Statue to honour Wollstonecraft

[MedusasBadHairDay]

www.theguardian.com/books/2020/nov/10/mary-wollstonecraft-finally-honoured-with-statue-after-200-years

It's a naked woman..

Currently reading A Vindication of the Rights of Woman for an OU course, and - unless the tone changes dramatically in the second half of it - I'm not seeing how an idealised nude is the right statue to convey anything about her?

Can't fit this photo tweet on:

"One more point: for me this is a huge lesson in engaging with what’s going on in the community. I knew this statue was coming, was pleased, wanted it but I was also busy and knew ‘other people’ were campaigning for it. So, didn’t bother getting involved. Obviously, now wish I had"

It's the Daily Mail, but omg, SUNLIGHT!
The article is about the T-shirt protest, not about the statue itself, and tells it like it is.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8934753/Sculpture-Mary-Wollstonecraft-slammed-reducing-campaigner-naked-silver-Barbie-doll.html?fbclid=IwAR0LMxQf1mX3j06MqEUDXhUbe9mLpWvY6DfGiSVMa-55w4N5_TztEzLRJeI

The more I look at the blob - the more I think it looks like a male body (with slight boobage). What was she (the artist) thinking? Was she paying homage to the medieval paintings of naked ‘women’ where the models were obviously men?

@Duckwit

Oh dear Shon Faye doesn't approve of the t-shirt thing, slap on the wrist British ladies, you are doing feminism wrong...

I take it as an endorsement of the opposite

lots of so many better depictions of women. I have to add my favourite, Walking Mary, by Elizabeth Frink, in Salisbury Cathedral Close.
link
So many reasons to love it. She's an old, unidealized, women. But active - striding towards the viewer. Her left hand is a different colour, because so many people touch it. Also, she's life-size, at ground level. So viewing her is a very intimate experience.

'Radical lesbian activist' COVERS UP new sculpture celebrating 'mother of feminism' Mary Wollstonecraft after critics slammed artist for reducing icon to a 'naked silver Barbie doll'

Now there's a headline! Thanks for sharing Malahaha.

*a doll-sized statue of Charles Dickens with washboard abs and his todger out.

I like this idea. Lots of nude male figures - Adam Smith in a mankini. David Hume in a cheeky turban and nothing else. Churchill with his famous cigar out.*

Nelson’s column

@ThatIsNotMyUsername

The more I look at the blob - the more I think it looks like a male body (with slight boobage). What was she (the artist) thinking? Was she paying homage to the medieval paintings of naked ‘women’ where the models were obviously men?

Seen from a distance, it looks like the kind of bulge a man would have. As if they forgot to put knickers on her, and just left the bulge. Someone commenting on the DM article compared it to a broccoli head! I had to laugh cause it's true!

@Duckwit

Oh dear Shon Faye doesn't approve of the t-shirt thing, slap on the wrist British ladies, you are doing feminism wrong...

I don't get what point Shon is trying to make. I'm assuming Shon thinks that picture makes British feminism look bad but I don't see how?

I hate that DM article though... talking about “T**F” as if it’s something organised and self-proclaimed, not a misleading slur applied by others...

and the sneering, homophobic tone towards Dr Long like she’s some kind of fringe loony.

Why were there only two choices?

I don't understand how this stuff works, but there must be lots of artists and aspiring artists who would kill for the opportunity to create something like this.

• It's the Daily Mail, but omg, SUNLIGHT! The article is about the T-shirt protest, not about the statue itself, and tells it like it is.*

It's got quite a bit about the statue too, and also about Wollstonecraft. From a quick look at the comments (there are lots) many of them are good!

Hambling's quote "She told the Evening Standard: 'She's everywoman and clothes would have restricted her. Statues in historic costume look like they belong to history because of their clothes. It's crucial that she is 'now'. "

How the hell is a naked ideal woman 'now'? if the figure had been clothed in some sort of non-period clothing it would have been much clearer it was not meant to be 'of' MW.

From the Daily Mail

Woman - adult human female' is a message used by some feminists to distinguish between women who are born female, and trans women.

How many more unaware women will read that statement and think... but...but... - I am woman because I am female - shit - I’m a feminist!

JL

I’m still fuming about this, days later.

Write all the foundational feminist polemics you want, ladies. You’re still tits and minge on a plinth in the end. It’s like something an MRA would do.

Love the sketch of Mary’s reaction though I think she’d have sworn a bit more, though.

@Kantastic

Why were there only two choices?

I don't understand how this stuff works, but there must be lots of artists and aspiring artists who would kill for the opportunity to create something like this.

There are so many much better examples of tributes to women on this thread alone

I'm still grumpy about it too.

I suppose the silver (ha ha) lining of all this is that Mary Wollstonecroft is getting a whole lot more exposure coverage publicity and that she the person and her works will reach more new readers than might have occurred otherwise.

Thank you annasgirl

I'm just about to read this....Janice Turner in the Times...

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-feminist-role-model-whos-beach-body-ready-pz25h5tft?shareToken=28e021132d715e3d9ab161311a248eba

TRAs are claiming Wollstonecroft believed transwomen were women because of a passage in her 'Vindication of the Rights of Women' in which she included Madame d'Eon, a man who presented as a woman in the later part of his life, in her list of exceptional women.

In fact it's very unlikely that Wollstonecroft knew he was a man. If she had known his history - that he'd been given male education and socialisation, and had presented as male until well into middle age - it would have undermined her argument that some girls transcend female socialisation to become powerful women.

Being a mother is not something we really seem to value in our culture

Really? I feel that is all our culture values about women. Since I was 14 I’ve been asked about children. It’s assumed women want and will have children and still frowned upon if you don’t or can’t. As a woman in my 30s who is having fertility struggles I feel this every day, that my value is whether I have children or not and everything else I achieve in my life is secondary.

I experienced the same Lionel and I understand. I'm sorry about your struggles . I would say both are true. In that women feel societal pressure to have kids, but once they've had them they experience indifference to their needs in terms of provision and, in my case, sometimes hostility in the work place. Take breastfeeding, I experienced some downright hostility to do that in public, in work my value as an employee was viewed differently, provision to support continued working is expensive and patchy at best. There are many other things I could highlight just wanted to briefly respond. There are also many wonderful things about motherhood that deserve to be celebrated and aren't and I find there's a tendency to lump 'mums' together in a pejorative sense, you see it with reactions to Mumsnet on social.

As if our value is to be a mother, but mothers aren't valued. If that makes sense?

@99point9FahrenheitDegrees

As if our value is to be a mother, but mothers aren't valued. If that makes sense?

Yes, I was trying to work out how to say something similar. It doesn't apply to all of us as individuals - but for 'women as a class' it may still hold.

Hecate said it all, but to you Lionel.
My take is the same- female fertility is valued and so it is public property for enquiry which is horrible. And also true that the actual day to day doing of mothering, regardless of how you made your family, is grossly undervalued as a contribution to society. It is often actively denigrated and discriminated against by employers or others who want women to be active economic producers all their lives so as to be active consumers in society all their lives. We’re also expected to be nubile and sexually available and useful to men in other ways while mothering and some people see kids and mothering as a serious block to all of that so they want to make things difficult for mothers on principle as a kind of wierd punishment. Not very cheery but it is true in my experience.