Friday, June 19, 2015

Framing Is Everything

Via The Wall St. Journal, first we get the following headline:
"Alexander Hamilton to Share Image on $10 Bill with a Woman"
Followed by this sub-heard:
"The identity of the female will be announced later this year, says Treasury Secretary Jack Lew."
Followed by some leading text:
"For the first time in more than a century, a woman’s face will appear on an American bill.
The Treasury Department announced Wednesday it will replace the main image of its own founder, Alexander Hamilton, on the $10 bill, with a woman as yet to be determined. Mr. Hamilton will remain on the bill in a diminished way."
Here I'll just note an alternative way this story could have begun. Headline:
"Woman to Share Image on $10 Bill with Alexander Hamilton."
Sub-head:
"The woman's identity will be announced later this year, says Treasury Secretary Jack Lew." 
Leading text:
"For the first time in more than a century, a woman's face will appear on an American bill. The Treasury Department announced Wednesday that even though no woman is currently on the main image of a US bill, the US Treasury will ease into depicting a woman on the bill by waiting until 2020 to introduce the change and retaining a man, Alexander Hamilton, on the same bill."
But isn't the first way so often how women gaining equality - no, not even equality, I should say "less inequality" - is framed?  That is, in terms of how the change impacts men. How men's representations and entitlements are "diminished" by society granting"less unequal" things to women.

Anyway, some named contenders for the change include Eleanor Roosevelt, Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, and Wilma Mankiller.

Although, the genius Wall St. Journal readers are voting for Ayn Rand and "no ugly chicks" in the comments. Because of course they are.

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