In May 2013, a woman named Caroline Criado-Perez threatened the
Bank of England with legal action when the bank decided to replace bills
featuring Elizabeth Fry with Winston Churchill. It's not that
Criado-Perez is an Elizabeth Fry fan. She's suing the bank for failing
in its duties to eliminate gender discrimination under the Equality Act.
According to British national daily newspaper, The Guardian, the Queen of England and Elizabeth Fry are the only two women to ever appear on British banknotes. The others have all been men. Almost 30,000 people signed a petition - and 46 female members of parliament wrote letters to the Prime Minister and the Bank of England's Court of Directors - demanding the bank keep Fry on its notes and advocating for more women to be represented on British currency. "An all-male line-up on our banknotes sends out the damaging message that no woman has done anything important enough to appear," the petition reads. "This is patently untrue."
Gender discrimination through paper currency isn't just a British issue. It's an American and Canadian one, too. Only two women have ever appeared on bills in the U. S. - Mary Washington and Pocahontas. Canada fared a bit better but only until 2011 when Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of Canada at the time, announced that an icebreaker would replace the images of five famous women on a new series of $50 bills.
Prior to Carney's appointment in 2008, the bank earned praise and recognition for using the images of the "Famous Five" - a group of women who took a landmark case to the Supreme Court, then to Britain's Privy Council in 1929, demanding to have women declared "persons" and making them eligible to sit in the Senate. When Carney announced the displacement of the Famous Five, it sparked a protest, led in part by Calgary City Council, to restore the image. The bank responded but it was too late to change the designs because they had already invested $20 million into the research, testing and development process of the new polymer notes.
The new series of polymer banknotes in Canada contains the image of one woman on the $100 bill - a medical researcher - and it appears Carney learned a valuable lesson. As the new Governor of the Bank of England, he acceded to protests in his first week on the job, announcing that the Bank of England had lined up Jane Austen to become the next historical figure presented on UK currency. Some are calling it "Carney's epiphany."
As long as women's contributions are ignored or treated as an afterthought, gender discrimination will continue.
According to British national daily newspaper, The Guardian, the Queen of England and Elizabeth Fry are the only two women to ever appear on British banknotes. The others have all been men. Almost 30,000 people signed a petition - and 46 female members of parliament wrote letters to the Prime Minister and the Bank of England's Court of Directors - demanding the bank keep Fry on its notes and advocating for more women to be represented on British currency. "An all-male line-up on our banknotes sends out the damaging message that no woman has done anything important enough to appear," the petition reads. "This is patently untrue."
Gender discrimination through paper currency isn't just a British issue. It's an American and Canadian one, too. Only two women have ever appeared on bills in the U. S. - Mary Washington and Pocahontas. Canada fared a bit better but only until 2011 when Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of Canada at the time, announced that an icebreaker would replace the images of five famous women on a new series of $50 bills.
Prior to Carney's appointment in 2008, the bank earned praise and recognition for using the images of the "Famous Five" - a group of women who took a landmark case to the Supreme Court, then to Britain's Privy Council in 1929, demanding to have women declared "persons" and making them eligible to sit in the Senate. When Carney announced the displacement of the Famous Five, it sparked a protest, led in part by Calgary City Council, to restore the image. The bank responded but it was too late to change the designs because they had already invested $20 million into the research, testing and development process of the new polymer notes.
The new series of polymer banknotes in Canada contains the image of one woman on the $100 bill - a medical researcher - and it appears Carney learned a valuable lesson. As the new Governor of the Bank of England, he acceded to protests in his first week on the job, announcing that the Bank of England had lined up Jane Austen to become the next historical figure presented on UK currency. Some are calling it "Carney's epiphany."
As long as women's contributions are ignored or treated as an afterthought, gender discrimination will continue.
Debbie L. Kasman is author of the book Lotus of the Heart:
Reshaping the Human and Collective Soul. She blogs weekly about topics
that pertain to spirituality, education and female leadership.
