PEORIA Jessica Ford gets emotional when she talks about H.R. 5050, the Women s Business Ownership Act of 1988.
“Before ‘88, if you were a woman business owner, you could not take out a loan, you could not sign for your own loan even if you owned the business,” said Ford, president of the central Illinois chapter of the National Association of Women Business Owners the group that helped create the legislation. “You had to have your husband or brother sign off for you. So it wasn’t until 1988, when I was 4 years old. . It’s not that far away, which is absolutely crazy.”
International Women’s Day: Best female-founded, women-owned brands TODAY 3/9/2021 Ambar Pardilla, Shop TODAY and Nicole Saunders, Shop TODAY and Kala Herh, Shop TODAY and Zoe Malin, Shop TODAY
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Despite the frequent interchangeability of phrases like “women-owned” and “female-founded,” the two terms aren’t always related a female-founded brand might not be owned by a woman anymore and a presently-women-owned business might not have been founded by a woman. During social-minded instances like International Women’s Day, understanding what each label denotes could mean the difference between supporting a brand that’s actually run by women, or one that happens to have women