Statue to honour Wollstonecraft

Pam Ayers (yes I think the real one) on twitter:

Poor Mary Wollstonecraft,
Bare-bottomed, fore and aft,
Would she not prefer to be,
Left in her obscurity.

😂

Julia Long is just fabulous, she just nails it every time doesn't she?

Thank you Julia 🙏🏼

That’s a really weird statue. It should be called “Who stole my clothes while I was skinny dipping? I’ll kill the bastard.”

I presume that if the committee agree with the artist and their justification that Mary and her work is nothing more than an idealised vision of a naked female body then they will be campaigning long and loud for a buff, gym honed, naked version of Mandela, Ghandi, Shakespeare, I mean after all their words and deeds are meaningless when they can be portrayed as having the kind of body all men would like to have.

Yes, we have Mary's muff to thank for Julia going on TV. Fantastic PR for women's rights.

(I'm swinging between enjoying the jokes about the thing and being appalled that it's happened)

Julia Long is just fabulous, she just nails it every time doesn't she?

So true about Karl Marx and his willy, and that Mary Woolstonecraft, a philosopher who paved the way for women's rights, has basically just been refused to an anonymous pair of tits and a big muff. It's really pathetic when you think about it isn't it?!

It was Julia Long who questioned Munroe Bergdorf about Desmond is Amazing, and who questioned Lisa Nandy about males in female prisons. She really gives no fucks and gets straight to the core of the matter instantly, I want to see her on mainstream telly more often!

Leaving aside the poor judgment of a tiny naked woman representing a feminist icon and writer of books.

I was also pretty taken aback to be told that most woman want to look like that.
I don't and it isn't how most woman look.

Fair enough for the artist to say that was her physical ideal of womanhood but a bit much to insist it is everyone else's.

Feminist icon

I don't care who makes the statue. The committee gave a woman a chance, indeed favoured a woman over a man, and the woman picked came up with this atrocity.

I'm not keen on all women short lists and women only prizes. I've donated £10. I've never read the Vindication etc, etc and I doubt I ever will. I was annoyed by the pusillanimous wittering from the committee trying to defend their choice and the patronising arrogance from Maggi Hambling.

I agree about the books and the quill in her hand set me thinking about how the life of women "holding the pen" has been in my family. My mother and her mother could not earn a living holding a pen because of their lack of education not that long ago. I have been able to. It was a sobering thought.

people can sit and read a book there

Although I don't love it as much as I might I think it's far superior as a public memorial to MW and the thing I think is most appealing is the opportunity to sit next to Mary with a good book.

I don’t care if it’s FOR Mary or OF Mary - but bug ugly and looks like a smelting accident in the college workshop and someone has stuck a barbie Ken doll in the top for a laugh...

One of the committee basically admitted they chose the Hambling entry over the other (clothed) entry by Martin Jennings because Hambling is a woman.

Great, more ammunition for those who use feminism as a stick to beat women with.

There also seems to have been some sleight of hand slipperiness with what the Committee is saying - the fundraising was billed as 'Mary on the Green', indicating raising funds for a statue OF Mary on the Green this has now morphed into a statue FOR Mary and what she 'represents'. I would be demanding my money back if I had donated on the grounds that the Committee deliberately misled donors as to what their intentions were.

The alternative statue by Martin Jennings is a far superior representation of Mary and what she stood for and 'represents' than the insulting monstrosity they chose, added bonus that people can sit and read a book there, perhaps 'A Vindication of The Rights of a Woman' would be an apt choice.

I'll donate to that crowdfunder and hope the Committee see sense, donate M Hambling's one to an art/sculpture museum and agree to site M Jenning's work on the site of the present statue instead.

Some say Marx couldn't keep it in his pants so maybe that's appropriate?

That's quite an image So true too.

Thank you!

Please, please please, do explain about Karl Marx's willy? That sounds right on the... er… button.

Julia said that you wouldn't have a statue of Karl Marx showing his willy. For me this immediately conjured up a mental image of KM with his willy hanging out and judging by the smirks on the faces of Jeremy Vine and Sarah Jarvis, they thought the same. Those in the studio then went on to say it was true that someone like Winston Churchill or Nelson wouldn't have a willy on display. Again it immediately prompted my imagination and I could see Winston playing with himself in Parliament Square and Nelson erect on his column.

I notice this has been set up. A fiver anyone?
www.crowdfunder.co.uk/statue-for-mary-wollstonecraft

some of it really disgusting, and all very personal

Yes the line between 'fashionably edgy' and 'self indulgent wankery and really poor work' has long since been lost. Like this, when the basic facts are that the emperor (empress) is stark bollock naked, and the artist's personal self expression is now taking place solely in their heads and to no actual purpose other than their own gratification rather than any meaningful external communication. When they pull out more wankery about 'well it's got you talking hasn't it?' it really proves the point.

My toddler smashing peanut butter all over the floor gets me talking. It isn't art.

Please, please please, do explain about Karl Marx's willy? That sounds right on the... er… button.