In the early 70s I was well within the parameters for a credit card (if I'd been a guy) but I only got it because the branch manager had discretionary approval authority and she knew me pretty well. She & her husband were good friends with my parents.

That bank manager? She was the big bank company's first female branch manager. She started as a teller and when she got pregnant, they moved her to a back office not visible to customers.

When Lucile Ball got pregnant in 1952 and they wrote it into I Love Lucy, the network would not allow them to say the word pregnant on the air.