Saturday 10 March 2012

Why campaign for more statues of women?

Wander through the streets of Edinburgh, and you could be forgiven for thinking that the only important people who lived here were men. Statues of famous and influential men litter the city centre and beyond, but of course famous and influential women also came from Edinburgh, and we think it's about time they had fair recognition for it.

The city of Edinburgh maintains two hundred statues, and so far we have identified two which are of women; an anonymous woman on Lothian Road and Queen Victoria. Edinburgh council recently commissioned a statue for outside their new headquarters, the "Everyman" statue.  According to this link, the statue is rumoured to have cost a great deal of money, and even local planners objected to yet another statue of a man in Edinburgh. We think that given that there are so many statues of men in Edinburgh, the next time the council decide to commission a statue it should be of an influential or notable woman from Edinburgh. Not only this, but the council should actively pursue and support any organisations seeking to erect statues of women in Edinburgh. We believe that this policy of actively pursuing equality of representation should continue until there are at least as many statues of women as men in our city.

No comments:

Post a Comment