It was announced recently by Mervyn King that Winston Churchill will be replacing Elizabeth Fry on the £5 note. This means that the Queen will be the only woman to appear on British money.
I’m not questioning that Churchill is deserving of the honour, but does it have to be at the expense of the only woman venerated on British money? It is true that the Queen appears on all the notes, but they forget that she is there because of her royal lineage. The men on the banknotes – Charles Darwin, Adam Smith, Matthew Boulton, James Watt, and soon, Winston Churchill – are all there because of notable achievements, not because of who their parents were.
It seems that in a country with 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, that further diminishing the role women play in public life would be a bad idea. Money plays such a crucial role in our day to day lives and now no single woman will appear on our notes.
Caroline Criado-Perez has started a petition and I urge you call to sign it. You can do so here.
