Female coins

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Will Indian women ever gain currency?
19 Oct 2008, 0143 hrs IST, Divya A, TNN

Turkey has chosen an obscure writer as the first woman ever to adorn its currency. The country's new 50-lira bank notes, to be released in January, will feature the long-dead Fatma Aliye, a controversial choice but seen by many as an important blow for gender equality.

Is it really? Is a female figure on a country's bank notes or coins a manifestation of a country's outlook towards women? If so, Indian women don't have much reason for comfort.

"In India, there is not a single instance of a woman's portrait on a currency note, right from the time paper currency came into being, through the British era and till today," says Rajiv Jain, a currency dealer in Delhi.

There are some examples of prominent women featuring on coins, but Jain says that is mostly by virtue of belonging to the reigning family of the time. Samudragupta's mother, Kumaradevi, princess of Lichchhavi, featured on gold coins of the Gupta era. Victoria featured on every Indian coin for nearly 60 years. Later, India Gandhi would also feature on coins.

Does this offer any measure at all of our regard for brave, talented or charismatic women? "The Indian government has issued coins with Chhatrapati Shivaji, Mahavir Jain or Vallabhbai Patel, so why not issue coins featuring Rani Laxmibai or Sarojini Naidu?" asks numismatic enthusiast Nupam Mahajan, who fits her hobby around her day job as assistant professor at Florida's H Lee Moffitt Cancer Center. Mahajan says, "It is time (for India) to think beyond Indira Gandhi (because) these forgotten women made womenfolk and their countrymen proud."

But India is not alone in its apparent disregard for women as currency-worthy. Around the world, women are hardly ever represented on bank notes and coins. In the US, for example, only one woman - Martha, president George Washington's wife - has ever had her portrait on a bill. It was a $1 silver certificate issued in 1886. Pocahontas, the mythologized daughter of an American Indian chief, also featured on a currency note but only as part of a historical scene.

The United Kingdom is an exception but only because its currency has the reigning monarch on one side, which just happens to be a woman. Women have had a rather good run, however, on British currency with the five-pound note currently an all-woman affair with the monarch on one side and prison reformer Elizabeth Fry on the reverse. Australia and New Zealand have a good track record. For 44 years, the Australian 100-dollar bill has featured soprano Dame Nellie Melba and the 50-dollar bill its first female parliamentarian Edith Cowan. New Zealand's 1990 series of 10-dollar notes have feminist Kate Sheppard.

India has had quite the opposite record, even with its coinage. Though it issued as many as 12 different series of coins between 1996 and 2003, in tribute to people like Vallabh Bhai Patel, Subhash Chandra Bose and Shivaji, it was always a male line-up. The series was violated just once when a coin featuring Indira Gandhi was issued in 1985.

Mahajan says Indira's triumph was significant for Indian women. Before the Indira coin, one has to rewind to the British Raj to find a woman's image. Postal department officials say that India has not especially ignored women. It's just that "after Independence, no currency note has ever featured any person but Mahatma Gandhi."

But Madhu Kishwar, founder-editor of women's magazine Manushi and faculty member of Delhi's Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, says, it would be difficult to replace the Mahatma with someone of equal stature and "the selection process will get needlessly politicized if we start considering other leaders, male or female. I would rather our coins have some other permanently relevant symbol like the Ashok Chakra or a rising sun."

Source: The Times of India

[translateltd]

Will Indian women ever gain currency?
19 Oct 2008, 0143 hrs IST, Divya A, TNN

Turkey has chosen an obscure writer as the first woman ever to adorn its currency. The country's new 50-lira bank notes, to be released in January, will feature the long-dead Fatma Aliye, a controversial choice but seen by many as an important blow for gender equality.
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It is a shame that the American habit of using "currency" to refer only to paper money seems to be becoming more widespread (unlike the rest of the world where it once meant just "money") ... my first reaction to this article is to suggest that the writer look at Turkey's 50 kurus coin of 1970-79 and its FAO series of 1975-76.  What is on the obverse of those issues if not a woman?

[chrisild]

As for what "currency" means, well, that is an internal debate of the English language community.   As for women being depicted on coins/notes or not: There is a difference, I think, between showing a woman who merely "represents" something (be it an allegorical figure such as Lady Liberty, Marianne, etc. or some bride from Anatolia) and the portrait of an actual person. A similar issue is currently being discussed in Spain by the way ...

Christian