July 15, 2015 • 36 mins
The U.S. Treasury announced a woman will be featured on a new $10 bill, which got Cristen and Caroline wondering about women on currency around the world. And more importantly, does a woman's face on money really uplift gender equality?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to stuff mom never told you from how supports
not come. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Caroline
and I'm Kristen, and today we're talking about women on money,
because it's happening, you guys, it's happening. What Yeah, women,
(00:23):
there's gonna be a lady on some money. And as
of this recording, we don't know who yet, but we
know that a woman's face in portrait possibly will appear
on the ten dollar bill in the United States of America.
In the United States, that's right, it's happening on the
(00:44):
ten in because that is the one anniversary of the
ratification of the nineteenth Amendment, which gave women the right
to vote. So the U. S. Treasury was like, oh, hey,
we haven't had a woman on paper money in a really, really,
(01:04):
really long time, and people have been talking about women
getting on the twenty or something like that, so let's
compromise and put her on the tin all right, It
will be seventy eight smaller than the regular tin um
but a Treasury Secretary, Jacob Blue, said that it will
be a woman who was a champion for our inclusive democracy. Uh,
(01:28):
and the current ten dollar inhabitant Founding Father and O G.
Treasury Secretary Alexander. Hamilton's will still be on the bill,
but they haven't decided if he's still going to be
on a ten dollar bill like normal, and then women
will have their own ten dollar bill, or if Hamilton's
will just be somewhere else rather than in that prime
(01:49):
center position on the bill. I really hope that they
have the woman's face front and center, and then sort
of a tableau off on this side, like a nature scene,
and you can see Hamilt peeking out from behind a bush,
all like what happened the money tree? Yes, exactly, Hamilton's
scrambling up a money tree, little binoculars like who is this?
(02:12):
Who is this female? Well, I mean that description of
like a potential imagery on on money sounds like it's strange,
But that's what our money used to look like. Not
Hamilton's peeking through a money tree or bush or something shrubbery. Uh,
But our money did used to have so much crazy
imagery on it, whether it was animals or plants or
buildings or just general like scenes from history, roller coasters. Frankenstein.
(02:38):
Fun fact used to be on the five Brian to Frankenstein. No,
not the Brian Caroline is a woman. Oh my god.
Oh yeah, the face is actually on our paper. Money
in the US haven't changed since nine, when Andrew Jackson
replaced Grover Cleveland on the twenty and more about Andrew
Jackson on the twenty in a minute. But the reason
(03:00):
why this change to money happened in twenty nine was
when because the US government was instituting some new rules
about US currency. Because in one case, one of the
I don't know if he was Treasury Secretary or not
um and I don't have his name in front of me,
but a guy with the power to do so decided
(03:21):
to put himself on a bill, and all of the
other folks were like, whoa, Okay, we need to we
need to make some rules. So one of which is
that whoever is on money has to be dead. Yeah,
that way, living people can't, you know, play god and
put themselves on cash. Well, I mean, other people have
the faces of currently alive individuals on their money. I mean,
(03:43):
look at look at the Queen of England and British
Commonwealth States and all of her Crown dependencies. She's on
plenty of money and she's still truck and right along
she's always making a rain with with her face all
over cash. Um. But as a lot of people have
probably heard now in the reporting on this forthcoming ten
(04:04):
dollar bill, this woman will not be the very first
American lady on paper money in the US. In fact,
the first was Lady Matha Washington. That's right, first first
Lady Martha Washington was on one of the first one
(04:25):
dollar silver certificates, which used to be a pretty common
type of currency, and legend has it that Martha even
donated some silverware to be melted down and made into
some of the country's earliest money, the half Disney, which
I really think that they should just bring back the
half Disney. Yeah that totally looks like a typo. Yeah,
(04:46):
like I think you meant dimes, no Disney, okay. Um yeah.
So some people are saying, well, well, maybe that was
actual like payback in a way, like thanks for that
silver owen, for being the first first lady. Here here
is a silver certificate. But then she was removed when
the redesigned silver note was issued in eighteen nineties six.
(05:09):
But she wasn't the only one. There was also pocahanas
A Ka Mattawaka, who appeared on a twenty dollar note
from the mid nineteenth century. But she wasn't the only
person on there, and it was a depiction of her
Christian baptism, which isn't exactly honoring her so much as
(05:29):
us just celebrating cultural erasure. Sure, so while we might
not have been super big on putting real life women
on our money, we were pretty cool about putting putting fake,
allegorical mythological women on our money. Yeah. We actually found
(05:50):
a really fascinating paper about the symbolism of American money
in a journal called the Communication Review from two thousand
eight and talked about how pre Revolutionary War each colony
had images of things relevant to itself. So this is
what Caroline was talking about earlier in terms of how
money in the United States seems to be a lot
(06:11):
more fun. So this pre Revolutionary War currency would have
things like flora and fauna and ships and buildings and
not actually Frankenstein or Frankenstein's bride, as I joked earlier. Um,
Whereas during the Revolution, imagery on money really started to
veer into more anti monarchical patriotic tableaus that we think
(06:35):
of more today. So when it comes to these allegorical women.
You have, of course, like Lady Liberty, you have women
symbolizing fertility, history, even science, science was dressed up with
a nice little gown on or hair all up hashtag
distractingly sexy. Exactly in these allegorical or mythological characters were
(06:59):
largely done a way with when Treasury Secretary Line Engage
called for quote less less whirling dervish figures, nude or
otherwise basically in an effort to make bank notes all business,
all business, all the time on our money. No no
more of these women with their flowing robes symbolizing liberty
(07:20):
and agricultural fertility and God forbid science. And this was
a sentiment that ended up getting echoed by senators wives
in the late nineteenth century when a partially nude but
with beautiful flowing capes and robes, woman holding a light
and symbolizing the power of electricity graced the back of
a special edition five dollar bank note. Electricity ended up
(07:44):
getting removed. Did the senator's wives think she was to scandalous?
To scandalous? And I would refer these these women to
our episode on the nude. Yes, we need to listen
to that episode on the female nude. And I just
love the idea Lady Electricity. She hanging out with Lady
Liberty on the weekend, she should be Yeah, she's holding
(08:05):
up her light bulb like she's got a great idea
all the time. Man, you know what. I but their
rivals then, because you got Lady Liberty holding up the
torch and she's like, what is this I got? I
got fired, You've got this new fingled Electricity. And they're
both like, can I can I put my arm down?
I'm like, my arms are real tired. I would love
to like reach down and be able to pull my
robes across my chest. But it's just like, so breezy,
(08:26):
can I Now? All right? It's hard out there for
an allegorical female figure on US currency, Caroline, That's right, Um,
we we did have actual, real life women portrayed on
some coins. I mean, this whole discussion is based on
the fact that we are about to get a woman
about to about she had a woman on paper money.
(08:47):
But we did have some women appear on coins, three
of them. Three of Oh my gosh. But watch out,
especially if you don't count allegorical, fake not real women
like the Statue of Liberty or Lady Liberty. Um, we
had Helen Keller, Saka Daweah, and Susan B. Anthony who
have all been on coins. But historically, like this country
just doesn't do well with coins, we tend to get
(09:10):
very confused about them. Um. So, back in the nineteen seventies,
when the debate was going on over what woman would
go on the dollar coin, the Treasury didn't recommend Old Treasury.
They recommended the Statue of Liberty, to which Colorado Congressman
Patricia Schredder said, you guys, we have real birds and
(09:31):
real buffalo on our coins. It's time we had a
real woman. No more of this shirtless electricity we need.
We need a woman who actually lived and breathed. So
in nineteen nine we got that with suffragists, Susan B.
Anthony winning out over the statue, becoming the first woman
to appear on a US coin. But the downside of
(09:53):
that is that fewer than eight hundred million were produced,
and people were very confused about the Susan B. Anthon
me coin. They often thought it was a quarter and
then we're like, oh no, wait, it's a dollar. What
do I do with this? This is coke machine? Except
Susan B. Anthony coin. I know, I feel like I've
used somebody. I I feel like instantly when someone gives
me a dollar coin, I look, I look at it
(10:14):
in my hand, and then I look at them like
do you hate me? I think you're doing this is
like a passive jab at me somehow, because ultimately, when
I go to the freaking vending machine, the vending machine
will give me what I want, but it gets confused.
See it's confusing even robots, and then I don't get
my change. I need three quarters back, although I don't
(10:34):
know what an a vending machine would only be a quarter.
I will stock up on my singles for you. Well.
The same thing, though, happened with Saka Jewia on the
Golden dollar coin, which came out in two thousand, where
again people were like, what do I what do I
do with this? Hello? I mean I feel like, uh,
(10:55):
Europe has coin money figured out, only better than the
US as we are just well, we really have some
just incompetence when it comes to not only making but
also spending money. And then you've got Helen Keller. She
was not on a on a dollar coin. She was
(11:15):
on the back of a quarter so so less confusing
for people to to use. She appeared on the back
of the special edition Alabama State quarter. You know, every
state if you're in America, you know this. I'm not
explaining anything new to you, but there was a state
series released and so a quarter had George Washington on
the front. On the back, it had something symbolizing the
(11:37):
state in recognition of when it joined the Union, blah
blah blah, and so Alabama put, among other things, Helen Keller.
So that was good and a lot less confusing for
Americans who really only know what to do with paper money,
paper money and quarters. Quarters do you get used? Yeah,
it's really just the dollar coin that really throws people off. Yeah,
but other countries have had no problem at all. It
(12:00):
seems like putting women on their money. So Time magazine
did a whole roundup of currency around the world featuring women.
So let's hop on over to Syria, which features Queen Zenobia, which,
if you don't know who Queen Zenobia is, first of
all stuff you missed in history class. Our sister podcast
has a fantastic episode on her, and we mentioned her
(12:23):
in a roundup of queens who fought to rule over
its stuff. And I've never told you dot Com learn
more about Zenobia. She was quite a woman. And then
if you go to the Philippines, you have Corazon Aquino,
who was the first female president of the Philippines on
some money. Head over to Israel you have a poet
Rachel Blue Seene who's on on money. You don't even
(12:46):
have to be a president, you can be a poet,
that's right. And then other countries with women on their
money include Turkey, Mexico, Argentina, New Zealand, Sweden, and Australia. Um.
But there is another country that it's it's not without
controversy when a woman wants to when someone wants to
put a woman on money, uh, And that that's England.
(13:07):
The Bank of England announced that it would replace Charles
Darwin with Jane Austen on its ten pound notes. And
and the whole point is like, let's pick someone who's inoffensive,
non controversial, like you know, somebody who everybody can kind
of get behind. And Jane Austen is a pretty safe choice.
But nobody, nobody was happy. People freaked out. They called
(13:31):
her a sneering chronicler of petty squabbles. They called her ugly,
which anyway, they protested the fact that she was a
white woman and not a person of color, that she's
too obsessed with money, and other people just simply said
she's too safe a choice. We need somebody who's either
a leader or an activist of some kind. Do you
(13:53):
think that part of the uproar over that was that
she was replacing Charles Darwin and so maybe they're like, well,
you know, those are big. I mean, it could be
because a lot of the arguments here now regarding Alexander
Hamilton's on the tent, I mean, it kind of echoes
the same argument. But then you have to look at
the fact also that the two women who led the
(14:14):
campaign to put a woman on paper currency ended up
themselves facing threats of rape and other violence. So it's
probably not about Jane Austen exactly. Yeah. The fact that
some people were issuing bomb threats, threats of violence, threats
of rape against the woman who in Great Britain, who
(14:35):
campaigned to get this Jane Austen bill through is mind
boggling to me. I know I shouldn't be surprised, but
for that it is surprising because it's like, why, why
would someone have such a personal steak in a dead
person's face on money that you would make a rape
threat to a stranger. Yeah. Well, Kristen, when you put
(14:58):
it that way, you know, I mean, that's that's wild.
Well let's let's talk though about those women in the
US who spearheaded this campaign which has ultimately led to this. Well,
so here in the US, people aren't fighting over Jane Austen,
(15:19):
entrepreneur Barbara Ortiz Howard, and journalist Susan Aids Stone teamed
up to launch the Women on Twenties campaign, and they
got the idea when President Obama said something in a
speech about it being a pretty good idea to put
a woman on US currency. And the thing is he
has the power to do that. He could tell the
Treasury Department to do so. Um. But Ortiz, Howard and
(15:43):
Stone specifically wanted to replace old Hickory on the twenty,
not Hamilton's on the tin, because this is a guy
who helped pass the Indian Removal Act of eighteen thirty,
which ultimately led to the Trail of Tears, basically sought
to wipe out Native America, ends to further the progress
of white people. Um. And he wasn't super big on
(16:06):
paper money anyway. This this is a guy who was
all about the silver and gold standard, who also would
have had nothing nice to say about Americans who can't
figure out the dollar coin. And when it comes to
how he got on the twenty to begin with, the
history is murky. There wasn't even a compelling reason at
(16:26):
the time for him specifically to get on that bill.
So in March and April, Women on the Twenties pulled
more than a million visitors to their website and to
find out who people think should replace Jackson on the
twenty and Harriet Tubman came out on top, followed by
(16:49):
Eleanor Roosevelt, Rosa Parks, and Wilma Mankiller. And this grassroots
campaign was so wildly successful it got so much media coverage.
Um there was even a room for debate section at
the New York Times featuring all sorts of female luminaries
sort of doing their own nominations for who they think
(17:12):
should be on the twenty. Yeah, Gloria Steinham promoted to
journal Truth, Roxanne Gay advocated for Margaret Sanger, and Linda Chavez,
who's the president of the conservative nonprofit Becoming American Institute
recommended Emma Lazarus, who's a poet whose words appear on
the Statue of Liberty. Give me your tired, your poor,
your huddled masses yearning to breathe free and so on.
(17:33):
Um and so this, all of this media attention, all
of these voices chiming in together, was enough to inspire
some action. New Hampshire Senator Jean Shaheen introduced a bill
to mandate that a woman be placed on the twenty
again the twenties specifically. So why why was the ten chosen?
Were women just being short changed? So I speak, I
(17:54):
like that numismatic punk Caroline. Well, the reason why the
ten was chosen, so the Treasury Department says, is because
it was on their to do list for a redesign.
It was next in line to get a little bit
of a makeover, and officials decided on the tin back in.
(18:15):
And really the design is for the purpose of beating counterfeits.
So it takes about a decade to redesign and produce
a new note, because government, because government. Um. So it
was sort of a record scratch moment though for the
twenty dollar campaigners, because on the one hand, it's like Okay,
we are getting a woman on some paper money, but
(18:38):
it's not the twenty And there was something very specific
and so so pointed about women on the twenties. They
weren't campaigning for the ten. They wanted specifically to get
rid of Andrew Jackson. So Ortiz Howard told The Atlantic quote,
this was originally supposed to be a celebration of women
and their contributions to this country, and a rate by
(19:00):
product was going to be replacing someone who represents hate,
i e. Andrew Jackson. And now she said, we have
a bit of a curve ball. Yeah, And so that
curveball has helped spark a bit of a backlash. So
not only is our old buddy Hamilton's getting pushed aside,
but he's getting pushed aside for a woman, which is
(19:21):
really offensive to a lot of people. And not only
is Hamilton getting pushed aside for a woman, but it's
happening because of a campaign by women about women. It's
the same kind of aggressive response that a lot of
people had to the women who started the campaign in
England to get not necessarily specifically Jane Austen, but just
to get a woman on the money. A lot of
(19:41):
people have had a lot of strong responses, and one
big name who has come out against particularly a woman
replacing Hamilton's has been Bernankee. He's the former Federal Reserve
chairman who chimed in on his blog and said, I
must admit I was appalled to hear if Treasury Secretary
Jack lose decision last week to mote Alexander Hamilton's from
his featured position on the ten dollar bill. And he
(20:04):
was basically saying that, yeah, it's fine to put a
woman on paper money, but it shouldn't come at Hamilton's expense.
And so what is the deal? Why are people so
upset about Hamilton's leaving. Well, he was an incredibly influential
founding father, and he wrote two thirds of the Federalist papers,
which were written to persuade people to ratify the Constitution.
And in the process of all of this, he designed
(20:26):
much of the executive branch, including what would become the
Federal Reserve. So he really helped lay the groundwork for
our treasury system. He was instrumental in that money getting
into our hands. Well, he was climbing all of his
money trees to spy on Martha. What wasn't Martha Washington
(20:47):
know well bossby Martha Washington, but any woman, you know,
be on the news. I've already left. Yeah, I've already
there we go. I just I can't get the picture
of Hamilton's in a tree out of my head with
a little little telescope. And I agree, honestly with Bernankee.
Great idea. Put a woman on some money, but leave
Hamilton's in place. He's the one that makes sense out
(21:10):
of really anybody who's on our money. She's Christen's waving
her hands for him. My hands are in the air.
I'm waving him like. I just don't care, Caroline, because
it's wild to me that Andrew Jackson is staying in place,
and that just I know that there's the the Treasury
very valid argument of listen, there's an order that we
(21:30):
do this in the ten is next. And you ladies
are going a little a little wild with this women
on Twenties campaign. We're getting a lot of pressure. We've
got the centennial of women's suffrage coming up Boom special
Edition ten. But I'm just saying it's not good enough. Well,
there are other people saying that this isn't good enough either.
(21:52):
If we replace Hamilton's with someone like Harriet Tubman. You
know a lot of people have advocated for not just Tubman,
but to Journer Truth, Rosa Parks, women who have been
important in the civil rights movement throughout our country's history.
And for instance, Kirsten west safali over at the Route
wrote that no amount of subversive symbolism changes the fact
(22:14):
that the US does not value black women. And she's
pointing out that, yes, yes, we should honor these women,
We should honor Harriet Tubman and to General Truth and
Rosa Parks, but putting them on money in the United
States is not the way to do it. She says,
that's not progress, it's huh money. And she says, also,
why would black women celebrate the one anniversary of the
(22:36):
nineteenth Amendment when they weren't able to vote somewhat freely,
she says, until the Voting Rights Act of Yeah, a
lot of of people like that have pointed out how
this whole money and capitalism system is directly related to, oh,
I don't know, slavery and the things that to General
Truth and Harriet Tubman and Rosa Parks were dedicating their
(23:01):
lives to break free from and the legacy of slavery,
So it is it just seems darkly ironic to then
put one of their faces on the ultimate symbol of
that capitalist system. Yeah, so she's basically saying, yes, find
other ways to honor these women, and honor them loudly
(23:22):
and constantly, but find a different way other than putting
them on money. And then, of course you have the
backlash that's gotten a lot more traction in the media
I feel like, which is from a lot of various
men's rights activist groups who are saying that there there
are not enough qualified women to even consider putting on money.
(23:43):
Um or there's the argument that unless a woman has
fought for the rights of men and women, she should
not go on money. People like uh so Junior Truth
didn't do enough to advocate from men, eleanor Roosevelt didn't
do enough to advocate from men's specifically, No matter the
(24:03):
fact that these people were dedicated to helping African American lives,
or women's lives or human rights in general, it's not enough.
A lot of men's rights activists are saying, but we
need someone who actively fought for men too. But men
men's rights activists also operate from the faulty logic that
gender equality is a zero sum game, and I got
no time for that. Yeah, and I think that is
(24:26):
a sentiment that's been underlying a lot of this, a
lot of the more fringe discussions on this topic. Now,
maybe so much the Time magazine or New York Times
discussion of putting a woman on the ten or the twenty.
But yeah, this idea that somehow putting a woman on
money takes something away from men, well, because it does
actually take away in this case, it does take something away.
(24:49):
It takes one man's face away from us seeing it
when we pull it out of our wallets. But I mean,
other countries redesign money, and we in our country's history
have a long history of redesigning money and putting plants
on it. And you know, so, oh, I know, it's
absolutely ridiculous. But I feel like this starts to stray
(25:11):
off into a whole other conversation of how equality and
civil rights and recognizing contributions of a diverse group of
people does not always inherently come at the expense of
someone else, That uplifting one group does not simultaneously push
(25:32):
another group down, and creating your own oppression in that
way is just faulty. But then again, men's rights say
that women are oppressing themselves. So again I don't even
have time or interest in engaging in that. Well. And
you could also ask, what's the big deal what's the
on either side? What's the big deal about putting a
woman on money? What's the big deal about taking a
(25:53):
man off of money? You know? But uh, that study
that you cited earlier, Kristen from the Community Asian Review
in two thousand and eight, they looked at this this
meaning behind money, and it's a very purposeful thing that governments,
not just the United States, but that governments do is
to imbue money with a lot of meaning. Um. So
(26:15):
they're looking at money basically as mass communication and reinforcing
a national identity. And they say that since paper money
itself is essentially worthless, the documentary and aesthetic conventions of
it reveal a government's attempt to insert value, legitimacy, and
also social trust. And so our money combines imagery associated
(26:38):
with the formal political and legal authority, but also nationalist themes.
I mean, as we talked about, you know, in in
our early history, you had women symbolizing liberty or science
or or progress um. And so they write together these
mutually reinforcing strategies merge the contractual obligations of the state
(26:59):
with the sacred bonds of national identity. And so we
are supposed to connect with the ideas on money. We're
supposed to see the political stuff and the legal stuff,
to consider our money a very official thing that we
can trust that when we take it to the gas
station to pay for a candy bar, that we will
get that candy bar. Um. But it's also um something
(27:21):
that portrays images of national pride, so that we also
really identify with our money. It's pride and also national values,
such as in God we trust being printed on paper money,
specifically during the Cold War to contrast those godless communists. Right. So,
(27:42):
whether we support capitalism and its outcomes, which have not
been very kind to a lot of people in this country,
UM or not, you can't deny that the symbolism of
currency around the world is quite powerful. I think, and
(28:03):
I do, and I am happy to see that there
will be a woman on some kind of paper money
in the US, especially when we again going back to
that time roundup of global currency featuring women. It's just
like yet again, it's like the United States, just catch up.
Just put a woman on some currency, for instance, just
(28:24):
quick shout out to New Zealand want some of their money.
Features Kate Shepherd, who was the suffragist or suffragette, I
think she would be appropriately labeled, who pushed through voting
rights for women in New Zealand, making it the very
first country in the world granting universal voting rights to women,
(28:47):
and to then put her face on that currency, to me,
says a lot about how New Zealand takes a lot
of pride and values that work. But it is funny
in that awful way, not in a great funny ha
haaway um that the response to women or anyone advocating
for women to be on money is not that far
(29:10):
away from the response to women who wanted to vote.
And how appropriate, because that's what this is marking, is
the hundredth anniversary of women getting the vote, and so
people are still telling women, sit down, we don't want
to hear what you have to say. Why are you
asking for so much? Shouldn't you just be happy that
you have money in your wallet? Why do you have
to be on it too? Exactly? Yeah, if we oh,
(29:31):
it's a slippery slope. Put a woman on on money,
next thing you know, there will be one spending it
in the White House. Um. I think that really the
appropriate commemorative bill that needs to come out is just
a cent um paper paper bill, because that's That's another
(29:54):
thing too that doesn't sit entirely easy with me. Where
it's like, but there's so much economic disparity that still
exists between the sexes, and uh, why don't we talk
more about that? You know, I wonder if if the
do you think at all this conversation distracts away from that,
(30:17):
especially talking about women of color. I mean the fact
that if you start drilling down into economic disparity when
it comes to women, that black women and Latino women
are even more disproportionately disenfranchised when it comes to our
money in the US. Yeah, I just don't want to
see and and No, I mean, I agree with you
(30:38):
in the extent that I would like to see Andrew
Jackson removed before Alexander Hamilton's. But I just I hope, uh,
that it's not just a special edition bill, because all
of those dollar coins were essentially special edition. Yes they
were supposed to be used, Yes they were minted and circulated,
but again not as many of them were minted as
(31:00):
like a regular coin, um, and so people were just
dismissing these things as like not being useful. And so
I would like to to see the woman on whatever
bill it is and whatever woman it is actually be,
you know, regular money. Well, and speaking of regular money,
we don't have the stats in front of us, but
there was that uh infographic we saw of money circulated,
(31:24):
paper money circulated in the US, and it's pretty much
all ones in twenties. The ten is rarely used. I'll
use a five before I use a t. I don't
know the last time I had a tin in my wallet, Caroline,
because yeah, the at M only gives out I wish
the a t M gave out ten dollar bills. The
ATM only gives me twenties. We've got a laundry list
of currency updates that we want to we want to
(31:47):
press through. Maybe maybe we just needed like a women's
face on all debit cards because I really just used
that now. Yeah, really really ruffles some men's rights. But
rs UM, and with that, what do you think about
the currency debate? Do you think it's a great thing?
(32:08):
Do you have a woman that you would love to
see on the ten? Are you equally distraught that Hamilton's
getting kicked off instead of old Hickory Mom's stubbit. House
Stuff works dot com is where you can send us
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(32:36):
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(32:58):
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(33:20):
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(33:42):
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(34:02):
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(34:23):
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(35:08):
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(35:29):
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doesn't how stuff works dot Com
Welcome to stuff mom never told you from how supports
not come. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Caroline
and I'm Kristen, and today we're talking about women on money,
because it's happening, you guys, it's happening. What Yeah, women,
(00:23):
there's gonna be a lady on some money. And as
of this recording, we don't know who yet, but we
know that a woman's face in portrait possibly will appear
on the ten dollar bill in the United States of America.
In the United States, that's right, it's happening on the
(00:44):
ten in because that is the one anniversary of the
ratification of the nineteenth Amendment, which gave women the right
to vote. So the U. S. Treasury was like, oh, hey,
we haven't had a woman on paper money in a really, really,
(01:04):
really long time, and people have been talking about women
getting on the twenty or something like that, so let's
compromise and put her on the tin all right, It
will be seventy eight smaller than the regular tin um
but a Treasury Secretary, Jacob Blue, said that it will
be a woman who was a champion for our inclusive democracy. Uh,
(01:28):
and the current ten dollar inhabitant Founding Father and O G.
Treasury Secretary Alexander. Hamilton's will still be on the bill,
but they haven't decided if he's still going to be
on a ten dollar bill like normal, and then women
will have their own ten dollar bill, or if Hamilton's
will just be somewhere else rather than in that prime
(01:49):
center position on the bill. I really hope that they
have the woman's face front and center, and then sort
of a tableau off on this side, like a nature scene,
and you can see Hamilt peeking out from behind a bush,
all like what happened the money tree? Yes, exactly, Hamilton's
scrambling up a money tree, little binoculars like who is this?
(02:12):
Who is this female? Well, I mean that description of
like a potential imagery on on money sounds like it's strange,
But that's what our money used to look like. Not
Hamilton's peeking through a money tree or bush or something shrubbery. Uh,
But our money did used to have so much crazy
imagery on it, whether it was animals or plants or
buildings or just general like scenes from history, roller coasters. Frankenstein.
(02:38):
Fun fact used to be on the five Brian to Frankenstein. No,
not the Brian Caroline is a woman. Oh my god.
Oh yeah, the face is actually on our paper. Money
in the US haven't changed since nine, when Andrew Jackson
replaced Grover Cleveland on the twenty and more about Andrew
Jackson on the twenty in a minute. But the reason
(03:00):
why this change to money happened in twenty nine was
when because the US government was instituting some new rules
about US currency. Because in one case, one of the
I don't know if he was Treasury Secretary or not
um and I don't have his name in front of me,
but a guy with the power to do so decided
(03:21):
to put himself on a bill, and all of the
other folks were like, whoa, Okay, we need to we
need to make some rules. So one of which is
that whoever is on money has to be dead. Yeah,
that way, living people can't, you know, play god and
put themselves on cash. Well, I mean, other people have
the faces of currently alive individuals on their money. I mean,
(03:43):
look at look at the Queen of England and British
Commonwealth States and all of her Crown dependencies. She's on
plenty of money and she's still truck and right along
she's always making a rain with with her face all
over cash. Um. But as a lot of people have
probably heard now in the reporting on this forthcoming ten
(04:04):
dollar bill, this woman will not be the very first
American lady on paper money in the US. In fact,
the first was Lady Matha Washington. That's right, first first
Lady Martha Washington was on one of the first one
(04:25):
dollar silver certificates, which used to be a pretty common
type of currency, and legend has it that Martha even
donated some silverware to be melted down and made into
some of the country's earliest money, the half Disney, which
I really think that they should just bring back the
half Disney. Yeah that totally looks like a typo. Yeah,
(04:46):
like I think you meant dimes, no Disney, okay. Um yeah.
So some people are saying, well, well, maybe that was
actual like payback in a way, like thanks for that
silver owen, for being the first first lady. Here here
is a silver certificate. But then she was removed when
the redesigned silver note was issued in eighteen nineties six.
(05:09):
But she wasn't the only one. There was also pocahanas
A Ka Mattawaka, who appeared on a twenty dollar note
from the mid nineteenth century. But she wasn't the only
person on there, and it was a depiction of her
Christian baptism, which isn't exactly honoring her so much as
(05:29):
us just celebrating cultural erasure. Sure, so while we might
not have been super big on putting real life women
on our money, we were pretty cool about putting putting fake,
allegorical mythological women on our money. Yeah. We actually found
(05:50):
a really fascinating paper about the symbolism of American money
in a journal called the Communication Review from two thousand
eight and talked about how pre Revolutionary War each colony
had images of things relevant to itself. So this is
what Caroline was talking about earlier in terms of how
money in the United States seems to be a lot
(06:11):
more fun. So this pre Revolutionary War currency would have
things like flora and fauna and ships and buildings and
not actually Frankenstein or Frankenstein's bride, as I joked earlier. Um,
Whereas during the Revolution, imagery on money really started to
veer into more anti monarchical patriotic tableaus that we think
(06:35):
of more today. So when it comes to these allegorical women.
You have, of course, like Lady Liberty, you have women
symbolizing fertility, history, even science, science was dressed up with
a nice little gown on or hair all up hashtag
distractingly sexy. Exactly in these allegorical or mythological characters were
(06:59):
largely done a way with when Treasury Secretary Line Engage
called for quote less less whirling dervish figures, nude or
otherwise basically in an effort to make bank notes all business,
all business, all the time on our money. No no
more of these women with their flowing robes symbolizing liberty
(07:20):
and agricultural fertility and God forbid science. And this was
a sentiment that ended up getting echoed by senators wives
in the late nineteenth century when a partially nude but
with beautiful flowing capes and robes, woman holding a light
and symbolizing the power of electricity graced the back of
a special edition five dollar bank note. Electricity ended up
(07:44):
getting removed. Did the senator's wives think she was to scandalous?
To scandalous? And I would refer these these women to
our episode on the nude. Yes, we need to listen
to that episode on the female nude. And I just
love the idea Lady Electricity. She hanging out with Lady
Liberty on the weekend, she should be Yeah, she's holding
(08:05):
up her light bulb like she's got a great idea
all the time. Man, you know what. I but their
rivals then, because you got Lady Liberty holding up the
torch and she's like, what is this I got? I
got fired, You've got this new fingled Electricity. And they're
both like, can I can I put my arm down?
I'm like, my arms are real tired. I would love
to like reach down and be able to pull my
robes across my chest. But it's just like, so breezy,
(08:26):
can I Now? All right? It's hard out there for
an allegorical female figure on US currency, Caroline, That's right, Um,
we we did have actual, real life women portrayed on
some coins. I mean, this whole discussion is based on
the fact that we are about to get a woman
about to about she had a woman on paper money.
(08:47):
But we did have some women appear on coins, three
of them. Three of Oh my gosh. But watch out,
especially if you don't count allegorical, fake not real women
like the Statue of Liberty or Lady Liberty. Um, we
had Helen Keller, Saka Daweah, and Susan B. Anthony who
have all been on coins. But historically, like this country
just doesn't do well with coins, we tend to get
(09:10):
very confused about them. Um. So, back in the nineteen seventies,
when the debate was going on over what woman would
go on the dollar coin, the Treasury didn't recommend Old Treasury.
They recommended the Statue of Liberty, to which Colorado Congressman
Patricia Schredder said, you guys, we have real birds and
(09:31):
real buffalo on our coins. It's time we had a
real woman. No more of this shirtless electricity we need.
We need a woman who actually lived and breathed. So
in nineteen nine we got that with suffragists, Susan B.
Anthony winning out over the statue, becoming the first woman
to appear on a US coin. But the downside of
(09:53):
that is that fewer than eight hundred million were produced,
and people were very confused about the Susan B. Anthon
me coin. They often thought it was a quarter and
then we're like, oh no, wait, it's a dollar. What
do I do with this? This is coke machine? Except
Susan B. Anthony coin. I know, I feel like I've
used somebody. I I feel like instantly when someone gives
me a dollar coin, I look, I look at it
(10:14):
in my hand, and then I look at them like
do you hate me? I think you're doing this is
like a passive jab at me somehow, because ultimately, when
I go to the freaking vending machine, the vending machine
will give me what I want, but it gets confused.
See it's confusing even robots, and then I don't get
my change. I need three quarters back, although I don't
(10:34):
know what an a vending machine would only be a quarter.
I will stock up on my singles for you. Well.
The same thing, though, happened with Saka Jewia on the
Golden dollar coin, which came out in two thousand, where
again people were like, what do I what do I
do with this? Hello? I mean I feel like, uh,
(10:55):
Europe has coin money figured out, only better than the
US as we are just well, we really have some
just incompetence when it comes to not only making but
also spending money. And then you've got Helen Keller. She
was not on a on a dollar coin. She was
(11:15):
on the back of a quarter so so less confusing
for people to to use. She appeared on the back
of the special edition Alabama State quarter. You know, every
state if you're in America, you know this. I'm not
explaining anything new to you, but there was a state
series released and so a quarter had George Washington on
the front. On the back, it had something symbolizing the
(11:37):
state in recognition of when it joined the Union, blah
blah blah, and so Alabama put, among other things, Helen Keller.
So that was good and a lot less confusing for
Americans who really only know what to do with paper money,
paper money and quarters. Quarters do you get used? Yeah,
it's really just the dollar coin that really throws people off. Yeah,
but other countries have had no problem at all. It
(12:00):
seems like putting women on their money. So Time magazine
did a whole roundup of currency around the world featuring women.
So let's hop on over to Syria, which features Queen Zenobia, which,
if you don't know who Queen Zenobia is, first of
all stuff you missed in history class. Our sister podcast
has a fantastic episode on her, and we mentioned her
(12:23):
in a roundup of queens who fought to rule over
its stuff. And I've never told you dot Com learn
more about Zenobia. She was quite a woman. And then
if you go to the Philippines, you have Corazon Aquino,
who was the first female president of the Philippines on
some money. Head over to Israel you have a poet
Rachel Blue Seene who's on on money. You don't even
(12:46):
have to be a president, you can be a poet,
that's right. And then other countries with women on their
money include Turkey, Mexico, Argentina, New Zealand, Sweden, and Australia. Um.
But there is another country that it's it's not without
controversy when a woman wants to when someone wants to
put a woman on money, uh, And that that's England.
(13:07):
The Bank of England announced that it would replace Charles
Darwin with Jane Austen on its ten pound notes. And
and the whole point is like, let's pick someone who's inoffensive,
non controversial, like you know, somebody who everybody can kind
of get behind. And Jane Austen is a pretty safe choice.
But nobody, nobody was happy. People freaked out. They called
(13:31):
her a sneering chronicler of petty squabbles. They called her ugly,
which anyway, they protested the fact that she was a
white woman and not a person of color, that she's
too obsessed with money, and other people just simply said
she's too safe a choice. We need somebody who's either
a leader or an activist of some kind. Do you
(13:53):
think that part of the uproar over that was that
she was replacing Charles Darwin and so maybe they're like, well,
you know, those are big. I mean, it could be
because a lot of the arguments here now regarding Alexander
Hamilton's on the tent, I mean, it kind of echoes
the same argument. But then you have to look at
the fact also that the two women who led the
(14:14):
campaign to put a woman on paper currency ended up
themselves facing threats of rape and other violence. So it's
probably not about Jane Austen exactly. Yeah. The fact that
some people were issuing bomb threats, threats of violence, threats
of rape against the woman who in Great Britain, who
(14:35):
campaigned to get this Jane Austen bill through is mind
boggling to me. I know I shouldn't be surprised, but
for that it is surprising because it's like, why, why
would someone have such a personal steak in a dead
person's face on money that you would make a rape
threat to a stranger. Yeah. Well, Kristen, when you put
(14:58):
it that way, you know, I mean, that's that's wild.
Well let's let's talk though about those women in the
US who spearheaded this campaign which has ultimately led to this. Well,
so here in the US, people aren't fighting over Jane Austen,
(15:19):
entrepreneur Barbara Ortiz Howard, and journalist Susan Aids Stone teamed
up to launch the Women on Twenties campaign, and they
got the idea when President Obama said something in a
speech about it being a pretty good idea to put
a woman on US currency. And the thing is he
has the power to do that. He could tell the
Treasury Department to do so. Um. But Ortiz, Howard and
(15:43):
Stone specifically wanted to replace old Hickory on the twenty,
not Hamilton's on the tin, because this is a guy
who helped pass the Indian Removal Act of eighteen thirty,
which ultimately led to the Trail of Tears, basically sought
to wipe out Native America, ends to further the progress
of white people. Um. And he wasn't super big on
(16:06):
paper money anyway. This this is a guy who was
all about the silver and gold standard, who also would
have had nothing nice to say about Americans who can't
figure out the dollar coin. And when it comes to
how he got on the twenty to begin with, the
history is murky. There wasn't even a compelling reason at
(16:26):
the time for him specifically to get on that bill.
So in March and April, Women on the Twenties pulled
more than a million visitors to their website and to
find out who people think should replace Jackson on the
twenty and Harriet Tubman came out on top, followed by
(16:49):
Eleanor Roosevelt, Rosa Parks, and Wilma Mankiller. And this grassroots
campaign was so wildly successful it got so much media coverage.
Um there was even a room for debate section at
the New York Times featuring all sorts of female luminaries
sort of doing their own nominations for who they think
(17:12):
should be on the twenty. Yeah, Gloria Steinham promoted to
journal Truth, Roxanne Gay advocated for Margaret Sanger, and Linda Chavez,
who's the president of the conservative nonprofit Becoming American Institute
recommended Emma Lazarus, who's a poet whose words appear on
the Statue of Liberty. Give me your tired, your poor,
your huddled masses yearning to breathe free and so on.
(17:33):
Um and so this, all of this media attention, all
of these voices chiming in together, was enough to inspire
some action. New Hampshire Senator Jean Shaheen introduced a bill
to mandate that a woman be placed on the twenty
again the twenties specifically. So why why was the ten chosen?
Were women just being short changed? So I speak, I
(17:54):
like that numismatic punk Caroline. Well, the reason why the
ten was chosen, so the Treasury Department says, is because
it was on their to do list for a redesign.
It was next in line to get a little bit
of a makeover, and officials decided on the tin back in.
(18:15):
And really the design is for the purpose of beating counterfeits.
So it takes about a decade to redesign and produce
a new note, because government, because government. Um. So it
was sort of a record scratch moment though for the
twenty dollar campaigners, because on the one hand, it's like Okay,
we are getting a woman on some paper money, but
(18:38):
it's not the twenty And there was something very specific
and so so pointed about women on the twenties. They
weren't campaigning for the ten. They wanted specifically to get
rid of Andrew Jackson. So Ortiz Howard told The Atlantic quote,
this was originally supposed to be a celebration of women
and their contributions to this country, and a rate by
(19:00):
product was going to be replacing someone who represents hate,
i e. Andrew Jackson. And now she said, we have
a bit of a curve ball. Yeah, And so that
curveball has helped spark a bit of a backlash. So
not only is our old buddy Hamilton's getting pushed aside,
but he's getting pushed aside for a woman, which is
(19:21):
really offensive to a lot of people. And not only
is Hamilton getting pushed aside for a woman, but it's
happening because of a campaign by women about women. It's
the same kind of aggressive response that a lot of
people had to the women who started the campaign in
England to get not necessarily specifically Jane Austen, but just
to get a woman on the money. A lot of
(19:41):
people have had a lot of strong responses, and one
big name who has come out against particularly a woman
replacing Hamilton's has been Bernankee. He's the former Federal Reserve
chairman who chimed in on his blog and said, I
must admit I was appalled to hear if Treasury Secretary
Jack lose decision last week to mote Alexander Hamilton's from
his featured position on the ten dollar bill. And he
(20:04):
was basically saying that, yeah, it's fine to put a
woman on paper money, but it shouldn't come at Hamilton's expense.
And so what is the deal? Why are people so
upset about Hamilton's leaving. Well, he was an incredibly influential
founding father, and he wrote two thirds of the Federalist papers,
which were written to persuade people to ratify the Constitution.
And in the process of all of this, he designed
(20:26):
much of the executive branch, including what would become the
Federal Reserve. So he really helped lay the groundwork for
our treasury system. He was instrumental in that money getting
into our hands. Well, he was climbing all of his
money trees to spy on Martha. What wasn't Martha Washington
(20:47):
know well bossby Martha Washington, but any woman, you know,
be on the news. I've already left. Yeah, I've already
there we go. I just I can't get the picture
of Hamilton's in a tree out of my head with
a little little telescope. And I agree, honestly with Bernankee.
Great idea. Put a woman on some money, but leave
Hamilton's in place. He's the one that makes sense out
(21:10):
of really anybody who's on our money. She's Christen's waving
her hands for him. My hands are in the air.
I'm waving him like. I just don't care, Caroline, because
it's wild to me that Andrew Jackson is staying in place,
and that just I know that there's the the Treasury
very valid argument of listen, there's an order that we
(21:30):
do this in the ten is next. And you ladies
are going a little a little wild with this women
on Twenties campaign. We're getting a lot of pressure. We've
got the centennial of women's suffrage coming up Boom special
Edition ten. But I'm just saying it's not good enough. Well,
there are other people saying that this isn't good enough either.
(21:52):
If we replace Hamilton's with someone like Harriet Tubman. You
know a lot of people have advocated for not just Tubman,
but to Journer Truth, Rosa Parks, women who have been
important in the civil rights movement throughout our country's history.
And for instance, Kirsten west safali over at the Route
wrote that no amount of subversive symbolism changes the fact
(22:14):
that the US does not value black women. And she's
pointing out that, yes, yes, we should honor these women,
We should honor Harriet Tubman and to General Truth and
Rosa Parks, but putting them on money in the United
States is not the way to do it. She says,
that's not progress, it's huh money. And she says, also,
why would black women celebrate the one anniversary of the
(22:36):
nineteenth Amendment when they weren't able to vote somewhat freely,
she says, until the Voting Rights Act of Yeah, a
lot of of people like that have pointed out how
this whole money and capitalism system is directly related to, oh,
I don't know, slavery and the things that to General
Truth and Harriet Tubman and Rosa Parks were dedicating their
(23:01):
lives to break free from and the legacy of slavery,
So it is it just seems darkly ironic to then
put one of their faces on the ultimate symbol of
that capitalist system. Yeah, so she's basically saying, yes, find
other ways to honor these women, and honor them loudly
(23:22):
and constantly, but find a different way other than putting
them on money. And then, of course you have the
backlash that's gotten a lot more traction in the media
I feel like, which is from a lot of various
men's rights activist groups who are saying that there there
are not enough qualified women to even consider putting on money.
(23:43):
Um or there's the argument that unless a woman has
fought for the rights of men and women, she should
not go on money. People like uh so Junior Truth
didn't do enough to advocate from men, eleanor Roosevelt didn't
do enough to advocate from men's specifically, No matter the
(24:03):
fact that these people were dedicated to helping African American lives,
or women's lives or human rights in general, it's not enough.
A lot of men's rights activists are saying, but we
need someone who actively fought for men too. But men
men's rights activists also operate from the faulty logic that
gender equality is a zero sum game, and I got
no time for that. Yeah, and I think that is
(24:26):
a sentiment that's been underlying a lot of this, a
lot of the more fringe discussions on this topic. Now,
maybe so much the Time magazine or New York Times
discussion of putting a woman on the ten or the twenty.
But yeah, this idea that somehow putting a woman on
money takes something away from men, well, because it does
actually take away in this case, it does take something away.
(24:49):
It takes one man's face away from us seeing it
when we pull it out of our wallets. But I mean,
other countries redesign money, and we in our country's history
have a long history of redesigning money and putting plants
on it. And you know, so, oh, I know, it's
absolutely ridiculous. But I feel like this starts to stray
(25:11):
off into a whole other conversation of how equality and
civil rights and recognizing contributions of a diverse group of
people does not always inherently come at the expense of
someone else, That uplifting one group does not simultaneously push
(25:32):
another group down, and creating your own oppression in that
way is just faulty. But then again, men's rights say
that women are oppressing themselves. So again I don't even
have time or interest in engaging in that. Well. And
you could also ask, what's the big deal what's the
on either side? What's the big deal about putting a
woman on money? What's the big deal about taking a
(25:53):
man off of money? You know? But uh, that study
that you cited earlier, Kristen from the Community Asian Review
in two thousand and eight, they looked at this this
meaning behind money, and it's a very purposeful thing that governments,
not just the United States, but that governments do is
to imbue money with a lot of meaning. Um. So
(26:15):
they're looking at money basically as mass communication and reinforcing
a national identity. And they say that since paper money
itself is essentially worthless, the documentary and aesthetic conventions of
it reveal a government's attempt to insert value, legitimacy, and
also social trust. And so our money combines imagery associated
(26:38):
with the formal political and legal authority, but also nationalist themes.
I mean, as we talked about, you know, in in
our early history, you had women symbolizing liberty or science
or or progress um. And so they write together these
mutually reinforcing strategies merge the contractual obligations of the state
(26:59):
with the sacred bonds of national identity. And so we
are supposed to connect with the ideas on money. We're
supposed to see the political stuff and the legal stuff,
to consider our money a very official thing that we
can trust that when we take it to the gas
station to pay for a candy bar, that we will
get that candy bar. Um. But it's also um something
(27:21):
that portrays images of national pride, so that we also
really identify with our money. It's pride and also national values,
such as in God we trust being printed on paper money,
specifically during the Cold War to contrast those godless communists. Right. So,
(27:42):
whether we support capitalism and its outcomes, which have not
been very kind to a lot of people in this country,
UM or not, you can't deny that the symbolism of
currency around the world is quite powerful. I think, and
(28:03):
I do, and I am happy to see that there
will be a woman on some kind of paper money
in the US, especially when we again going back to
that time roundup of global currency featuring women. It's just
like yet again, it's like the United States, just catch up.
Just put a woman on some currency, for instance, just
(28:24):
quick shout out to New Zealand want some of their money.
Features Kate Shepherd, who was the suffragist or suffragette, I
think she would be appropriately labeled, who pushed through voting
rights for women in New Zealand, making it the very
first country in the world granting universal voting rights to women,
(28:47):
and to then put her face on that currency, to me,
says a lot about how New Zealand takes a lot
of pride and values that work. But it is funny
in that awful way, not in a great funny ha
haaway um that the response to women or anyone advocating
for women to be on money is not that far
(29:10):
away from the response to women who wanted to vote.
And how appropriate, because that's what this is marking, is
the hundredth anniversary of women getting the vote, and so
people are still telling women, sit down, we don't want
to hear what you have to say. Why are you
asking for so much? Shouldn't you just be happy that
you have money in your wallet? Why do you have
to be on it too? Exactly? Yeah, if we oh,
(29:31):
it's a slippery slope. Put a woman on on money,
next thing you know, there will be one spending it
in the White House. Um. I think that really the
appropriate commemorative bill that needs to come out is just
a cent um paper paper bill, because that's That's another
(29:54):
thing too that doesn't sit entirely easy with me. Where
it's like, but there's so much economic disparity that still
exists between the sexes, and uh, why don't we talk
more about that? You know, I wonder if if the
do you think at all this conversation distracts away from that,
(30:17):
especially talking about women of color. I mean the fact
that if you start drilling down into economic disparity when
it comes to women, that black women and Latino women
are even more disproportionately disenfranchised when it comes to our
money in the US. Yeah, I just don't want to
see and and No, I mean, I agree with you
(30:38):
in the extent that I would like to see Andrew
Jackson removed before Alexander Hamilton's. But I just I hope, uh,
that it's not just a special edition bill, because all
of those dollar coins were essentially special edition. Yes they
were supposed to be used, Yes they were minted and circulated,
but again not as many of them were minted as
(31:00):
like a regular coin, um, and so people were just
dismissing these things as like not being useful. And so
I would like to to see the woman on whatever
bill it is and whatever woman it is actually be,
you know, regular money. Well, and speaking of regular money,
we don't have the stats in front of us, but
there was that uh infographic we saw of money circulated,
(31:24):
paper money circulated in the US, and it's pretty much
all ones in twenties. The ten is rarely used. I'll
use a five before I use a t. I don't
know the last time I had a tin in my wallet, Caroline,
because yeah, the at M only gives out I wish
the a t M gave out ten dollar bills. The
ATM only gives me twenties. We've got a laundry list
of currency updates that we want to we want to
(31:47):
press through. Maybe maybe we just needed like a women's
face on all debit cards because I really just used
that now. Yeah, really really ruffles some men's rights. But
rs UM, and with that, what do you think about
the currency debate? Do you think it's a great thing?
(32:08):
Do you have a woman that you would love to
see on the ten? Are you equally distraught that Hamilton's
getting kicked off instead of old Hickory Mom's stubbit. House
Stuff works dot com is where you can send us
your thoughts. You can also tweet us at mom Stuff
podcast or messages on Facebook. And we've got a couple
of messages to share with you right now. Okay, Well,
(32:36):
I have a letter here from a listener who would
like to remain anonymous, and she's a new Sminty listener,
and she says, I've been particularly enjoying your podcasts about
women working in different male oriented roles such as carpentry, construction,
and architecture. I also work in a male oriented environment
because about a year ago I resign my very sensible
office job and joining the ambulance Service. I'm currently working
(32:58):
as an emergency care assistant, so I spent a lot
of time running around after the paramedics and carrying their bags.
But we all have just started somewhere. Right when I
joined the Ambo service, I really imagine that i'd be
working with caring people who treated people really well. Sadly,
there are many people who let the team down with
an endless stream of sexist and or racist comments. I'm
constantly subjected to sexual harassment, bullying, and moaning about how
(33:20):
they shouldn't let women do this job. I've been groped
by co workers and made to feel like I'm utterly
useless by men who pushed me out of the way
and won't let me help carry sick people or help
out with the other physical demands of my very physically
challenging job. Other women in my workplace have experienced the
same problems, and some are more bothered than others. One
of my female workmates says that if some chauvinistic man
(33:42):
wants to hurt his back carrying a two fifty pound man,
rather him than her. A lot of these guys seem
to think that they are he man and that a
tough guy attitude is all that's needed to get the
job done, never mind the fact that we spend a
lot of our time taking care of little old ladies
who feel threatened by this overly macho approach. As for
a racism, there is not a single black person working
(34:02):
for my ambulance trust, and I do wonder if they've
all been pushed away. Despite all this, I'm sticking with it.
I do love the job, if not the people, and
find it endlessly rewarding. I've been accepted into the country's
best paramedic training program and start in September. I'm hoping
that will show a few people what I'm made of.
So although I continue to let people think I am
tough as old boots and wear my emotional armor to work,
(34:23):
I must confide that I spend every day quivering inside.
Thanks for the great podcast. Please send my love and
support to all other women dealing with similar issues in
the workplace and tell them to stick with it, as
I do believe that eventually all of this will get better.
So I've got a letter here from Stephanie about our
skateboarding women to Parter, and she writes, greetings from Australia.
(34:45):
I'm a longtime listener and fan of the podcast and
found your recent episode on skateboarding particularly interesting as it's
a hobby of mine, something I do mainly just to
get from A to B. I had a bit of
an aha moment while listening to this episode because if
few weeks ago, I was researching buying a particular board
and found myself on the website for a major skate
brand element and something stood out to me and made
(35:08):
me feel a little sad inside. They sell a whole
lot of non skateboard products, like clothes, so they split
the site into men's and women's stuff, and interestingly, they
put all the actual skateboarding stuff under the men's category.
The women's section is purely clothing and accessories, which just
seems to be blatantly loaded with too many assumptions for
(35:29):
my taste. I never really stopped to consider the gendering
of skating before this, because I had always thought about
it as just a fun thing to do, and it
was quite popular when I lived in a women's dormitory
at university. I hope you found this interesting stuff, and
I went to that website and checked it out, and
it's so true. Yeah, so much, so much cute clothes
for women, and you just kind of had to dig
(35:51):
in the men's section to find the skateboard. So gendering
of skateboards totally exists, y'all. And if you have emails
to send to us, mom stuff at house works dot
com is that email address, and for links to all
of our social media as well as all of our blogs,
videos and podcasts, including this one with our sources. But
if you want to learn more about women on money,
(36:11):
head on over to Stuff Mom Never told You dot com.
A little more on this and thousands of other topics,
doesn't how stuff works dot Com
Stuff Mom Never Told You News
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