Mary Wollstonecraft: Why is a statue of ‘mother of feminism’ nude?

The naked woman at the top of a new sculpture honouring 18th century British author and feminist icon Mary Wollstonecraft by British artist Maggi Hambling. Picture: Justin Tallis/AFP

A new statue designed to celebrate the life of the feminist writer, adventurer and rule-breaker Mary Wollstonecraft has been unveiled in Britain, and guess what?

She’s naked!

Yes, look, she’s got pert breasts, and a lovely hairy vulva, and this we know, because she’s completely nude.

Because of course she is.

Just like the statue to celebrate the works of William Shakespeare, and Oscar Wilde, and Keats, right?

Err, no.

We don’t in fact get to see erect, or even flaccid penii when considering their works.

We get to see the men themselves, with clothes on, so we can appreciate not the view, but their many achievements.

But with Wollstonecroft, it’s all about the female body, which is not just naked, but sexy Instagram influencer naked.

She’s slim, and smooth, not pocked. She’s got neat, forward facing breasts.

A woman photographs the sculpture honouring 18th century British author and feminist icon Mary Wollstonecraft in north London's Newington Green. Picture: Justin Tallis/AFP

The statue was commissioned in 2018 – roughly the centenary of women’s suffrage in the UK – to try to fix the problem of space and art being called “public” when it’s actually all about men.

Because 90 per cent of the statues around London feature men (most of the women are queens, of course.)

This is a problem in Australia, too, where just three per cent of statues in public spaces are of women.

In both the UK and here, you’ve got a lot of Queen Victoria; a bit of Virgin Mary; some Mary MacKillop, and not much else.

In Melbourne, there is at least the graceful "Great Petition" by Susan Hewitt and Penelope Lee, which celebrates the way women went running around trying to get the vote for themselves in Victoria.

But, at the end of the day, as Professor Clare Wright puts it, “we have more statues of animals that we do of women.”

The lobby group she formed is hoping to get more statues of Australia women up around place.

Please let it not work out like this.

The sculptor behind the Wollstonecraft work is, believe it or not, a woman: Maggi Hambling.

Critics who support the thing say it’s not meant to be Wollstonecraft, it’s a “naked everywoman figure” who is defiant, and free.

But actually, the group behind the statue campaign spent 10 years of trying to raise the $200,000 needed to erect a statue not for, but of Mary.

And even if it is all women, why does it gotta be nude?

Why can’t we see her as she was: strong, defiant, intelligent, the author of a serious feminist work, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, published in 1792?

She was also a passionate advocate of girls’ education; and the mother of novelist Mary Shelley, who subverted all the writing norms when she produced the gothic classic, Frankenstein.

Maybe she’ll get a statue one day, too.

Let’s hope so. Because then we’ll all be able to see her bum.