'Mother of feminism' Mary Wollstonecraft has finally been honoured with a statue, over 200 years after her death. The British writer, educator and philosopher is best known for her radical text, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, which established the principles of female emancipation.
Her call for gender equality came a century before the Suffragette movement, prompting Millicent Fawcett to describe Wollstonecraft as “the leader in that battle”. The writer's legacy has been largely forgotten by history, but a new statue in London’s Newington Green sends a message that Wollstonecraft was a feminist pioneer worthy of recognition.
The sculpture was created by celebrated artist Maggi Hambling OBE, who used silvered bronze to combine female forms which mingle and rise together, culminating in the figure of a woman standing free. Hambling described the artwork as a "vital contemporary discourse for all that is still to be achieved”.
“This sculpture encourages a visual conversation with the obstacles Wollstonecraft overcame, the ideals she strived for, and what she made happen," she said.
A memorial statue in recognition of Wollstonecraft, who lived and worked in Newington Green, has been a long time in the making. In 2010, a small group of local volunteers formed the Mary on the Green campaign to start raising the required £143,000 needed for the sculpture.
“Wollstonecraft’s political legacy is huge – her ideas changed the world," said author, journalist and chair of Mary on the Green, Bee Rowlatt. "It took courage to fight for human rights and education for all, even more so for someone of Wollstonecraft’s gender and background. But following her early death in childbirth her legacy was buried, in a sustained misogynistic attack. Today we are finally putting this injustice to rights.”
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