The Change to the $20 Bill Is Both Thrilling and Disappointing
On Wednesday, after months of anticipation, the Treasury announced that women would be featured on U.S. paper currency for the first time in more than a century. Women suffragists will appear on the back of the $5 and $10, while Harriet Tubman - the first black woman on U.S. currency - will replace Andrew Jackson on the front of the $20. The controversial president will remain on the bill, moving to the back.
While this is a positive and historic change, it's also bittersweet. And it's a reminder that even as we rightfully cheer victories that indicate progress, women still haven't achieved anywhere near full equality.
Last summer, U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew announced that a woman would be on the $10 by 2020, the centennial anniversary of women's suffrage. The announcement was celebrated by American women, who 100 years ago could not vote and until about 150 years ago were considered their husband's property. Women have been striving for equal legal and social rights and representation since the founding of this country. Putting a female face on paper currency does not right any of those wrongs, of course, but it is a public acknowledgment of the errors of the past and a way to signal progress for the future. And though it is just a symbol, symbols are a reflection of our core values. As Benyamin Appelbaum said in the New York Times, "Our money is right up there with the Golden Arches as an instantly and globally recognizable emblem of America."
The decision to feature women on U.S. currency is, as Vox has pointed out, "long overdue." After all, 48 other countries have beat us to it. Almost immediately, however, the announcement was met with intense backlash. When Lew initially suggested that a woman would replace the first Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton - a serial philanderer who would not have maintained his political position were it not for his accommodating wife - on the $10 bill, former Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke found the idea "appalling." Then Lin-Manuel Miranda's Broadway play elevated Hamilton to an unlikely modern-day pop cultural icon, and in the face of intense criticism, Lew felt compelled to compromise. Hamilton would stay on the $10, and all other revolutionary women like Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton would have to take a back seat. Instead, the face of the $20 would change - a move welcomed by campaigns like Women on 20s, which has been advocating for a woman on the face of the highly circulated bill for a year. But in another dramatic, unfair twist, the Underground Railroad abolitionist and savior of hundreds of black men, women, and children would not be allowed to fully take over the bill. She would be forced to share it with a man whose lasting legacy was the genocide of Native Americans.
The idea that women must battle for change and then be thankful for incremental gains is nothing new. After the number of women in Congress soared from 28 to 47, and women in the Senate doubled from two to four, 1992 was declared the Year of the Woman. Those numbers are, frankly, bad - but at the time they signaled progress (though progress soon stalled in 1994, after Republicans took control of the Congress, and the nastiness of politics deterred women from pursuing political office). In 2013, the Senate ushered in 20 women - a historic moment considering that, until that point, only 16 women had served in all of U.S. history. It was a victory, but it was indeed not enough. I'm reminded of when Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg told Georgetown University students, "People ask me sometimes, when - when do you think it will be enough? When will there be enough women on the court? And my answer is when there are nine."
We're clearly still so far from equal representation, whether it be in the Supreme Court, in the government, or on dollar bills. Even after Lew's compromise, it's sad to see how some conservatives many feel it too extreme to swap just one of the seven white men on U.S. currency with a universally revered woman. Republican front-runner Donald Trump, a man who wants to "Make America Great Again" by banning Muslims, deporting 11 million undocumented immigrants, and sanctioning torture, argued that putting Tubman on the $20 was a step too far. "Maybe we do the $2 bill or we do another bill," he said on the Today show, a suggestion that relegates Tubman to a relatively rare bill. "I don't like seeing it. Yes, I think it's pure political correctness." His words sends the clear message that a woman of color does not have the right to dethrone a powerful white man, and any efforts to do so are silly. Fox's Greta van Susteren echoed Trump's sentiments and proposed we invent a $25 bill for Tubman, saying that attempting to include women on the bill was "dividing" the country and breaking "the tradition of our currency." You know what divides the country? Racism and sexism. Our tradition of currency follows our tradition as a country that celebrates and elevates the accomplishments of rich white men, while curbing the rights of women and people of color. That's one American tradition we should be eager to break.
It's hard to fully enjoy this moment knowing that Tubman, one of the most impressive and heroic figures in American history irrespective of gender, was not enough of a force to topple a genocidal white leader from the bill, and that even the proposed modest changes to the U.S. currency were met with such controversy. Women will achieve equality when their presence in positions of power is as ubiquitous and as expected as a man's, and when no one bats an eye at a stack of bills that are at least half, or even all, plastered with women. The hesitance to embrace a new face on America's money - and a need to make sure the men aren't slighted - shows us that sadly, we still have a long way to go.
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