that it doesn't exist now.
At the time the vast majority of men and women didn't have access to consumer credit or higher education. I think a common mistake made in these discussions is to generalize the perks some elite men had to all men. In reality most people (men and women) have always had it pretty rough.
"Banking on the Unbanked" (behind a paywall, sorry; by Stafford in 1983) says that in the 1970s 60% of Americans had a bank account. All the women in that group had to have a male family member sign for it, remember. 60% of the US population: a firm majority of the population did have access to banking by the 1960s and 1970s, contradicting your statement.
Easier to check [1]: in 1970, 55.2 percent of graduating high school men and 48.5 percent of graduating high school women enrolled in college. Again, for men a majority, and close to half for women.
A common mistake is to forget how fast (and how slow) history can move. Certainly most people have always had it pretty rough, but my life is easier now that I can get a bank account without my husband's permission. Even one generation ago that wasn't exactly the case.
> The use of consumer credit had become a fixture of everyday life. In 2000, more than 70 percent of U.S. households had at least one gener- al-purpose credit card — MasterCard, Visa, Optima, or Discover. Thirty years earlier, in 1970, the number was only 16 percent.
Your point is well taken about bank accounts though. What you say about history moving fast and slow is very interesting. In this case it seems to have moved very fast. Did you feel you had any trouble getting a bank account as a women in your generation? My wife set up most of our accounts so I can only assume it's not a problem. That is indeed a very large change for one generation.
The university enrollment data is very interesting. The data you linked to only goes to 1998 but still shows a 15% increase in enrollment.
Even more interesting how the gender ratio has changed:
