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?

”She has to be naked,’ says Hambling, ‘because clothes define people. We all know that clothes are limiting and she is Everywoman. As far as I know, she’s more or less the shape we’d all like to be.’” (Daily Mail)

This statement shocked me. Are women’s aspirations to just be a certain shape? One which is attractive to men? Her achievements and ideas would not be worth aspiring to if present as a less sexually desirable ‘shape’? Or are her ideas, and those of other women, not worth considering at all? Only our shape?

I don’t mind the anatomical accuracy of the statue. It’s obviously a young, athletic woman with natural breasts. But that’s all it does, showcase the sculptors knowledge of the female human body. Like ooh look how good I am at carving a female. Thought I could only do seashells, hah, think again.

It has no real meaning behind it, except for blatantly copying the Greek birth of Venus statues. The sculptor Maggi said she was inspired by Mary Wollstoncrofts statement that she “is a new genus”. Or new woman. Perhaps that’s why Maggi went an entirely unoriginal way and chose a birth of Venus figurine to depict MW being “born” but without really understanding the mythology of Venus herself as goddess of love and beauty which was NOT what MW stood for or fought for at all. I even think it’s a bit of trolling against MW who argued about women being more brains than beauty and more logical than romance/emotional.

Since Maggi decided to copy the Greeks for the MW statute the least she could have done was do one based on Athena- Goddess of wisdom, and strategy in war, protector of freedom.

The fact that it was commissioned and made by women just makes it sadder. We've been fooled. It reminds me of the actresses who are convinced it's "art" to do sex scenes and full frontal nudity and end up on Reddit and PornHub with a load of men talking about how they'd like to "smash that". Fuck this shit. I'm so tired.

It's got to me too - it's a statue I'd travel to see int jerky, but am I going to take my two primary aged dds to see a statue of model with her kit off? They can see that anywhere on any advert for anti wrinkle cream or perfume.

To go against the grain of this thread, I liked the choice of a naked woman in all her womanhood. What does it mean to be a woman when you strip all the faff away? What has the trans debate revealed to many women? The simple truth and deep impact of our female bodies. That IS fundamental to being a woman, unashamedly so.

Can you think of a single statue that is 'for' a famous man that's naked? Is it about their genitals or power? You don't have to be naked to show strength.

Re value, you can be valued for sexual purposes and for your labour in looking after any resulting offspring, but this bears no relationship to whether a man values or respects your intellect, your desire for autonomy, your thoughts, feelings, your essential humanity.

It is our desire for autonomy, power or intellectual challenge interfering 'too much' with the instrumental biological value we have to men as a class that causes the pushback.

In a patriarchy, the traditional 'good wife and mother' gets any respect she gets for being and staying an excellent support human. She loses it if she wants an inconvenient inappropriate promotion to main protagonist.

Seeing those lovely pics of the statue being dressed in a Woman t-shirt made me realise that a much more inspiring representation of Wollstonecraft's legacy would have been a life-size Julia Long emerging from that amorphous blog of silver, complete with leather jacket and jeans. Love that woman.

*blob not blog

@AllWashedOut

To go against the grain of this thread, I liked the choice of a naked woman in all her womanhood. What does it mean to be a woman when you strip all the faff away? What has the trans debate revealed to many women? The simple truth and deep impact of our female bodies. That IS fundamental to being a woman, unashamedly so.

Maybe, but she did not ‘rise above other women’ biologically. Biologically she was very much the same as other women of her time; she died due to childbirth.

@LioneIRichTea

*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

🤣🤣🤣

@anon444877

Can you think of a single statue that is 'for' a famous man that's naked? Is it about their genitals or power? You don't have to be naked to show strength.

The Times comments had examples but with the exception of Michaelangelo's David they were all mythological. (I'm not 100% sure David was a real person either)

Also the weird twisting silver mass looks like a smoothed out version of the men in the rape of the sabines to me

Now it's a trans rights issue.

The Daily Dot is batshit TRA nonsense. Several of their writers fantasise about violence towards women who support women's sex based rights.

What ever I did, whatever I said
Whether I'm living or whether I'm dead
Here is all Mankind will care to remember
The style and the shape of my tits and pudenda.

Everywoman.

Clothes maketh the man but restrictith the woman, apparently.

Wasn't it Mark Twain who commented "Naked people have little or no influence on society".

How right he was. Those who have little or no influence on society are presented as naked in art to make the point about there's nothing else really relevant about them. Clothes certainly do make a statement: the first one for females being "this person is present for another purpose than an object for males". It's not an issue the male sex has to deal with. As many have said; male statues to celebrate male achievement are not presented with their bits hanging out and no other indication of identity or what they actually did.

@anon444877

Can you think of a single statue that is 'for' a famous man that's naked? Is it about their genitals or power? You don't have to be naked to show strength.

MW's posthumous son-in-law. But the nakedness is that of a drowned, dead body. (By the bye, a reminder that oxford has form for cancelling people for wrongthink... )

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelley_Memorial

@MichelleofzeResistance

What ever I did, whatever I said Whether I'm living or whether I'm dead Here is all Mankind will care to remember The style and the shape of my tits and pudenda.

Everywoman.

I didn’t love either of the two statue pitch options that the organisers had to choose from, tho I think it’s good they picked a woman artist, it seemed an odd choice given that there are many women artists out there...and also that they assumed all women would make ‘feminist’ art, in all their work? Or maybe they said they didn’t want an overtly ‘feminist‘ piece- judging by the quote on the base which is quite an equalist selective type of quote? Am enjoying this discussion anyway it’s making me think about art and how differently we think about art in public spaces v art in galleries

The absolute irony of white men talking about 'white women's anger'.

Also excluding black women and others from the conversation. I hate it too!!

@MichelleofzeResistance

What ever I did, whatever I said Whether I'm living or whether I'm dead Here is all Mankind will care to remember The style and the shape of my tits and pudenda.

Everywoman.

Brilliant. So depressingly true.

Perhaps someone local could go and stick this on the plinth.