Woman gets Bank of England into trouble

Social reformer Elizabeth Fry landed the Bank of England in trouble with women recently when Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank of England, announced that Winston Churchill will replace Fry as the face of the £5 note. “This means that, other than the Queen, there will be no women featuring on English bank notes”, said Caroline Criado-Perez, co-founder of TheWomensRoom who started a petition asking the Bank of England to reverse its decision – it gained 26,000 signatures of support within two weeks. TheWomensRoom campaign went further on 11th May 2013 when solicitors Deighton Pierce Glynn, acting on behalf of Criado-Perez, contacted the Bank claiming it has failed in its duties under article 146 of the Equality Act.

The matter escalated after the Bank of England tried to explain the procedure by which figures appear on British bank notes, saying “the Bank has celebrated the lives of eminent British personalities on the back of its notes since 1970. It is usual practice to consider a number of candidates all of whom have been selected because of their indisputable contribution to their particular field of work, recognised with the benefit of lengthy historical perspective, and about whom there exists sufficient material on which to base a banknote design. The final decision is made by the governor but the public are able to suggest names; a list of these is on our website.”

TheWomensRoom recommended British writer, philosopher, and advocate of women's rights, Mary Wollstonecraft; Mary Seacole, the charismatic black nurse who became a heroine of the Crimea and a British biophysicist and x-ray crystallographer, Rosalind Franklin as suitable female replacements but did not receive a reply to their letter.

Why does it matter?

“An all-male line-up on our banknotes sends out the damaging message that no woman has done anything important enough to appear. This is patently untrue. Not only have numerous women emerged as leading figures in their fields, they have done so against the historic odds stacked against them which denied women a public voice and relegated them to the private sphere - making their emergence into public life all the more impressive and worthy of celebration.”

“People will perhaps say that the Queen appears on all the notes. But the Queen would be there whatever she achieved - she was born into her position. The men on the banknotes - Charles Darwin, Adam Smith, Matthew Boulton, James Watt, and soon, Winston Churchill - are all there because of what they have done, not because of who their parents were.”

“This decision by the Bank of England is yet another example of women's considerable achievements being overlooked in favour of the usual (male) suspects - and yet another example of how the establishment undervalues the contributions of women to history - and indeed to the present. The significance of this decision is further underlined by the fact that Darwin is actually our oldest note - by two years. Why isn't he being replaced?”

“This matters.”

“It matters because young women growing up see a parliament that is 57th equal in the world when it comes to female representation; a media where only 1 in 5 experts is a woman; and a business world where female directors represent only 16.7% of the total.”

“Currency, as its name suggests, is fundamental to our daily lives. These notes will change hands every hour, every minute, every second. And every time they do, the message will drive a little deeper home: women do not belong in public life - they never have, and they never will.”

“We call on the Bank of England to reverse this decision”

Click here to sign TheWomensRoom petition.