It took a decade of campaigning, but the “mother of feminism” Mary Wollstonecraft has finally been immortalised with a statue. And she’s butt naked.
The work, by Maggi Hambling, was designed to celebrate the writer and human rights advocate while also representing “everywoman”, the artist says. It was unveiled in Newington Green, London, on Tuesday, close to where Wollstonecraft lived and worked. But it’s quickly gained criticism.
Novelist Jojo Moyes was among those who pointed out “you don’t see a lot of statues commemorating male political figures without their pants on”, while writer and researcher Caroline Criado Perez, author of Invisible Women, called the statue “disrespectful to Wollstonecraft herself”.
Hambling’s justification for the design also seems to have missed the mark. The artist claims Wollstonecraft “has to be naked because clothes define people.”
“We all know that clothes are limiting and she is everywoman,” she added. “As far as I know, she’s more or less the shape we’d all like to be.”
The campaigners who called for the statue claim more than 90% of London’s monuments celebrate men, and many on Twitter have lamented the “missed opportunity” to finally get something right.
But elsewhere in the UK and globally, there are empowering statues of women, who (shock horror) are clothed, proving just how easily it can be done. Writer and journalist Caitlin Moran has been busy retweeting images of them. Here are just some of our favourite sculptures that sidestep any fanny-flashing.
This statue in memory of Crimean war nurse Mary Seacole stands proudly outside Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Hospital, in Westminster, London. It was highlighted on Twitter by Sally Clayden (and others).
This sculpture of Joan Littlewood, theatre director at the Theatre Royal between 1914-2002, brings joy to passers by at Stratford East, London. It was highlighted by @AtticDings on Twitter.
No round up would be complete without this sculptor of Emmeline Pankhurst by Hazel Reeves. She’s joined in the photo above by Helen Pankhurst, Emmeline’s great granddaughter, in St Peter’s Square in Manchester.
Millicent Fawcett is another suffragette leader to have (eventually) been honoured in stone. Gillian Wearing’s statue was unveiled in London’s Parliament Square in 2018 after a campaign and petition led by Caroline Criado Perez, and was, remarkably, the square’s first statue made by, and of, a woman.
We also adore Wearing’s “A Real Birmingham Family”, which was erected outside the Central Library, Centenary Square, Birmingham. The statue is based on two real sisters and their children – thanks to Sarah Hamstera for sharing it.
This statue, titled ‘A surge of Power (Jen Reid) 2020’ by artist Marc Quinn, was put up on the empty plinth of the toppled statue of 17th century slave trader Edward Colston, which was pulled down during a Black Lives Matter protest. Quinn’s statue, was also removed for being “illegally erected”, but its short life in Bristol was powerful (if controversial – being made by a white man). Thanks to Hattie French for highlighting it.
Here are some of the other empowering artworks shared: