So many more sisters deserve their rightful place in the sun

Australian women have not received their due respect in the form of a statue in a public place.

Mary McKillop is one of those rare Australian women honoured with a statue.

History is just that — his story. Women all too often are photoshopped out of the cultural narrative. University syllabuses, school curriculums, book prizes, film festivals, art gallery collections — all traditionally selected by blokes — have suffered from sexist Alzheimer’s where women of substance are concerned.

As an author, I’m painfully aware of just how much literature written by Australian women has been lost or looted or just left out. Unless they wrote under a male pseudonym, of course, such as Miles Franklin or Henry Handel Richardson.

Male-dominated society has been inclined to put women under a pedestal rather than on top of one. Literally. After a long campaign, a statue of pioneering feminist Dame Millicent Fawcett was finally erected in London’s Parliament Square this year. There are already 11 statues of men in the square. In fact, there are more statues in Britain of men called John than there are of women. Discounting Queen Victoria, only 3 per cent of statues in Britain are of women.

But what about Australia? As one of the first countries to give women the vote, surely we’ve broken through the sandstone ceiling? A flick around the internet reveals most statues in our country are of the pale, stale and male variety. OK, you say, with a patriarchal past, this is only to be expected. But after the glorification of men, surely it’s our top sheilas we next place on pedestals?

Now the reason I don’t like ­animals is because I went out with so many as a teenager. But I now have a whole new reason to ­resent them. The number of creatures Australia commemorates in marble, plaster and bronze gives new meaning to heavy petting. There’s Goulburn’s giant merino ram, Gundagai’s dog sitting on the tuckerbox, cows, horses, bulls and whole flocks of sheep. Adelaide’s Rundle Mall even boasts a litter of swine. So when we’re not venerating chauvinist pigs, it’s the four-­legged types hogging the limelight.

I could bore on about boars, but there’s even more reason for Australian women to whinge. Our country is home to a lot of ­exotic and unique creatures — Dame Edna was born here after all. So I can cope with the statues of giant kangaroos and koalas, but must fish also take prominence over female achievement? The giant trout in Adaminaby, Queensland’s Big Barramundi, the monstrous Murray cod in Tocumwal, The Big Fish on the Atherton Tablelands and Cairns Lagoon, the colossal lobster at Kingston and Ningaloo’s massive prawn prove that Australian officials are coming the raw prawn with the ­female popula­tion. Throw us a line here, fellas. We’re getting that sinking feeling.

After all these red herrings, what’s the next species worthy of veneration? Surely Aussie women get a look-in now? Ah, no. In fibreglass, foam, stone, metal, bronze, brass, plaster or pewter, giant strawberries, ­bananas and pineapples bestrew the land. (No giant apple, of course, because of the whole Eve thing — although surely Eve was framed? That snake should be had up for entrapment.) The reality is that Australia has many more statues of fruit and animals than there are of women. Only 3 per cent of public statues in Australia honour nonfictional, non-royal women: the vast majority commemorate dead white blokes.

According to TripAdvisor, of Australia’s top 10 monuments and statues, the only woman is represented by a piece of furniture: Mrs Macquarie’s Chair. Her first name isn’t even mentioned, only her marital status — and the seat is empty. No doubt Mrs Macquarie was off making her husband’s dinner or having a baby or something similarly trivial.

But where are the real chairwomen? When it comes to seats, surely men have got the message that women no longer want their seats on the bus, we want their seats on the board. But why aren’t successful business women immortalised in mortar?

Come to think of it, where are the likes of Margaret Olley, Margaret Preston, Faith Bandler, Enid Lyons, Jessie Street, Edith Cowan, Pearl Gibbs, Catherine Hamlin, Dawn Fraser, Merle Thornton, Mum Shirl, Cathy Freeman, Dorothy Napangardi and dames Nellie Melba and Joan Sutherland?

Where is Emma Miller, a workers’ rights activist best known for sticking a hatpin into the Queensland Police Commissioner’s horse, while he was on it, making him more look like an ass.

Another woman crying out for ­elevation is the feminist activist Muriel Matters, who mattered so much to the British suffragettes when she hired an air balloon to dump universal suffrage propaganda on the monarch of the day, proving that not all political activism is just hot air.

My second choice for a plinth-ess would be the vivacious Vida Goldstein, the Aussie version of Emmeline Pankhurst who, in 1902, helped win women the right to vote and stand for parliament.

This weekend Malcolm Turnbull, Peter Dutton, Scott Morrison and co are arguing about the size of their elections and dreaming of the erections that will be mounted of them in statue form.

But surely it’s time we celebrated Australian women who have changed our world for the better through literature, science, politics, invention, art, music and mischief. Women who stirred things up, dared to be different, blew raspberries at the establishment, spoke out, stood up against injustice and laid down new laws. It’s time we raised them up in the public consciousness by putting those badass sheilas of Aussie history on to a pedestal.

The Canberra Writers Festival’s theme this weekend is Power, Politics, Passion. As confirmed heroine addicts, Annabel Crabb and I will be launching a campaign to encourage the public to vote for their statue suggestions, be it Kylie, Kath and Kim or Julia Gillard.

#OneDayOurPlinthWillCome

Kathy Lette has written 14 novels, the latest being Best Laid Plans.