Posted on 08/06/2015 8:17:01 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
I understand why she’s a contender. I understand that she’s a liberal and feminist icon, I understand that she was a champion of human rights and an influential diplomat at the UN, I understand that she redefined the position of First Lady to give it a political resonance it hadn’t had before. But maybe, if the goal here is to break men’s stranglehold on the currency, we shouldn’t start with someone whose appearance on the $10 will ensure that nearly every conversation about it begins this way: “Isn’t her husband much more deserving?” Because he is, you know. Like him or not.
I’m going to chalk this unfortunate result up to senior-citizen nostalgia and name recognition and hope that America eventually concludes that putting a president’s wife on the money maybe isn’t the greatest tribute to female empowerment.
Released on Wednesday, results from a Marist poll show that 27 percent of those surveyed would choose Mrs. Roosevelt. Harriet Tubman, the African-American abolitionist, was the second choice, with 17 percent. Sacagawea, the Shoshone woman who served as a translator and guide for the Lewis and Clark expedition, garnered 13 percent of the vote.
A New York Times obituary for Mrs. Roosevelt in 1962 described her as an energetic first lady to Franklin D. Roosevelt — her personality was both a strength and a burden, and, at first, her liveliness prompted criticism and jokes. Over the years, through her involvement with the United Nations and her work for civil rights, admiration for her deepened.
“She had become not only the wife and widow of a towering President,” the obituary read, “but a noble personality in herself.”
You can skim the crosstabs here; Roosevelt’s strongest support, at 37 percent, comes from — ta da — voters aged 60 or over. She leads Harriet Tubman, a superior choice, in every demographic and sub-demographic except two, voters aged 30-44 and African-Americans. I’m surprised that Amelia Earhart doesn’t do better, actually: She may well be the most recognized woman of the choices offered among younger voters, but her best showing in any group is 17 percent (with tea-party supporters). Roosevelt’s worst showing is 19 percent (with blacks).
Maybe part of the reason for Roosevelt’s support is the unspoken assumption that the currency should be reserved for influential heads of state and other former high-ranking government officials. That leaves the pickings mighty slim if you’re intent on featuring a woman. Eleanor Roosevelt may well be the closest thing America has to a beloved woman former president — for now. At a moment when America is poised to hand the presidency to someone whose greatest accomplishment was marrying well, maybe it’s fitting that FDR’s better half, rather than FDR himself, ends up on the money.
Speaking of which, via the Standard, here’s the future inhabitant of the $20 trying on her southern accent again at an event in South Carolina. Exit question: If Oprah had been one of the choices in this poll, she’d probably win, right?
Thatcher had more American qualities than most presidential candidates running today. Definitely more than all the democratic candidates in the past 30 years.
How about leaving ALEXANDER HAMILTON on the $10 bill.
This is so stupid. It’s just going to lead to cries of, “When will there be a transgender on the money?” “When will there be a black on the money?” “When will there be an undocumented immigrant on the money?” “When will there be a disabled, left-handed lesbian midget on the money?”
Just leave the danged money alone.
naw NAW they belong on the fify cent coin!
*SNORT*. . .you owe me a new keyboard. . .HAH. . .good one.
Why the hate all the sudden for Founding Father Alexander Hamilton? He was after all the first Secretary of the Treasury.
But with Obama calling the shots look for the first female to be black, probably Rosa Parks, after all the NAACP operative is the great hero of all radical Civil Rights race-baiters. And contrary to what most people think, Parks didn’t go to the back of the bus on the spur of the moment. It was a carefully orchestrated plan cooked up by race-baiters in the NCAAP. And for following orders she became a great Civil Rights leader, when she was anything but. Without the bus incident (which was staged) she would have never been heard of.
Lets go for a disabled black ransgendered left-handed lesbian midget undocumented immigrant!
Pinko Lesbo .... Sweet!
Well, we can always keep our tens in a plain brown paper bag.
Hate Speech!! thy name is Red Badger!
Actually, with the push to recognize women who have contributed to the greatness of America and society as a whole, the current hand-wringing over a lack of women in STEM fields, the transition into the digital age and as a display of the general respect the country has always shown for veterans, I can think of the perfect candidate.
Grace Hopper.
/thread
What woman has done more for the USA?
Should be Churchill, or Reagan.
Let’s just put Beyonce on the bill and get it over with.
Hate Speech!! thy name is Red Badger!
Tell me why I'm wrong!..........................B^)
“Yes Sir. She can barrel roll with the best of them.”
“Barrel roll?”
“It’s a maneuver, Sir.” —”The Tuskegee Airmen”
However, the actual aircraft was a Piper Cub in which I doubt Roosevelt and pilot Charles “Chief” Anderson did any barrel rolling in.
He looks remarkably like Eleanor Roosevelt
Would anyone today under the age of 30 actually know the difference?..............
Kate Upton.
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