Recently, there was a very righteous campaign to put a woman on the $20 bill that would have presumably bumped Andrew Jackson out of circulation (which would have been awful, because then we’d have to find a new way to honor a man who signed the Indian Removal Act).
The campaign gained a whole lot of steam – especially as the call for Harriet Tubman’s presence on the $20 became a thing – as more and more people came to their senses and realized that:
1. It’s mind-boggling to still not have a woman on paper currency (at least not since 1896, when Martha Washington was on the $1 Silver Certificate)
2. It’s time we updated at least one bill to give it less of a crusty-old-white-man look
And wouldn’t you know it, with all of the positive attention the campaign received, the U.S. Treasury answered the call! Kind of.
Instead of the $20 bill, a woman will be placed on the $10 in 2020 to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote. The lame-ass, useless $10 bill. How does this not come off as one of the most egregious putdowns of women in the long, sad line of female slights?
You’re a fool if you think anyone gives a damn about the $10; it’s one of the most forgotten bills out there, as there are far fewer $10 bills in circulation than there are $5 bills (there were only 1.9 billion $10 notes in circulation at the end of 2014; there were 2.6 billion $5 notes circulating at that time). Meanwhile, the $20 bill is riding high with 8.1 billion notes in circulation.
And who doesn’t love a crisp $20 bill? When you get a $20 bill, you feel like anything is possible in the world. You feel rich; you could make that twenty dollars last forever. When the cashier hands you back a crumpled, ugly $10 bill, you not only realize how cash-strapped you are, but you begin to understand the futility of life in general. No one needs or wants $10 bills.
But that’s not even the worst part. Despite the fact that the $10 bill is a stupid, meaningless piece of currency, the Treasury still isn’t ready to guarantee that a woman will occupy it alone. Not only will one lucky woman in history get to adorn the worst bill the United States has to offer, but she will probably have to share it with Alexander Hamilton, who was never even President and died because he couldn’t win a duel.
Whoaaaaa, hold your horses there, little lady. You think you can be the face of the $10 bill all by yourself? That’s a pretty tall order, don’t you think?
So while men are out in the world shooting each other because of perceived slights on their honor (which has pretty much continued to this day), women are the ones who are apparently incapable of being the face of currency all by themselves.
Allegedly, the Treasury says that it had already pegged the $10 as the next bill to be updated for “security reasons,” but that’s a load of crap. No one over there wants to admit that they’re scared to give the big, bad $20 over to a lady, so they fell in line with history and are giving women just a portion of what they deserve.
So screw it, I say we put women on all of the currency we have. Let’s put so many women on each bill that there’s hardly enough room to fit the denomination amount. Women like Amelia Earhart, Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, Susan B. Anthony, Abigail Adams, Clara Barton, Emily Dickinson, Helen Keller, Eleanor Roosevelt and Sally freaking Ride.
And for added measure, all of the bills will feature some graphic and highly sexualized Georgia O’Keeffe artwork. That’s the future of United States currency we should all be demanding.
