@msflibble
I'm angry about this utter shit on so many levels.
Why does MW have to represent "Everywoman" anyway? She wasn't everywoman, she was herself, and she deserves to have a commemoration that doesn't reduce her to some banal waifish pornstar-like figure and instead focuses on her specific achievements and talents. We don't see male public figures getting reduced to bland, hackneyed tropes of "everyman", they are allowed to be portrayed warts and all, in all their complexity.
And anyway, if Hambling was going to design an Everywoman, that's nothing like the average woman. The female people I know who look similar are generally either adolescents or have eating disorders.
Hambling even said it's not a statue of Wollstonecraft, it's just a statue for her. Well what's the fucking point of that then? The project was supposed to even up the amount of female public figures depicted in statuary and it's not even doing that because that's not even supposed to be MW herself.
The idea that this represents a break from tradition is laughable, sculptors have been making models of idealised women with their tits out for thousands of years. Venus de Milo anyone?
The whole thing is a fucking joke, I hope it gets vandalised beyond repair, preferably melted with a flamethrower into a silvery puddle, and replaced with something that gives MW the recognition and dignity her legacy deserves.
This. Even though I'm not British and don't live in the UK I am still so annoyed by the whole thing. "Everywoman" is every woman; the brief was to commemorate HER and her achievements. We have "everywoman" around us all the time, we don't need to be commemorated as some really fit young thing with a broccoli bush!
I am 69 and don't want t body like that. Even though I'd like to lose a 3-5 kilos for comfort, I have the body of a grandmother and have absolutely no desire to be young again, or to even look young again -- I am very happy to be freed from the male gaze.
How dare she think she is representing us all with that monstrosity?
The ego behind it is mind-boggling.
While we regret having to make this clear, we very clearly want to state that this is an explicitly trans-inclusive project. We state this as we note that frequently a nude female form is taken as a canvas for promoting trans-exclusionary arguments about what constitutes being a ‘woman’; we do not wish to promote these dog-whistles in any way. We as such will not accept any work for this project that promotes trans-exclusionary arguments.
What bollocks. So they want yet another statue of a man.