Is it just me being paranoid, or is there something strange about a monument to women that doesn't include a single woman?
On Whitehall, London, in front of the British Cabinet Office, around the corner from 10 Downing Street.
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I'm puzzled. Why do you think they're not women? Several of them appear to be wearing skirts and the one third from the left has long braided hair which would probably have suggested at the time that she was a woman.
ReplyDeleteperhaps the photo is too small to show -- these are rows of garments hanging on wall pegs, with no women inside them.
DeleteThank you for explaining Kathy. I get it now. I did what I should have done in the first place and looked up some bigger photos of it. I suppose this piece is about the willingness of women in wartime to take on what had traditionally been regarded as men's roles and then gracefully, or not, to abandon them (empty clothing) at the end of the conflict, going back to being mothers and wives etc. But I'm inclined to agree with you and I don't think you're being paranoid. If London was heaving with statues of women, I might feel differently. But it isn't, and this looks like a missed opportunity to create a monument to women, not their empty clothing. I found a rather good article about this here:
Deletehttp://www.thefword.org.uk/2011/06/womens_erasure_monuments/
Thanks for this - you've got me thinking - and that's always a good thing.
I was confused at first too. But the monument seems to just show clothing and accessories, not actual bodies. There are hats where the faces should be and no feet or hands coming out of the clothes. If they really wanted to complete the stereotype there should have been some high heels at the bottom.
ReplyDeleteParanoid. I think this lovely & very effective in portraying the many roles women filled. It reminds me a little of a piece at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester MN that if I remember correctly honors the history of nursing & nurses thee. The figures are faceless, leading one to think of no one specific but to ponder on the many unsung and their various but important roles..
ReplyDeleteIt is the ultimate in feminism in that they are remembered for the roles they played rather than for their gender. The depiction of a woman could have been seen as falling into one stereotype or another.
ReplyDeleteSorry, it seems paranoïde. I searched on Google and found this: Sculptor Mills was inspired after seeing a 1940s photograph of a cloackroom at a dance hall.
ReplyDeleteHe was interested in the concept of these women hanging up their uniforms and going back to their normal lives after the end of the war.
Hi Mieke -- I have to disagree. I think the assumption that all the women were so happy to go back to their "normal lives" after the war is kind of condescending. I know more about how it worked in the US than in the UK, but here a lot of women were thrilled to have the opportunity to earn good money, see the world, help defeat the Nazis and break out of their "normal lives" and were unhappy at how they were shoved back home as soon as the men returned.
DeleteI am glad they got around to memorializing the contribution of women. (even if it took 60 years) I'm sorry the memorial seems to take the position that their contribution was only temporary and "normal" is for women to be at home, not contributing to the national interest.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1493698/Womens-courage-in-Second-World-War-commemorated.html
ReplyDeleteA bizarre aspect of this memorial is that much of the money for it was "earned" by Baroness Boothroyd in 2002 (she was probably just plain Betty Boothroyd then, Speaker of the House of Commons) when she appeared on the tv show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.
ReplyDeleteTo think this monument is in my own city and I've not seen it yet!