Women’s right to credit cards marks 50-year anniversary

Good morning! Pantyhose brand L’eggs rebrands, the Women’s Pro Baseball League will launch in 2026, and a 50-year anniversary offers the chance to reflect ahead of a historic election. Have a great Thursday.
– Credit report. Less than a week before voters head to the polls and have the chance to elect Kamala Harris as the United States’ first female president, there’s a milestone that shows how radical that achievement would truly be.
This week marks the 50th anniversary of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, the legislation that for the first time made it illegal for banks to require women to have a male cosigner to receive a credit card, loan, or mortgage. Before this legislation was signed into law five decades ago this week, not only couldn’t women access credit—but the credit history went to the male cosigner, meaning that if a woman divorced, she would be starting from scratch with no credit history. This inequality persisted for more than a decade after the Equal Pay Act of 1963.
NPR interviewed Emily Card, who remembers being turned down for a credit card and told her husband could apply instead. Card made more money than her husband, yet was still rejected; she also worked for a GOP senator, who later helped pass the Equal Credit Opportunity Act.
Tory Burch, the fashion designer, wrote an op-ed for Time recalling her own experience. She remembers when her mom proudly came home with her first credit card in her own name in 1974. “I often think about the effects of constantly seeing someone else’s name where yours should be—the small, daily reminder that your life, your decisions, your destiny are being dictated by someone else,” Burch writes. That’s an experience Harris would be of the right generation to remember, too; she would have been about 10 years old when this legislation was signed into law.
With tensions rising ahead of an uncertain election, it’s easy to get wrapped up in predictions and worries. This fortuitously timed anniversary gives us the opportunity to reflect on how far we’ve come—even if, in 1974 and 2024, these milestones were both long overdue.
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
– You’re invited. Network with the world’s top business and policy leaders in New York City Nov. 11-12 at the Fortune Global Forum. Confirmed attendees include CEOs of PayPal, Dow, Nasdaq, Siemens USA, Indeed, Yum China, and AT&T, along with seven-time Super Bowl champion Tom Brady and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Wynton Marsalis. Request your invite here.
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ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
– Tragedy in Texas. At least two women in Texas died after their doctors delayed treating miscarriages, saying it would be illegal to do so under the state’s anti-abortion law, according to ProPublica. Josseli Barnica died at 28 in 2021. ProPublica
– Tights are trendy. Pantyhouse brand L’eggs is relaunching, as the market for tights has picked up with more interest from younger customers; hosiery sales rose 18% this year to date and hit $1 billion in 2023. After Hanesbrands sold the brand to Windsong Global last year, Parade founder Cami Téllez stepped in as executive creative director in January. Wall Street Journal
– Another Taliban ban. The Taliban has banned Afghan women from reciting verses from the Quran or praying loudly in front of each other, the latest in a series of restrictions imposed on women. The ministry has already banned women’s voices and bare faces in public. NBC
– Taking the field. The Women’s Pro Baseball League is set to launch in 2026. With six teams in the northeastern U.S., the league will be the country’s only professional baseball league for women. Justine Siegal, the first woman to coach a Major League Baseball team, is one of the league’s cofounders. New York Times
MOVERS AND SHAKERS
Daqo New Energy, a polysilicon developer for the global solar PV industry, named Xiaoyu Xu as deputy chief executive officer. Most recently, she served as the company’s investor relations director and board secretary and a director.
Audubon Engineering Company, an engineering, procurement, and construction solutions provider, named Sara Young senior vice president of growth and strategy. Most recently, she was VP of growth and development for the Americas at Wood.
Grocery TV, a grocery store retail media platform, appointed Alison Levin to its board of directors. Levin is president of advertising and partnerships at NBCUniversal Media.
ON MY RADAR
Want to be a good boss? Be a bitch Bustle
Meg Whitman’s mission in Africa: American tech over Chinese Bloomberg
Where’s Ivanka? New York Times
PARTING WORDS
“I believed that my daughters needed to know where they came from to know where they were going.”
— Tina Knowles, fashion designer and mother to Beyoncé and Solange Knowles, on her new memoir Matriarch, which comes out in April