What on earth is that statue erected to Mary Wollstonecraft? I hate it!
It was unveiled in London – the result of a decade of campaigning and at a cost of £143,000, apparently – but it doesn’t in any way depict the great rebel and reform campaigner who wrote about equality in education and has been hailed as the “mother of feminism”.
Despite an abusive upbringing in the city’s impoverished East End and a limited education, Mary went on to open a boarding school for girls, close to where her statue now stands in Islington, when she was only 25. She was 33 when, decades before the suffragette movement, she penned her 1792 manifesto A Vindication Of The Rights Of Woman.
She died at 37 from blood poisoning after giving birth to her second daughter – Frankenstein author Mary Shelley. She had devoted her entire short life to female equality. I can’t see how a 10ft statue of a naked woman finished in silver with everything on show reflects her life and work. It does not represent what she did or what she stood for.
The more I think about it, the more angry I become. Only about 3% of statues worldwide are in honour of women, and about 90% of those in London are said to be of men. We’ve been waiting 200 years for the opportunity to erect a statue to Mary Wollstonecraft and we get this. It’s awful.
The female sculptor says it stands for every woman; that it is modern and not framed in history – but we can not forget our history.
I want to know what Mary looked like, I don’t want to see a woman with silver-pointed boobs who looks like she’s been working out with weights and has a perfectly toned female body. Mary had just had a child and been ill for weeks before she died. Where’s her mum-tum in this statue, or the clothes that represent her time and who she was? But that’s the world we live in now – a world where all the things that are shoved in front of us look beautiful and perfect.
I’ve heard other commentators such as Caitlin Moran say they’re fully expecting to now see new statues to Nelson Mandela or the 17th Century philosopher John Locke with their private parts on show. And that’s just the point – it won’t happen like that.
Men will always be depicted as they actually were but looking strong. I’m all for progress and modernisation but we must never forget our heritage. You can’t erase history by pulling down statues, like those linked to the slave trade. Sometimes it’s good to leave them there, teach people the truth about what happened and try to put right the mistakes of the past. You can’t wipe it out because it’s what made us.
On the subject of women’s equality, isn’t it great to have a first female US vice-president elect of colour, and potentially a first female president? Kamala Harris has smashed the glass ceilings everywhere that she has gone. But I am looking forward to the day when we don’t compartmentalise diversity, when it becomes the norm to see BAME women in top positions.
When it’s all about equality of opportunity and not down to birth-right, wealth or power.
Kamala Harris will be a hugely positive role model for women and girls around the world.
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