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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

AIBU to think woman's spread legs on gates in Festival Park Glasgow is disturbing?

211 replies

FindTheTruth · 16/08/2021 06:27

AIBU to think that installing a woman's spread legs on gates in Festival Park Glasgow is disturbing? "the gate of Assumption"

Presumably approved by Glasgow City Council. Someone on twitter says they've done a Freedom of Information request
twitter.com/lorcaat/status/1426981748894797831

Ltd Ink Corporations ‘Gateway to Govan-The Safari of Sorts, Is a series of £100 micro commissions, focused on site specific contemporary artworks. Extending beyond the parameters of our Govan headquarters, this interactive art-safari begins on the facade of our warehouse and extends to the revitalised Clyde waterfront. The walk features works by a collection of artists
ltdinkcorporation.com/Gateway-to-Govan-The-Safari-of-Sorts

AIBU to think woman's spread legs on gates in Festival Park Glasgow is disturbing?
AIBU to think woman's spread legs on gates in Festival Park Glasgow is disturbing?
OP posts:
hoodathunkit · 16/08/2021 10:59

they may well have been intended as a positive comment on the sex workers in the park. Not everyone's taste but not the end of the world

Possibly a more suitable work of art would have been one conveying the fact that street sex workers are people's mothers, daughters, sisters, human beings at risk if all manner of violence.

This "art" depicts the women as invisible apart from open legs in high heels. I fail to understand how it is meant to achive anything empowering or destigmatising at all.

SweetPetrichor · 16/08/2021 10:59

It’s ugly in terms of its quality, but Festival Park is not a nice park…I wouldn’t walk through it alone even during the day. I live very local to it, and it’s probably about as accurate a bit of art for the park as you could get. It will likely end up spray painted in rangers colours soon enough anyway.

EsmaCannonball · 16/08/2021 10:59

I'm so tired of being told something is challenging or edgy only to find it's the same old sexual degradation of women that has been going on for centuries. I know three women who have been raped in public parks. Parks are a public space that are often seen as no-go areas for lone women. We pay for them but we only theoretically get to use them. I'd rather see money spent on making the park safer for women.

hoodathunkit · 16/08/2021 11:01

I am a great fan of challenging and edgy art.

These legs on a gate are not art, they are something but not art.

wiltonism · 16/08/2021 11:01

Someone on Twitter has also tagged Nicola Sturgeon and it might be good to contact her office too

TeeBee · 16/08/2021 11:02

Vile, let's hope someone pulls it down.

mustlovegin · 16/08/2021 11:02

I'm so tired of being told something is challenging or edgy only to find it's the same old sexual degradation of women

A sculpture of a nun or Mother Theresa would be challenging or edgy in current times. This is what the world has come to

judgejudyrocks · 16/08/2021 11:25

Not surprising its Scotland either, where misogynistic hate crime apparently just doesn't exist, but a woman can be arrested for wrongthink and ribbons

I live in Scotland and I have no idea what you mean by this?

TiredButDancing · 16/08/2021 11:26

I am not easily offended. I may think something is inappropriate or similar, but for me to be personally offended happens seldom. But when I saw that picture on social media yesterday, I was offended. Immediately and instinctively. It is awful.

FrancescaContini · 16/08/2021 11:45

@SirYawnsAlot

Just an easy, cheap shot to have a woman's open legs (even if they do look like a mans legs). Another thing to help people snigger at women. Saying that, a precedent has been set..
This is also beyond the pale. Do those words say “Girl power”??

Fucksake.

Artichokeleaves · 16/08/2021 11:48

A sculpture of a nun or Mother Theresa would be challenging or edgy in current times. This is what the world has come to

This. This kind of 'modern' culture of art just now seems based in bombarding people with things that are crass, ugly and offensive with some pseudo intellectualism that this is somehow supposedly good for them. It isn't. It's been so wholly overdone that it's tedious, it's often more about self indulgence on the part of the artist more than anything genuinely communicated, and leads to poor mental health in the belief that the world really is all like this all the time.

Really time for a new age in art, this one is very, very tired.

aiwblam · 16/08/2021 11:51

Foul.
People are so dirty these days.

Amortentia · 16/08/2021 11:51

@mustlovegin

I'm so tired of being told something is challenging or edgy only to find it's the same old sexual degradation of women

A sculpture of a nun or Mother Theresa would be challenging or edgy in current times. This is what the world has come to

A sculpture of Mother Theresa would indeed be challenging and edgy. 🤣
gardeninggirl68 · 16/08/2021 11:53

I'm laughing at that being called 'Art'!!!

User8765431297658448 · 16/08/2021 11:53

White men are the gatekeepers of misogyny

Because there’s no misogyny in Asian or African countries, right?

Has pp who mentioned the unionist areas being bad never visited Parkhead or Govan?

Modern art is an abomination.

QueeniesCroft · 16/08/2021 11:53

*Not surprising its Scotland either, where misogynistic hate crime apparently just doesn't exist, but a woman can be arrested for wrongthink and ribbons

I live in Scotland and I have no idea what you mean by this?*

There was recently a bill passed to do with hate crime- the one group not included was women. However, women have been arrested/charged for hate crimes because of a posted image of a Suffragette (or Suffragist, not sure) ribbon.

JulesJules · 16/08/2021 12:02

Absolutely grim. I expect some idiot thought it was 'edgy'. And apart from all the obvious objections, it's so poorly executed.

Snugglepumpkin · 16/08/2021 12:02

I find that really repulsive.
Apart from being straight out tacky, by installing it where they have it's seems you are ripping the woman in half every time you open those gates.

Just down the road from me near a supermarket I sometimes use, a man who hated women shot a few people the other day.

He did this in the city that installed a 7 metre high statue of a spread legged prostitute outside the theatre (admittedly not spread the same way but they made a big deal about her being a fictional prostitute).
You can walk through her legs to get to the theatre if you want.
That's the message Plymouth sent to women haters.
It was obviously received loud & clear.

Nancy Astor (also Plymouth) got a much smaller statue because being the first woman to take a seat in the House of Commons is obviously less of a big deal than being a prostitute close to the spot which was known for decades before the installation to be one of the most sleazy parts of the city.
Of course, Nancy Astor was a passionate feminist & that's not the message misogynists want to send out.

I've heard all the bullshit 'arty' reasons why that's not supposed to be the message but it's the only one I hear kids taking away from it.
The squatting prostitute statue is the cultural symbol of the city where incels are permitted guns by the police & shoot women because they don't get the sex they think they are entitled to.

Some man probably thought it was funny to open a womans legs to get to what you want with no thought for the damage you'd do to a woman if you actually tried to do it in real life.
Yet again, that's hate or deep contempt, not art.

Ericaequites · 16/08/2021 12:04

This is highly inappropriate. That’s all I have to say.

MarieIVanArkleStinks · 16/08/2021 12:08

@FindTheTruth

True art is often meant to be disturbing, make you think and question. Like the Banksy's social media art pieces are shocking, sad, disturbing and make you think about society today - getting to the soul of what's happening in the world. But spread legs on a park gate.... in a park where girls have been attacked
Agreed. 'Art' is designed to stand for its own sake or, when it is political, to be provocative, challenging, or subversive; even to challenge the boundaries of art itself (ie the controversial unmade bed).

This is at best a crude appropriation. It's offensive objectifying of the female body, right down to the hideous shoes and the not-too-subtle gesturing towards the hole. Gross.

And in a park where women have been sexually attacked? Doesn't surprise me that this is in Scotland, I'm sorry to say. I fear for the women north of the border.

Sadly, I see this as part of a very disturbing pattern. As recently as ten years ago it would have been a strict no-no. It's legitimized misogyny in just another form.

beastlyslumber · 16/08/2021 12:11

That is utterly horrible. Is it trying to advertise the message that you can rape women in this park? Because that's what it suggests to me.

Seeingadistance · 16/08/2021 12:18

Just abhorrent. I wouldn’t be able to bring myself to go through those gates - it’s repulsive.

wiltonism · 16/08/2021 12:33

Apparently it is now being removed. Whether this has been done officially or not is a whole other question....

twitter.com/RcontactP/status/1427222227649499136?s=20

Eviethyme · 16/08/2021 12:35

What I want to know is why is it always us?

Why not have a man's legs? Oh right because its woman who have to be objectified... Right.

Purplewithred · 16/08/2021 12:40

God almighty what were they thinking???