BBC News Magazine
13 April 2015
From the section Magazine
There are calls for the US and Canada to put a
woman on a banknote. A similar campaign in
the UK successfully convinced the Bank of
England to put Jane Austen on the £10 note.
But is just one woman per country enough?
American bills have portraits of the country's
Founding Fathers and former presidents.
Chinese notes have Mao Zedong and Indian
ones have Mahatma Gandhi, but none of them
feature any women. Many other currencies
also stick to men, sometimes including a
token woman or two.
Now there are calls for the US to put a female
on the $20 bill. "The United States needs to
show the world that we, too, recognise and
value the contributions of women," says Susan
Ades Stone, executive director of the campaign
group Women On 20s.
"Our money says something about us and
what we represent as a society. So if we're all
about gender equality and diversity and
inclusion, let's walk the walk."
The US currently has seven bills in circulation,
all of which feature distinguished, deceased
American statesmen.
Women On 20s conducted an online poll and
asked people to choose which of 15 historical
female leaders they would most like to see on
the note.
The candidates included civil rights activist
Rosa Parks, birth control pioneer Margaret
Sanger, suffragette Susan B Anthony and
Harriet Tubman who escaped slavery and went
on to lead other slaves to freedom.
More than 200,000 people voted in the first
round, and the second round - set to last a
few weeks - is currently underway.
Eleanor Roosevelt, pictured during her time as
a representative to the United Nations...
... and Rosa Parks are both finalists in the
Women On 20s online poll.
Once the final poll closes, the group will
petition President Obama to replace Andrew
Jackson with the chosen woman.
Many wonder why Jackson - the seventh
president of the US - hasn't been removed
from the $20 bill already. He is especially
unpopular with Native Americans due to his
signing and enforcing the Indian Removal Act
of 1830, which forced tribes off their land.
Thousands of Native Americans died on the
journey west - known as the Trail of Tears -
from exposure, starvation and disease.
His controversial legacy is one of the reasons
why Women On 20s chose to target this
particular bill for change.
Meanwhile in Canada, more than 54,000
people have signed a petition to put a woman
on a banknote there after the sole female to
appear on the country's currency, Therese
Casgrain, was replaced in 2011 by an
icebreaker ship.
"When we open our wallets and see the faces
of four male prime ministers and Queen
Elizabeth, the subtle message is that
Canadian women aren't worthy of being
celebrated," says author and historian Merna
Forster who started the Canadian campaign.
"Sexist banknotes are unacceptable in a
country that boasts of being a world leader in
promoting gender equality… If women are
equal to men in Canada, they should be
equally represented on our banknotes."
A similar petition was launched in the UK in
2013 after it was announced that Winston
Churchill would replace Elizabeth Fry - a
social reformer and philanthropist - on the £5
note. More than 36,000 people signed it and
convinced the Bank of England to put the
author Jane Austen on the £10 note from
2017.
In both the UK and Canada, the Queen's
portrait is on many banknotes. But, critics say
this doesn't count because she appears as a
monarch rather than for her achievements.
Plus, she will eventually be replaced by a male
heir.
Although the UK petition was a success,
campaigners in all three countries - the US,
Canada and the UK - have called for only one
woman on a note. But is that enough? Should
half of all portraits on currencies be of women,
better reflecting the makeup of the
population?
That's what's happened in Sweden. "We
thought it was very important to feature an
equal number of men and women," says
Susanne Eberstein, the chairman of the
General Council at the country's Riksbank. "It
was well in line with our aims. It was very
natural."
Women appear on three of the banknotes
there, although one of those depicted is
Mother Sweden. A new line of Swedish notes,
to be introduced in 2015 and 2016, will feature
three men and three women - actress Greta
Garbo, Pippi Longstocking author Astrid
Lindgren, and opera singer Birgit Nilsson.
Australia, too, has an equal number of men
and women on its banknotes - each one has a
male on one side and a woman on the other,
apart from one with the Queen on it which has
parliamentary buildings on the reverse.
So why isn't Women On 20s petitioning for
more than one woman to appear on American
dollar bills?
The organisation does believe there should be
more women on notes but wanted to be
realistic about its initial goal. "We hope this is
just the beginning," says Stone.
But if bills should equally represent men and
women, shouldn't they also reflect a nation's
racial diversity? Again, this isn't usually the
case, although there are exceptions. Australia,
for example, has five bills in circulation, one of
which features David Unaipon, an Aboriginal
man. Unaipon was a pioneer for Aboriginal
rights as well as a distinguished inventor and
writer.
Every US note features a white man, albeit one
of the country's presidents or Founding
Fathers, even though the US population
comprises many races - notably, 13% are
black and 17% Hispanic. The US Census
Bureau lists seven different races, although
Americans no doubt identify with many more
ethnic backgrounds.
When the Women On 20s selection committee
compiled their list of female candidates, they
were conscious of diversity, but they did not
set out to fill any particular quota, Stone says.
Instead, they focused on the candidates'
overall impact and trusted that a diverse
group would result from the selection process.
It did. The 15 female candidates include
African, Asian and Native Americans as well
as Caucasians.
Another finalist in the vote - Wilma Mankiller,
first female principal chief of the Cherokee
Nation
"I feel that the money that we have now is
very last century," says Stone, adding that the
US has changed enormously.
"We're more diverse. We're more inclusive. And
the money should reflect that." However, "It
would be unrealistic to imagine that we could
have a female representative of every ethnic
group on the bills," she says. "That's for
another campaign."
Perhaps a country can't fully represent the
diversity of its population on a handful of
notes. Euro bills - tasked with representing a
huge span of people, cultures and history -
depict stylised images of windows, doorways
and bridges. Not even actual monuments, let
alone portraits of real people.
So could this be the solution - no portraits at
all?
Norway currently has women on two of its five
banknotes. "In a society where gender equality
is an important value, having both male and
female portraits on the banknotes is a matter
of course," says Hilde Singsaas, from Norges
Bank.
However, Norway will soon be getting rid of
both men and women when it introduces a
new series of notes which will have a sea
theme. The specific designs are not yet
finalised but proposed motifs (below) feature
ships, water and fish. This wasn't because of
difficulty reflecting the diversity of Norway's
population through portraits though, Singsaas
says.
Designs proposed for one side of the
Norwegian banknote are based on the
Beaufort wind speed scale
"All the previous banknote series featured
portraits as the primary motif, without any
clear connection between them," she explains.
"This time, the aim was to find a recurrent
theme binding the banknotes together into a
coherent whole."
Similarly, Denmark recently introduced a new
series of notes featuring bridges and
prehistoric objects rather than people. Its
previous series of five bills had women on two,
men on two and one with a woman and a
man. On its website, the Danish National Bank
explains that the bridges symbolise links
between various parts of Denmark and
between the past and present.
Putting bridges instead of people on the notes
did not have anything to do with difficulty
depicting a diverse population, says the
bank's spokesman Lars Luth Mikkelsen.
Another reason it might be easier to choose
landscapes or buildings over people is that
prominent figures are often controversial in
one way or another, like Jackson in the US.
Every person that you put on a banknote will
garner some negative and some positive
feedback, says Sweden's Eberstein. She and
the Riksbank received criticism about the
decision to put opera singer Birgit Nilsson on
one of Sweden's new notes. Nilsson is pictured
singing an opera by Richard Wagner, whose
works are sometimes associated with Nazi
Germany.
Eberstein pointed out that Nilsson most often
performed Wagner, who is still very popular
today.
"She was a world famous singer," Eberstein
says, "and a good representative of Sweden at
that time."
And Women On 20s' Stone admits, "You can
never please everyone."

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