A Republican Candidate's Guide To The Women Who Shaped America

Because saying your wife/mother/daughter should be on the $10 doesn't cut it.

At the second Republican Debate, candidates were asked: "Which woman should be on the $10 bill?"

commons.wikimedia.org / Via latimes.com

Their answers were as follows (in order of answering the question):

Rand Paul: Susan B. Anthony

Mike Huckabee: His wife

Marco Rubio: Rosa Parks

Ted Cruz: Rosa Parks (she should be put on the $20)

Ben Carson: His mother

Donald Trump: His daughter

Jeb Bush: Margaret Thatcher

Scott Walker: Clara Barton

Carly Fiorina: The currency should not be changed.

John Kasich: Mother Teresa

Chris Christie: Abigail Adams

Of the ten candidates who named a woman, three named living family members and two named non-Americans.

upload.wikimedia.org / Via latimes.com

Huckabee's wife, Carson's mother, and Trump's daughter would all not be pleased to know that you can only be on currency if you are no longer living. Likewise, Bush's answer of Margaret Thatcher and John Kasich's answer of Mother Teresa are both invalid because they are not American citizens.

It seems that it might be helpful for the candidates to review women's contributions to America's history. Here are some suggestions that they could have said...

Harriet Tubman

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Harriet Tubman recently won the poll for the Women on 20s campaign, drawing major popular support.

Tubman was a civil rights activist and suffragist. In addition to working as a nurse, she led seventy people over thirteen trips to freedom along the famous Underground Railroad, a network of anti-slavery safe houses.

Mary Ludwig Hayes (Molly Pitcher)

en.wikipedia.org / Via en.wikipedia.org

Molly Pitcher is generally regarded by historians as a myth and possible composite of women who bravely fought in the American Revolution. However, Mary Ludwig Hayes was a woman who is believed to be at least partially the inspiration of Molly Pitcher. Along with Martha Washington, she followed soldiers to battle to tend to the sick and wounded. At the Battle of Monmouth, Mary's husband was collapsed, and she took his place manning the cannon in combat.

Julia Ward Howe

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Julia Ward Howe was an abolitionist, women's rights activist, and poet who wrote the words to the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" after meeting with Abraham Lincoln in Washington, DC.

Rear Admiral Grace Hopper, USN, PhD.

en.wikipedia.org / Via en.wikipedia.org

Grace Hopper earned a PhD at Yale University and taught mathematics at Vassar College - but she joined the US Navy to serve in WWII. Starting in 1949, she worked at the Harvard Computation Lab to work with the Navy to develop compilers and computers.

Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm

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Shirley Chisholm was a writer, activist, and educator who represented New York's 12th Congressional District for seven-consecutive terms from 1969 to 1983. In 1972, she was also the first black presidential candidate to run in the primary of a major party when she made a bid for the Democratic party's nomination for president. After her term as a Congresswoman, Chisholm worked as a professor at Mt. Holyoke College.

Of course, these are only some of many great options, including the women listed below chronologically:

Anne Hutchinson - religious rights advocate

Pocahontas - famed Virginia Indian who married an Englishman

Anne Bradstreet - Puritan poet

Martha Washington - the original First Lady, who appeared on the $1 in the 1800's

Betsy Ross - creator of the American flag

Elizabeth Clovis Lange - founder of the Oblate Sisters of Providence, education reformer

Sacajewea - Shoshone guide on the Lewis and Clark expedition

Sojourner Truth - preacher, civil rights activist, women's rights activist

Dorothea Dix - Superintendent of Female Nurses in the Civil War

Biddy Mason - former slave and entrepreneur

Elizabeth Blackwell - the first woman physician in the U.S.

Louisa May Alcott - writer and women's rights activist

Mary Harris Jones - labor activist

Queen Liliuokalani - Queen of Hawaii

Annie Smith Peck - mountaineer and women's rights activist

Annie Oakley - sharpshooter

Annie Jump Cannon - astronomer and inventor

Anne Sullivan - teacher of Helen Keller

Helen Keller - writer and social reformer

Margaret Sanger - family planning advocate

Frances Perkins - first woman Cabinet member

Eleanor Roosevelt - U.S. Representative to the U.N., First Lady, and activist

Alice Stokes Paul - women's rights activist

Georgia O'Keeffe - painter

Zora Neale Hurston - writer

Amelia Earhart - aviator

Dorothy Day - writer and social advocate

Margaret Mead - anthropologist and psychologist

Esther Ross - Native rights activist

Katherine Sui Fun Cheung - aviator

Maria Goeppert-Mayer - Nobel Prize winning scientist

Rachel Carson - author of Silent Spring

Emma Tenayuca - labor activist and educator

Fannie Lou Hamer - civil rights activist and women's rights activist

Betty Friedan - author of The Feminine Mystique

Patsy Takemoto Mink - first Asian American congresswoman

Coretta Scott King - civil rights activist and wife to Dr. Martin Luther King

Sally Ride - astronaut, the first woman in outer space

Women have worked to make America great! They should be recognized for their contributions.

Hopefully these Republican presidential candidates will take note.