Girl About Globe | A weekend with your banknote besties! 

Linda Kennedy

A coin has been issued to commemorate the Donald Trump/Kim Jong Un summit. It came out long before the date of the on-again, off-again meeting. On the coin, the men are in a remarkably close position. Almost legal tender.

Kim Jong Un got onto American cash with much less of a fight than women to get on a US dollar bill. It took years of campaigning by the pressure group Women On 20s, to win the promise that civil rights icon, Harriet Tubman, would be the first woman on a US bank note. And it’s not happened yet. The latest news from the US Treasury is that the Tubman $bill is delayed, due to currency ‘redesigns not being approved’. Behind the scenes, it’s thought that Trump is a fan of Andrew Jackson, the 7th US president and the man whom Tubman could replace on $20 bills. 

The speed at which the Kim coin was minted has prompted me to wonder: should women put away the pussy hats and knit some pink nuclear missiles? Seems like that’s better tactics.

Meantime, in the UK, it’s less than a year since Jane Austen’s £10 note entered British currency. The Trump/Kim Jong Un coin would surely have intrigued Austen. ‘If a man has 10,000 a year, what a fine thing. If he’s on 10,000 a year, one has to ask why.’

Research was done recently looking into the relationship between women on bank notes and gender equality. I read about it in an article on Livemint, with the detail having been uncovered and analysed by research author Hansika Kapoor. One point felt especially worth noting: when a country’s currency features women, its overall equality index tends to be higher.

Such countries are not the obvious ones.  For starters, Colombia. On their notes is the amazing sounding Policarpa Salavarrieta, ‘seamstress and spy’. Born 1795 and known as La Pola, she was captured by Spanish Royalists and executed for high treason in 1817. Indeed a woman of note and her seamstress skills raise the additional excitement she might have also worked in yarn. I’m thinking descendants of her wider family could help with those knitted nuclear weapons.

Marie Curie, the physicist, has been honoured on Polish money.

Leading suffragette Kate Sheppard has a note in New Zealand.

Jane Austen, as mentioned, is on English notes. And north of the border, scientist Mary Somerville is on some Scottish notes. 

It all makes me think of a new type of travel. The slogan would be: ‘Spend the night, with women. Eat fancy, with women. Take a ride, with women.’ Sorry, sleazeballs, we’re talking feminist wanderlust here. Such trips would involve visiting nations with banknotes featuring women. Forget the experience economy; this would be the equality economy. 

There’s a rise in women travelling – and, indeed, women travelling alone. It could be nice to feel empowered by a role model in your pocket.

And given the huge market in overseas bachelorette parties and girls’ weekends, there seems potential there too.  Why not buy all those cocktails and bottles of prosecco with female notes?  ‘A weekend away with your besties – and your new banknote besties!!’

As for Trump supporting more women on US money – easier, surely, if one were to phrase the request for his approval in terms he’d understand. ‘Mr President. She’s a lucre. You could definitely put your assets into her. Is it a yes?’ 

And, finally, returning to that coin featuring Trump and Kim Jong Un. I feel pretty sure it’s a back-covering ruse. Trump said: ‘I promised change.’ And lo it came. Small silver.