Author: Bonnie Stabile

Bonnie Stabile, Ph.D., is associate professor and associate dean for student and academic affairs at the Schar School of Policy and Government, George Mason University, where she founded and directs the Gender and Policy Center. You can follow her on Twitter @bstabile1.

Women’s Independence, Credit Cards and Economic Power: Celebrating 50 Years of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act

The Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) of 1974 enabled women to get credit cards or a mortgage without a co-signer, making it a pivotal milestone for women’s financial independence. The 50th anniversary of ECOA being signed into law by President Gerald Ford fell just a week ahead of the recent presidential election, considered by many to be a referendum on women’s rights in a political climate still reeling from the revocation of Roe. That critical landmark for women’s autonomy was overturned by the Dobbs decision in 2022, one year short of reaching its own half-century observance. 

By focusing on women’s independence through the lens of economic power over the last 50 years, a new Smithsonian exhibit—”We Do Declare Women’s Voices on Independence,” commemorating ECOA’s passage—hones in on another essential factor in women’s ability to achieve freedom, security and power: financial independence.

Tiffany Shlain’s Feminist Art Answers the ‘Urgent’ Call to Fight for Democracy and Women’s Place in History

Artist Tiffany Shlain’s Dendrofemonology: Feminist History Tree Ring is on the move, soon to take up temporary residence in New York City’s Madison Square Park as a focal point for her “Mobilization for Women’s Rights and the Planet” on Sept. 21. Coinciding with the start of climate week and anticipating a historic election, Shlain’s daylong, public activation and rally address a convergence of critical concerns in this “age of urgency.” 

“I’m hoping that the next tree ring moment will be having the Equal Rights Amendment added into our Constitution and sex equality guaranteed across this country,” said Shlain. “And who knows? Maybe there’ll be something else new to burn” into the timeline “in January.”

Celebrating Women Who Aren’t Afraid to Take the Lead

Just days after Vice President Kamala Harris accepted the Democratic party’s official nomination, Gloria Feldt—former Planned Parenthood president and longtime women’s rights activist—convened the 10th annual Take the Lead Conference in Washington, D.C., on Women’s Equality Day.

Hopes are high and determination steeled that 2025 will see the first woman president and the ratification of the ERA. For the hundreds of women and dozens of presenters and organizers who took part in the Take the Lead conference, promoting women’s power at every level and in every field has always been essential to the formula for that success. 

Reps. Cori Bush and Ayanna Pressley Lead Fight for ERA—100 Years After Its Introduction

ERA advocates in the U.S. have waged a 100-year fight just to get gender equality enshrined in the Constitution.

“The women of this country are exhausted, so we are leveraging every tool available,” said Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), co-chair of the ERA Caucus.

“We won’t stop until the ERA is officially part of the Constitution,” said fellow co-chair Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.). “We owe it to our daughters, to the next generation, to those who fought before us.”

Lillian Vernon’s Legacy of ‘Kitchen Table’ Entrepreneurs Celebrated at Smithsonian

More than half a century before the COVID-19 pandemic normalized working from home, Lillian Vernon (1927-2015) launched what would eventually become a multi-million-dollar catalog business from the kitchen table of her modest home in Mount Vernon, N.Y. Her accomplishments as a pathbreaking entrepreneur were recently recognized with the installation of an exhibit: “Lillian Vernon, Kitchen Table Millionaire,” at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.

Amplifying Women’s Congressional Power

Intentional efforts advanced by citizens, academics, party leaders and actors across sectors can amplify women’s power—and staying power—in the halls of Congress, supporting them in their belonging as effective representatives of previously underrepresented constituencies.

“In addition to all the tremendous work that is happening right now to help get women elected, we need to be doing more to support them after they get elected,” said Dr. Maya Kornberg, political scientist, research fellow in the Elections and Government Program at the Brennan Center for Justice and author of Inside Congressional Committees: Function and Dysfunction in the Legislative Process.

U.S. Rape Culture Is Sidelining and Silencing Future Female Leaders

The recent CDC report on the health of U.S. high school students was sharply contextualized by chief medical officer Dr. Deborah Houry’s headline-grabbing remark at the report’s release: “America’s teen girls are engulfed in a growing wave of sadness, violence and trauma.”

Rape culture is defined in part by its tolerance of subjection of women to a continuum of threats. Rape culture is also characterized by sexism, which involves normalized denigration and dismissal of women. Failure to address these conditions for young girls creates more hurdles on their paths to success and the possibility of public leadership—where the ranks of women leaders continue to be proportionally much smaller than they are for men.