A statue of Mary Wollstonecraft, the ‘mother of feminism’, has been causing a lot of controversy and backlash online after being revealed in London on the 10 September 2020.
Being born in 1759, Mary was a radical and ambitious author who promoted woman’s rights during the 18th century.
This sculpture was created by the famous artist, Maggi Hambling, who has been working 10 years to create a view that honours what Mary Wollstonecraft did in her life.
The silver sculpture has been gaining a lot of critics, who are confused why she is being shown as a female naked figure.
Tracy King, writer and columnist, said her first reaction was to “laugh, mainly out of disbelief”. She saw an “earlier version a while ago” but that hadn’t got the “detail of the naked woman” particularly in “the public hair region.
“The criticism is around the outdated, lazy trope of portraying woman naked instead of depicting our intellects or achievements, and around the irrelevance of the statue to the work and legacy of Mary. There’s also criticism around the artist’s depiction of ‘everywoman’ as a perfect Instagram body and her comment that she thinks all woman aspire to that body shape.
“It certainly a laughing stock, social media has been making fun of it solidly but there’s also a lot of justified anger. If the statue is educational than I suspect the subject of the lesson will be the artist rather than Mary Wollstonecraft, but given the nudity and comically bad pubic hair I’d be surprised if many schools want to study it.
“I’d have made sure it was a statue OF Mary. There still isn’t one and that is a shame.”
For 10 years, people have been protesting through the Mary on the Green campaign to get the first memorial sculpture of Mary Wollstonecraft, raising £143,000 to create this stature to honour her work.
From the campaign’s website, over 90% of London monuments celebrate men and is set against the 51% of the population who are woman.
Maggi Hambling has responded to her critics of the creation of the statue.
In a statement, she says “You can’t be naked enough can you? The point is that she has to be naked because clothes define people. We all know clothes are limiting and she is the everywoman.
She explained the people critiquing her work “are not reading the word, the important word, which is on the plinth, quite clearly ‘for’ Mary Wollstonecraft, it’s not ‘of’ Mary Wollstonecraft.”
However, some people really praised Maggi’s work. Jacob Edwards, a first year animation student at Wolverhampton University, said the statue is “quite powerful” and it represents what “Mary would’ve stood for at the time, which is woman to be respected as equals.”
Also, Olivia Whitworth, second year Art and design student at Birmingham City University, said “The sculptor is very empowering and a great way to honour Mary Wollstonecraft for her contribution to society” and she believes the “current backlash that Maggi Hambling faces is overshadowing the true meaning behind the sculptor and risk losing it’s sentiment”
“The whole idea behind this statue was to recognise Wollstonecraft for her devotion towards woman Female rights. Quite frankly, people are contradicting this idea by comparing it to the male figure, something that Wollstonecraft aimed to prevent as an advocate for women’s equality.
“This needs to be more recognition for historical female figures in modern society and this statue reinforces this idea.
“Maggi Hambling portrayed the sculptor in this way to show a visual representation of the challenges that Mary Wollstonecraft overcame, who she stood for and her overall success as an ambassador for woman.
“I think Hambling made the statue in a silver tone to represent her bold personality and although the statue is not life-size like other over-sized male statues. it shows that the female figure doesn’t need to be large scale to represent power.”
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