#GAReads | Why We Need to Start Building Monuments to Groundbreaking Women
photo credit: John Bakator, via Unsplash
"Why We Need to Start Building Monuments to Groundbreaking Women":
…it’s extraordinary, the extent to which our public art still over-tells the story of men’s contributions at the expense of women’s. In all of Washington, D.C.—a city where it would seem that no male military officer or government leader has been denied a spot in some square or traffic circle—there are only a handful of statues depicting historical women: Joan of Arc, educator Mary McLeod Bethune, Eleanor Roosevelt, among a few others. The other 50-odd female (or female-ish) statues mostly depict abstract concepts like grief or freedom, or else they are anonymous forms arrayed in worshipful poses around men, fulfilling the hallowed female role of gazing adoringly upon men and encouraging homage to them, all the while remaining, themselves, unnamed.