Britain has almost no proper statues of women

**frostyboy** · 8th-September-2008

Written by Germaine Greer for The Guardian: Britain has almost no proper statues of women

When Marc Quinn's 11.5-tonne sculpture of a pregnant Alison Lapper was unveiled in Trafalgar Square on September 15 2005, Ken Livingstone observed that her life was "a struggle over much greater difficulties than the men who are celebrated here", referring to Nelson atop his column, George IV, Sir Henry Havelock and Sir Charles Napier. The then mayor of London was making a point about heroism, but he might as well have been making a point about gender. Monumental effigies of women are rare. The city fathers of London prefer even their abstractions to be male, especially if they are going to be naked. Nobody finds it odd that the "glorious heroes of the machine gun corps who fell in the great war" should be represented by a beardless male nude. For the millions flowing down Park Lane, the figure, which faces the other way, is just a nude boy with a delectable bum. When Richard Westmacott's Wellington Monument, consisting of a nude figure of Achilles, was unveiled in 1822, there was at least as much twitter about its nudity as there was in 2005 about Alison Lapper's identity, nudity, pregnancy and disability. These days, we are so used to male effigies in civic areas that we are not capable of being shocked by them - but female figures are another matter.

No effigies of Margaret Thatcher were made while she was in power. Neil Simmons' undistinguished marble likeness was commissioned by a private patron in 1998, eight years after Thatcher left office; at 8ft tall it was called "huge", when it is actually smaller than effigies of less distinguished male prime ministers. If it had been genuinely huge, Paul Kelleher might not have succeeded in knocking its head off a few months after it was unveiled at the Guildhall Gallery. In court, he defended his action as an artistic expression of his "right to interact with this broken world". The bronze Thatcher by Antony Dufort that stands holding up a minatory finger in the lobby of the House of Commons is smaller and the head out of scale, so that the great lady appears dwarfed. Neither figure projects any sort of authority; Thatcher is presented as an elderly woman with jowls and a sharp nose. Her Spitting Image puppet is more impressive.

In 2002, when Houston was disqualified as a contender for the 2012 Olympics because it lacked "brand identity", Texas architect Doug Michels decided what was wanted was an internationally recognisable icon. Michels should be remembered as one of the three men who were responsible for one of the most famous installations of the 20th century, Cadillac Ranch. Although the original paintwork is long gone from the 10 half-buried Cadillacs, which are now covered in graffiti, Cadillac Ranch is still a must-see for any visitor to Texas. Michels teamed up with industrial designer Peter Bollinger and sculptor Cybele Rowe to design the Spirit of Houston, a vast female figure standing with her arms upraised, topping out at 555ft and costing $40m. Clad like Katie Price on her wedding day, in a revealing corselet and enormous skirt that outlined her mountainous mons veneris and more than hemispherical breasts, she was to be constructed out of chromium-plated stainless steel. For all that we can now know, the stupendous vulgarity of the concept was deliberate. In 2003, when Michels fell off a cliff at Eden Bay near Sydney while working on a whale movie, and the half-buried cars of Cadillac Ranch were painted matt black to mourn his passing, the project died with him.

The Spirit of Houston would have been the tallest female figure in the world, taller than any of the huge figures of Guan Yin, the "bodhisattva of compassion". In April 2005, the tallest of these - at 108 metres, bigger than the Statue of Liberty - was enshrined at the resort of Sanya on the Chinese island of Hainan, in the presence of tens of thousands of devotees. The Hainan statue, which took six years to build and is the fourth tallest statue in the world, is one of three Guan Yin effigies that stand taller than Motherland Calls in Volgograd and Mother Motherland in Kiev. The tallest Madonna, the Virgin of Peace in Trujillo, Venezuela, is smaller than all of them. None of these huge effigies, it need hardly be said, represents a woman who ever lived.

Britain's one undeniably monumental female sculpture is entirely recognisable as a flesh-and-blood woman. In 1991, John Clinch was commissioned to make a bronze figure of Swindon's most famous daughter, the film star Diana Dors, who had died of cancer seven years earlier, aged 52. Clinch went to town on an exaggerated version of the blonde bombshell in her heyday, bursting out of the regulation decollete evening gown, nipples akimbo. Nobody has tried to knock her head off. Indeed, when the sculpture fell into disrepair and the council was preparing to scrap it, devoted fans raised enough to restore it. Which is why the bronze Diana Dors can be seen to this day, beckoning all comers to the Shaw Ridge Leisure Complex in west Swindon.

**Percy** · 8th-September-2008

The UK likes it's statues. But we have had a shortage of heros in the past half century.

I am astonished that there isn't a prominent one for Mrs T but then Labor has been in office a lot.

Oz doesn't go in for statues much but we do have enormous ones of Pineapples and Bananas.

**Celtic Druid** · 8th-September-2008

When Marc Quinn's 11.5-tonne sculpture of a pregnant Alison Lapper was unveiled in Trafalgar Square on September 15 2005, Ken Livingstone observed that her life was "a struggle over much greater difficulties than the men who are celebrated here", referring to Nelson atop his column, George IV, Sir Henry Havelock and Sir Charles Napier.

Her 'difficulties' was something she had no control over, she was born with no arms and very short legs. Unless she chose to give up, given her physical predicament, she didn't have any other option, but, too struggle (same with hundreds of thousands of similarly disabled people, yet where's their patronizing statue? Or is it just reserved for disabled women?).

The difficulties for great men like Nelson who "struggled" to defend England was something he willingly volunteered to do, despite the dangers. No choice vs choice! BIG difference. For mangina 'Red' Ken Livingstone, he thinks anything women do beyond shuffling one foot in front of another is amazing and an example of womens suffering. He really is a pathetic little emasculated slug.

Monumental effigies of women are rare.

That's because a notable contribution to mankind or something heroic is required to EARN such a likeness being sculpted in 'relevant' recognition.

Nobody finds it odd that the "glorious heroes of the machine gun corps who fell in the great war" should be represented by a beardless male nude.

Whether it's a beardless or nude depiction is of no relevance. As long as it is male. Is Greer suggesting we change history and add female form to a sacrifice that did not befell them? Feminists seem to think history should be divided up like a divorce settlement, recognition and reward for something they played no part in.

For the millions flowing down Park Lane, the figure, which faces the other way, is just a nude boy with a delectable bum.

Greer flagrantly exhibiting her salivating preference for little boys, AGAIN!

As with many feminists, if Greer had her way there'd be endless meaningless statues of women - for no other reason then that they exist, void of any attached tangible achievement, incessantly perpetuating the goddess quasi-religion that is feminism.

**shaazam** · 9th-September-2008

statues to honour wimin !! for doing what

**johnkimble1** · 28th-November-2008

Greer is quite correct there should be more statues of teh brilliant British women.

I'd suggest maybe some of the sufragettes (though obviously not the ones who went round committing arson).

Also some women did some great things in the 1970s in the field of domestic abuse - obviously by far the most outstanding of those being Erin Pizzey - the founder of the World's First Domestic abuse shelters

not only does she lack a statue, but the extremist feminists have removed her name and work from their very own histories.

**shaazam** · 28th-November-2008

for each magnanimous sacrifice and life time of services there are statues honouring wimmin in the UK

**Percy** · 28th-November-2008

The difficulties for great men like Nelson who "struggled" to defend England was something he willingly volunteered to do

It was almost a joke I made about Mrs T. She is a 'notable' person, one of many. But the Heroic men like Nelson are in an entirely different league. They, like he, are National Saints.

They are seen early for the Greatness they possess. It isn't simply the 'sacrifice' or even the deeds. It is an ineffable. It is the possession of a Character or characteristic that marks them out as something quite different from the ordinary. Nelson for example was a Flag Captain at 14.

Just think about that for a moment.

A 14 year old boy was given command of what at the time was the equivalent of a 100 miilion UKP Frigate is today. With the state of the art weapons of the day. And Authority.

Why?

It cannot be the 'whim' of the Lords of the Admiralty or some nutter bureaucrat with a pencil and a pressing appointment for lunch with a harlot. He was Commisioned in the Field ( or whatever the fisheads call it when at sea). He was far and away better than all the grown men around him.

At 14.

He understood Command. He was a skilled Navigator. He was, even then, quite aware of what Duty and Accountability meant.

He had been raised by men, in a very hard world of Ships of the Line since he was a nipper.

He was an extraordinary boy and continued growing to be an extraordinary man. One talks of leadership being in the purview and capacity of just 5% of people. He was in the top 0.5%

That's why he has a Statue in Honour of him.

(I would hazard that such extraordinary boys that might exist today are confined to their seats in a classroom and fed Ritalin by the boatload.)

**paul parmenter** · 28th-November-2008

Quote from Percy

(I would hazard that such extraordinary boys that might exist today are confined to their seats in a classroom and fed Ritalin by the boatload.)

Or indeed one false accusation of rape would have done for him.

**lolintertubes** · 28th-November-2008

I thought Germaine Greer was dead. Wishful thinking I guess.

**Celtic Druid** · 28th-November-2008

Quote from johnkimble1

Greer is quite correct there should be more statues of teh brilliant British women.

I'd suggest maybe some of the sufragettes (though obviously not the ones who went round committing arson).

Also some women did some great things in the 1970s in the field of domestic abuse - obviously by far the most outstanding of those being Erin Pizzey - the founder of the World's First Domestic abuse shelters

not only does she lack a statue, but the extremist feminists have removed her name and work from their very own histories.

Greer and her rotten ilk seek to deliberately mislead. There's already a considerable number of suffragette statues scattered throughout cities in the western world (google suffragette statues and monuments). Here's one of Emmeline Pankhurst outside of the Houses of Parliament (you can't get more prominent than that!).

Although the suffragettes brought attention to womens suffrage (only a 10 year disparity with men securing their own suffrage, due, in part, to the growing power of the unions, and as a reward/incentive for fighting in the war) they merely lent a lubricating voice to a process the government had planned for anyway. Womens suffrage was secured without having to participate in a industrial killing machine (world war one) as men did.

The general public aren't aware of the dark side of the suffragettes.

The suffragette's commited over 200 acts of treason, arson, terrorism and violence in 1913-14 alone. This included setting fire to royal palaces/buildings, attacking paintings in the national gallery, setting off bombs outside the BBC and plotting to assassinate the then prime minister, Herbert Asquith. It's therefore ironic how feminists and politically conniving others continually try to paint F4J as being guilty of the very things the suffragettes are documented of doing so.

It is said such cold-blooded crimes actually hampered votes for women.

The Government of the day dared not be seen to give in to their violent tactics, says Christopher Bearman.

"They became a positive obstruction to votes for women because no Government could appear to surrender to political violence," he says. He accuses "feminist" historians of failing in their duty to tell both sides of the story, allowing "an extraordinary mythology" to grow up around the events of the early 20th century.

Could this explain why the comparatively peaceful campaign by New Zealand women secured votes just two years after men? It then begs the question, how much sooner would British women of secured the right to vote without the suffragettes terror campaign impeding this? Rather than a omnipotent patriarchy reluctant to relinquish power, one could logically argue it was the suffragettes themselves who were the greatest obstruction to womens suffrage!

As for Erin Pizzey, I do agree some 'official recognition' should be constructed for not just creating the first DV shelter (intended for both sexes) but her progressive argument that domestic violence was a people issue, not a gender issue. Of course, after not being able to wipe her out via death threats, the radical feminists as you noted, are attempting to wipe her from their history instead.

Why did the Suffragettes turn to Violence?
http://www.johndclare.net/Women1_WhyViolence.htm

Suffragettes 'were like al-Qa'eda'
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...;eda'.html

Government feared suffragette plot to kill Asquith
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2006/sep/29/gender.women

**Stan** · 28th-November-2008

How about a Harriet Harm-Men statue?

She could be standing over a man lying on the ground. With her foot on his back and a mug smile on her face. Perhaps holding "court papers" in one hand a taser in the other?

Like this, but with her standing over the guy:

So how come Brits vote people like that into powerful positions in the government? Because women vote for them while men do too.

For example if Harriet talks about her plans to give women more and more rights and hold them less and less responsible while having fewer and fewer consequences when they misbehave:

If 3 more women vote for her for every 2 men that are turned off...well that is a great plan to get elected. It's a net gain.

**Percy** · 29th-November-2008

Look at my avatar.

Now THAT is a suitable statue for 'women'.

I don't know who created it. It appears to be in a hangar somewhere, although art galleries often look like hangars these days ( another assualt on the senses by cultural marxists).

**christianj** · 29th-November-2008

Quote from Percy

Look at my avatar.

Now THAT is a suitable statue for 'women'.

I don't know who created it. It appears to be in a hangar somewhere, although art galleries often look like hangars these days ( another assualt on the senses by cultural marxists).

Percy you should recommend that statue be placed in it's righful place outside all Family Courts in the Western World as a reminder to all that enter..

He will recognise it's simplicity once he exits..

**byslexic_danana** · 29th-November-2008

Quote from lolintertubes

I thought Germaine Greer was dead. Wishful thinking I guess.

Don't you ever get my hopes up for a splitsecond like that, ever again! I just read 'Germaine Greer', and 'dead', and my world was momentarily that bit better.