Make a Payment Rates About Careers Contact Locations

Bader Ginsberg Deserves Credit For Women's Financial Independence

March 28, 2022 Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by the CU Times on March 28, 2022, at 10 am. By , CEO and President, Summit Credit Union When we use our debit or credit cards this Women’s History Month, we need to remember we only have them because of the long fight for women’s financial independence led by then attorney, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who later became the pioneering Supreme Court justice. Bader Ginsburg, known as RBG, spent 50 years of her life paving the way to broaden women’s control over their lives, including the opportunity to open savings accounts or apply for credit cards without the permission of a man. Her work also opened the doors to fair pay and to more independence for women business owners, some of whom lived in Madison, Wis. I remember a Madison friend telling members of Madison TEMPO, a woman’s networking group, about her experiences in running a company that she and her husband started. After her husband died in the late 1960s, she needed one of the company’s male vice presidents to sign on any business loans. Keep in mind she was the president, CEO and founder of the company. Bader Ginsberg, who died in 2020, knew this all too well as a young woman in the 1950s and 1960s. When she applied for financial aid to attend Harvard Law School, officials told her to get a financial statement from her father-in-law. They weren’t interested in Bader Ginsburg’s finances or those of her lower-income husband, who was also a law student. The insult spurred Bader Ginsburg’s extensive work on gender equality in the 1970s. As a volunteer and later as an employee at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Bader Ginsburg worked on 34 cases that went to the Supreme Court. She won five of the six cases she argued before the high court, and she chose several cases involving sexual discrimination against men because she thought if she could show men suffered from gender inequality, the male jurists would have sympathy for them. That, she reasoned, would eventually help women. And she was right. Three of the six cases give us insight into Bader Ginsberg’s contributions:
  • In 1973, she successfully argued in the Frontiero v. Richardson case that a woman serving in the Air Force faced illegal discrimination because she was not given a housing allowance like her male cohorts.
  • In 1975, in Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld, RBG won the day for a widower denied the Social Security surviving parent benefit after the death in childbirth of his wife, who was the main breadwinner. She argued that gender discrimination against a man is as unfair as it is against a woman and it also reinforces gender role biases for both men and women.
  • Also, in 1975 RBG challenged a Louisiana law in Edwards v. Healy that allowed women to opt out of jury duty. While some would argue that this law benefited women by giving them more choices, it hurt women who were on trial.
Bader Ginsburg’s transformational thinking continued when she became a justice on the U.S. Appeals Court and later the U.S. Supreme Court in 1993. She continued to advance equality through dissents and advocating for new laws throughout her time on the high court. In our financial lives, we only need to look to Bader Ginsburg’s research as a Columbia University professor and her ACLU work, which ushered in the turning point for American women with the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974. The law prohibited discrimination by banks and other financial institutions based on race, color, religion, national origin, sex, marital status or age. Women seeking loans or credit began to be evaluated by their credit worthiness, and not that of a husband, father or father-in-law. Today women still make less money than men for a variety of reasons. They live longer and tend to have higher expenses. Women also tend to look at credit as an expense rather than an investment in their businesses or homes. Nine out of 10 American women will be the sole financial decision-maker later in life when they may be widowed or left alone as other relatives pass on, according to a 2016 study by the Administration on Aging. Without financial wellness, women can make life-changing mistakes during those times of grief that could result in poverty. At Summit Credit Union, we are committed to giving women the power, confidence and tools to make good financial decisions throughout their lives. As we close out Women’s History Month, it is important to nod to RBG, note our progress and recognize there is more that we can do. You might also be interested in BRAVA asked Summit Credit Union’s financial experts what strategies they recommend to create more financial security, not just for today’s needs but also years into the future. Summit CEO and President Kim Sponem says Summit’s passionate about helping all members build wealth to make that financial security happen — but specifically women, who generally have less saved in retirement than men. There was a time when women were rarely involved in the financial matters of their family. In fact, it’s wild to think that before 1974, women couldn’t even open a credit card in their own name — they had to have a male spouse or a man in their life cosign for an account. Today, however, things are different — women have taken the proverbial reins of their financial health seriously, and for good reason. Summit Credit Union is the latest Wisconsin financial institution to sign name, image and likeness (NIL) deals with Wisconsin student-athletes. Madison-based Summit Credit Union signed NILs with University of Wisconsin-Madison student-athletes for its new financial wellness ambassador program. The program seeks to increase student-athletes' financial wellness education through social media. Wisconsinites are big on using local mortgage lenders and Summit Credit Union tops the list – both for overall mortgage lending and refinances for existing homeowners. See more on the rankings in this article from The Truth About Mortgage. As published in the Wisconsin State Journal on September 15, 2022.  to view a PDF version of the article. Madison has never seen anything like this. Ambitious initiatives happening at once -- Madison Area Technical College's Goodman South campus, nonprofit One City Schools, the Urban League of Greater Madison's Black Business Hub, the Center for Black Excellence and Culture, a new Centro Hispano, and Mount Zion Baptist's Family Life Center -- promise to raise the South Side and the Black and brown experience in a city notorious for racial disparities and inequity. When we use our debit or credit cards this Women’s History Month, we need to remember we only have them because of the long fight for women’s financial independence led by then attorney, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who later became the pioneering Supreme Court justice. Featured Products Certificates Checking Accounts Home Equity Loans Home Loans Business Banking Certificates Checking Accounts Home Equity Loans Home Loans Business Banking Financial Education Upcoming Events Programs Tools & Calculators On-demand Webinars Podcasts Upcoming Events Programs Tools & Calculators On-demand Webinars Podcasts About Equity in Money™ About Summit Careers News Community Giving Equity in Money™ About Summit Careers News Community Giving Help & Support Contact Us Member Support Center Schedule an Appointment Find a Branch Contact Us Member Support Center Schedule an Appointment Find a Branch Please read the following before proceeding to: The website you are about to visit is solely the responsibility of the merchant or other party providing the site. The content of this third-party site, including materials and information, is solely the responsibility of the provider of the site. The Credit Union is not responsible for any such third-party content. Any transactions that you enter into with a vendor, merchant or other party that you access through this third-party site are solely between you and that vendor, merchant or other party. The Credit Union does not endorse the content contained in this third-party site, nor the organization publishing the site, and hereby disclaims any responsibility for such content. The Credit Union Privacy Policy does not apply to this third-party site, and for further information you should consult the privacy disclosures of the third-party site. NCUA Insurance Estimator Privacy, Security & Accessibility Rates, Fees, Terms & Disclosures Routing Number *  The Wisconsin's #1 Mortgage Lender designation is based on the number of loans in 2022, gathered from the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data compiled annually by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The results of the data were obtained through the LEI: 254900NTAC4H10MGSU23 **  SBA Lender of the Year Award for Credit Unions as awarded by the Small Business Administration of Wisconsin in 2023. Copyright 2024 © Summit Credit Union. All rights reserved. If you are using a screen reader and are having problems using this website, please call 608-243-5000 for assistance. Insured by NCUA