Statuesque
Can anybody see what is wrong with this?
This year, 2018, is the 100-year anniversary of some women gaining the vote and a statue of Millicent Fawcett was erected in Parliament Square, I can hardly believe that this proposal has been submitted. It seems incredible. One step forward and then plans to take more steps back.
It is right that we have more statues of influential women. As seen on the Secret London website, there are actually very few statues celebrating women. Everybody who has made a profound difference to our society deserves to be recognised, no matter what sex or gender they are.
Pankhurst, along with so many other women, made a huge impact towards the beginning of the last century, and this needs to be remembered and recognised. It is imperative that the right and correct memorials remain, are created and stay where they are.
Caroline Criado Perez has been a voice for more representations of women, and spearheaded the campaign for the Fawcett statue and has been very vocal in her opposition to this. Now we all need to lend our support in keeping the Pankhurst statue in its current position. Elizabeth Crawford, who runs Woman and her Sphere, is also arguing against the new proposal, and her website is a great source of information.
However, it is not just women from the Suffrage movement who deserve a statue. Mary Wollstonecraft was hugely influential, and there has been, and is, a campaign to get a statue of her to allow us to celebrate her achievements and what she did for our society.
Virginia Woolf might already have a bust in Tavistock Square where she lived from 1924, but there is also a campaign (one that I am closely connected to) to erect the first life-size bronze statue of her in Richmond, which was her home from 1914 to 1924, and where the Hogarth Press was born.
These two statue projects, are in my eyes, extremely important to celebrating achievements made. We need to acknowledge this and fight to get them into reality. Now there is the Pankhurst statue issue, and this also needs to be resolved, by allowing the statue to remain where it is.
Have a read of Elizabeth Crawford’s page and follow the links to register your objection.
I realise that I am just one person writing a short blog piece on this, hoping it might be seen by just a few people. But honestly, any help and coverage on this important issue is vital.