London’s Parliament Square Gets its First Woman Sculpture
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The first female statue in Parliament Square has been unveiled two years after the campaign for female representation outside the Palace of Westminster. The statue of Millicent Fawcett, the suffragist who fought for women’s right to vote in the early 20th c
London’s Parliament Square Gets its First Woman Sculpture
The first female statue in Parliament Square has been unveiled two years after the campaign for female representation outside the Palace of Westminster. The statue of Millicent Fawcett, the suffragist who fought for women’s right to vote in the early 20th century, joins 11 male statues in the square Winston Churchill, Nelson Mandela, and Abraham Lincoln.British artist Gillian Wearing is the first woman to create a sculpture in honor of a woman for London’s Parliament Square. The sculpture was made to celebrate the hundred-year anniversary of the 1918 Representation of the People Act, which gave women who were thirty years and older the right to vote. Fawcett’s sculpture holds a banner that reads “Courage calls to courage everywhere.” The plinth also features portraits of fifty-two women and men who were integral in the fight for women’s suffrage.British Prime Minister Theresa May said at the unveiling ceremony: «I would not be here today as Prime Minister, no female MPs would have taken their seats in Parliament, none of us would have had the rights and protections we now enjoy, were it not for one truly great woman, Dame Millicent Garrett Fawcett.»London Mayor Sadiq Khan, who also participated in the event, called it “inspiring” to stand with women who have worked for gender equality.Suffrage movement started by Fawcett used nonviolent methods to campaign for equal rights for women, as opposed to the more radical suffragettes known for their extreme tactics of hunger strikes, arson, and chaining themselves to property. In 1866, Fawcett collected signatures for the first petition demanding female suffrage to be handed in to Parliament. In 1928, she was up in the Ladies' Gallery in the House of Lords watching the Equal Franchise Bill being passed. She died a year later in 1929.http://www.blouinartinfo.com/ Founder Louise Blouin Read more
