Female faces on banknotes would pay off

Women know less about current affairs than men. This was the highly controversial conclusion of a 2013 study conducted by James Curran, a professor at the University of London, who found not only that women lack civic and political knowledge compared to men — but that Canadian women (Curran surveyed subjects internationally) are especially lacking in this regard.

The study and its uncomfortable conclusion went predictably viral; sexist dolts weighed in online with I-told-you-so’s and feminists of all stripes questioned its accuracy. Wary of said dolts, I wanted to question the study’s accuracy, too, but I couldn’t because its conclusion hit too close to home — or, more specifically, it hit too close to my mid-2000s Grade 10 history and civics class, where I grew increasingly bored with a curriculum of sameness and tuned out of current events altogether.

(Before I entered journalism, when I wasn’t forced to read the news, I thought Warren Buffet sang “Margaretville.”)

Nearly every person I studied in history class had, give or take a jowl, the exact same visage: that of an old white guy. I zoned out in class frequently, not because I had anything against old white guys (who doesn’t love Mr. Rogers?), but because repetition gets dull. And repetition without representation — i.e., without the opportunity to see yourself reflected in the things you read and see around you — is doubly dull. It’s infuriating but perhaps not surprising then, that women may not be as stoked about current events as men.

That our past and present is full of old white guys whose contributions to Canada we can’t and shouldn’t ignore is a given. But there are easy ways society can acknowledge women’s legacies without upending school curricula. One idea: let’s get some women on Canadian currency. Almost everybody handles money and, unlike history class, everyone likes it — so why is the Queen of England the only woman represented on our money?

This is a question Toronto city councillor Mary Fragedakis would like the Bank of Canada to answer. Fragedakis is one of several women across the country who wants to see Canadian women decorate our nation’s currency. “(It’s almost) all men on our money and an icebreaker on the $50 bill,” says Fragedakis. “A boat has basically superseded us.”

She’s likely referring to the fact that in 2011, the Bank of Canada stopped printing the Canadian Journey Series $50 bank note, which depicted the Famous Five (Canada’s most famous suffragettes) in favour of a $50 bank note featuring an Arctic ship.

Fragedakis introduced a motion to city council this week requesting that Toronto ask the Bank of Canada to adorn its bills with faces of women. Some of the women she’d like to see decorate our bills include suffragette Agnes MacPhail of Famous Five fame, Margaret Atwood, former governor general Adrienne Clarkson and astronaut Roberta Bondar.

Clarkson, whom I spoke with this week, listed Alice Munro, Gabrielle Roy and Nellie McClung among her choices, and Bondar, who is flattered by the suggestion that she should be “on the money,” is adamant Canada’s Famous Five get their due instead.

“I think there are other women who have gone before me who have great accomplishments, upon whose shoulders I stand,” says Bondar. “I would like to have the Famous Five (appear on a bill) as a five-person team because they did it together. Sure, it would be great to have one (suffragette) on every denomination, but I think that almost dissipates what the total role was — that it took five people to be able to do this.”

So what would it take to make the Famous Five or any other notable Canadian woman a permanent fixture on Canadian currency? (Personally, I’d like to see Bif Naked and Hayley Wickenheiser on my money, but I know it’s a long shot.)

According to the Bank of Canada, the minister of finance, Joe Oliver, is responsible for signing off on any new bank notes. But the bank insists that when it does come time to recommend a new bank note series to the minister, it is “committed to designing bank notes that have broad appeal and reflect the diversity of our country.”

Here’s hoping they print some money with the Famous Five on it, so that Canada’s most well-known suffragettes cease to be a footnote in high school history class. And if they aren’t convinced that Nellie et al. are worth it, maybe this short poem — which I wrote on one of the only days I didn’t fall asleep in Grade 10 history class, will do the trick: “Nellie McClung, not well-hung. But in history’s halls, she’s got great big balls.”

Nearly every person I studied in history class had, give or take a jowl, the same visage: that of an old white guy