Banking on a Woman’s Worth: Personhood and America’s New Patriarchy of Debt, 1968-2008

Abstract

Federal and private lenders did not consider rampant sex discrimination backwards, but good lending policy. This changed in 1977. New regulations prohibited lenders from using sex, birth control methods, race, or marital status to deny women credit. Formal financial exclusion ended, but assumptions about women’s economic dependence and instability continued to anchor lending practices. Discrimination still denied women credit and homeownership opportunities. Single mothers declared bankruptcy at historic rates. I examine how women’s financial insecurity starkly contrasted with the security legal rights promised, to argue persistent lending discrimination stratified racial and gender inequality central to America’s new debt economy.