George Washington. Abraham Lincoln. Ben Franklin. Besides being as American as apple pie, what do they have in common? They have all been forever memorialized in U.S. currency…and they are male.

Recently, there has been a push for a feminine face to appear on United States currency. It has become a national affair, with many crying out against the inequality of it all. There have been websites and petitions speaking up for equal representation on currency, including the popular “Women on 20s” campaign which is appealing for the $20 dollar bill– a bill that currently belongs to seventh president Andrew Jackson–to adopt the face of an influential woman instead.

When President Obama announced that he supported the notion of women on currency, Women on 20s, or W20, began to truly push for their cause.

Candidates for the honor include memorable women such as Susan B. Anthony, Rosa Parks and Eleanor Roosevelt — all, in their own right, American heroes. But what would we, as a country gain from booting Jackson? Besides the ironic fact that Jackson spent most of his presidency fighting against national banks as a whole and ended up on national currency anyway, his actions toward Native Americans during his presidency (Trail of Tears, anyone?) are being used in arguments for a new face for the 20 dollar bill.

In truth, women have actually been featured on US currency. In 1978, Susan B. Anthony, became the first woman to have her portrait on American coinage when President Jimmy Carter signed the law ordering a change in size, weight and design of the large Eisenhower one-dollar coin. In 1886, first lady Martha Washington appeared on the $1 silver certificate.In 2000, the beleaguered silver SBA was replaced a gold-colored dollar depicting Shoshone Indian guide Sacagawea, guide of the Lewis and Clark expedition.  State hero Helen Keller is featured  the reverse side of the Alabama quarter.

Clearly, women are no longer being denied for currency placement. It is all about the timing. When the bills we use now– created 1929– were made, women had just earned the right to vote in 1920. The last thing on the influential women of that age’s mind were what money was going to look for.

While I commend the push for equality and appreciate the cause, this question still haunts me: Is the lack of females on our bills truly sexism? Most of bills, created just after the Great Depression, hold the faces they do because those were some of the heroes of those times. If we are going to change the bills, why not change them all? The answer to that question is that it costs money to print money. As it stands now, the US simply does not have the time or the money to do this.