Insane Things Women Could Be Arrested For In Shockingly Recent History

In 2010, a football player raped a young high school girl who, in turn, tried to report him. Unfortunately, a decades-old law prevented her from having her rapist tried.

In a 1979 NC Supreme Court ruling, State vs. Way, North Carolinian legal minds determined that a woman didn't have the right to change her mind once she’d already said yes. As a result, the judge in the case dropped the charges and concluded that no crime had taken place. Although attorneys continue to submit bills amending State vs. Way to the Senate, none have made it off the NC Senate floor.

For several decades, women could be dismissed from juries based solely on their gender. The Supreme Court actually issued a ruling in 1879, which allowed states to exclude women on the basis of a “defect of sex."

In fact, as late as 1961, the Supreme Court unanimously decided that it was totally fine to exempt women from jury duty. Not only did women's duties as wives and mothers need to come first in the eyes of the Court, but women also needed shielding from the gory details of the cases. Oh, and women were naturally too sympathetic to criminals to do a good job on a jury. The Supreme Court said: 

“We cannot say that it is constitutionally impermissible for a State, acting in pursuit of the general welfare, to conclude that a woman should be relieved from the civic duty of jury service unless she herself determines that such service is consistent with her own special responsibilities.”

“Special responsibilities” included being a wife and mother.

In 1973, it was absolutely legal to ask any woman who applied for a credit card a number of insulting questions that essentially amounted to: will you eventually be able to enlist a man to help you pay this bill? Some banks actually required divorcees and widows to bring a guy along when they were applying for a credit card. Then, in 1974, Congress passed the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, which made such practices illegal.

That doesn't mean that everything is fair, though. As of 2012, women were paying half a point more interest on their credit cards than men, a seemingly negligible number that can amount to hundreds of dollars over the life of a given card.

Okay, so everyone knows that abortion was a criminal act in several parts of the United States until the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade, which guaranteed those women who wanted one the right to a healthy abortion. What you might not know is that there are still several parts of the country that have found ways to skirt Roe v. Wade in an attempt to actively persecute women forced to have self-induced abortions.

In the time since Roe v. Wade, at least two dozen women have been prosecuted for self-induced abortions. Since 2009, a legal team devoted to the issue has represented eight women who were “investigated, charged, or prosecuted for trying to end pregnancies.” Several of these women have been charged with capital crimes like homicide.

Some still-active state laws outline a variety of ridiculously specific crimes for women. In Michigan, for example, there’s still a statute that allows a man to exert a huge amount of control over his wife. The law prohibits women from getting a haircut without their husband’s express approval.

Whether or not that needs to be written approval is unclear.

Though the race was originally founded in 1897, the first 75 years of the immensely popular tradition saw women actively banned from entering the race. As a result, several women entered the Boston Marathon on the sly in order to join in the fun.

In 1966, Roberta Gibb hid in the bushes until a strategic turn in order to spring into the race — she finished with an unofficial time of 3:21:40. In ’67, Kathrine Switzer registered as a man and eluded authorities until halfway through the race when an official was sent to forcibly remove her from the course. The best part is that Switzer couldn't be caught; she finished the Boston Marathon with a time of 4:20:00.

Thankfully, Boston eventually came to its senses, and women were allowed to race in 1972.