WW2 women not allowed to have bank accounts in their own name?

[CheeryTulip]

I just heard this as a side fact in a lecture about something else on Youtube. The speaker said his grandmother wasn't allowed a bank account in her own name -& how times have changed. Is this true? What happened if you were single? I'm now wondering about my own grannies...

The marriage bar existed in the Irish civil service until 1973. My grandmother and a bunch of her sisters were civil servants but had to leave on marriage. An aunt had joined before it was abolished but married after it so was able to stay.

And I worked with someone who only recently retired from her second innings when they had a competition (in early 2000s) specifically to recruit women who had been civil servants previously but had to leave under the marriage bar.

Grandmother married in 1948

In the seventies a relation of mine was showing a group of international visitors a typical Glasgow Pub and was told they couldn't come in. He was very angry as he thought they were being racist as one of the group was a Nigerian man. Not at all , all the men were very welcome but not so the 2 women in the group.

First job in mid 1980s I was paid in cash in a brown envelope

I had a Building society savings account, otherwise used cash

Went to the pub, ordered & paid for my own drinks, even paid for the occasional round
It was where we used to meet our friends
The pubs
One is now a Tesco extra
One is closed
One is still open

I used to work in CIU social clubs/working men's clubs and it wasn't until 2007 that women gained the right to be equal members. Prior to that they weren't allowed to be full members, had no voting rights, were barred from certain activities within the club such as pool/snooker, dominoes, football events, had to be signed in by a full member (i.e., a man) if they visited any club other than their 'home' club. Women also were not allowed in the bar, it was men only, they were only allowed in the lounge and the concert room.

And you couldn't become a 'lady member' unless your membership form had two men sign it to support your application.

When the rules changed in 2007 to give women full membership rights, several club chose to close down rather than admit them.

My grandmother worked for Martins bank ( which I think became Barclays)

She was not allowed to be seen by customers and had to enter via a different entrance to the male staff. She was also expected to resign upon marriage so she didn't tell her employer that she had got married and only resigned once her first pregnancy started to show. This was in 1948.

I started work for a bank in 1988 and wasn't allowed to wear trousers until the rules changed at some point in the 90's. That may not have been the policy of head office and possibly just the senior branch manager being a very old fashioned and traditional. It was once he retired that things changed for the better.

Our director once sent HER pa hide to change when she had the audacity to turn up to work in trousers (early 90s).

When I was at secondary school in 1992, girls and female staff weren't allowed to wear trousers until we staged a protest and petition in Year 10 (1996). Girls also weren't allowed to play rugby in PE. The school had agreements with local businesses/organisations who would take on work experience placements, when we did our work experience we had to choose an organisation from the list, there was a boys list (local mechanics, joiners, building works, delivery companies, etc) and a girls list (hairdressers, nurseries, care homes, local primary school, etc). I wanted to do work experience at the local paper but that was on the boys list so I wasn't allowed.

^This.

Too many young women have no clue how recent our rights are and just how easily they could disappear.

I got married in 1983 and the solicitor dealing with our house purchase would only deal with my father and my fiance - not me. I was 20, not a child.

I earned more than DH but the bank would only lend on multiples of his pay and 1 of mine because I would be "having a family".

I agree that it's not widely understood how recent our rights are and how fragile our grasp on them is.

Back in the 1970s and early 1980s a close relative of mine was the manager in a bookshop where most of the shopfloor staff were female and spent time standing halfway up ladders putting books on shelves, with male customers there, so quite possibly having a good look. They asked to be allowed to wear trousers. They were refused permission. Indefensible.