Contra Mozilla

Thursday, March 12, 2015

Women in Currency

President Obama suggested not so long ago that we should have more women on U.S. currency. The simple idea of doing this does not particularly bother me--we have already had Sacagawea and Susan B. Anthony on the dollar coins, plus Helen Keller on the quarter (well, the Alabama quarter) and Martha Washington on the $1 paper certificate.

More recently, there has been a small campaign aimed at getting a woman on the $20 bill--again, I don't really mind this idea. Andrew Jackson wasn't a very good president (and honestly, he beat a better one when first elected), and we do have non-presidents on paper currency (hello, Benjamin!). With that said, my bigger worry is that we would get somebody like Hillary Clinton (if she wins the presidency in 2016, thus continuing what will have been a pair of 8-year tragedies in the White-house); or for that matter a number of the people listed by the campaign. I'd be fine with Rosa Parks (who is a sort of civil rights hero), or Harriet Tubman (ditto), or Sojourner Truth (ditto again); and it would be interesting to see Elizabeth Ann Seton (though that's never going to happen!) on the twenty.

On the other hand, there are a number of women whom I would be appalled to see honored by our currency which are (unsurprisingly) on the campaign's list: Betty Friedan would be awful, and Margaret Sanger would cause me to stop carrying or accepting 20's.

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