Statue of suffragist Millicent Fawcett to be unveiled in April

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Statue of suffragist Millicent Fawcett to be unveiled in April

By James Hughes

Details of a statue of the suffragist leader Millicent Fawcett have been unveiled, 100 years after MPs passed a bill that gave some women the vote.The statue will be unveiled in Parliament Square in April, the first monument of a woman to stand in the central London location. The installation by the Turner prize winner Gillian Wearing will also feature 52 photographic etchings on tiles around the statue depicting key women – and a few men – who were central in the push for women’s suffrage.“I wanted the monument to be as inclusive as possible and to reflect that many women were involved in progressing the rights of equality, some of whom have never been publicly recognised,” Wearing said. “It is important to realise the battle for equality didn’t come easily. It was a long, hard, arduous struggle. I can’t even comprehend how frustrating Millicent’s life must have been as she spent six decades campaigning getting women the right to vote.”The government committed £5m to fund celebrations for the centenary year last March. Around £1m is funding new statues of women including that of Fawcett and one of the suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst in Manchester, the city’s first new monument to a woman in more than 100 years.The Government Equalities Office announced in December that seven areas across England would receive a share of £1.2m to fund projects. But women’s groups have complained that applying for a £1.5m Women’s Vote Centenary Fund for grassroots projects has been “unnecessarily difficult”.A raft of events are planned to mark 100 years since the Representation of the People Act 1918 gave a parliamentary vote to women over the age of 30 who were married or property owners and to all men over 21.The centenary will be marked in parliament with a private reception for 700 guests, and a one-day exhibition in Trafalgar Square will feature lifesize cutouts of key figures in the suffrage movement.In a critical 12 months for the women’s rights movement – described as “the year of the woman” after mass, high-profile calls for action against sexual harassment and the gender pay gap – women’s groups and politicians have called for commemorations to kickstart societal change.“It can’t be just about the Westminster bubble. It has to be about much more than that,” said Frances Scott, the founder of 50:50 Parliament, which campaigns to get more women into parliament. “Representation shapes policy, and unless we have more women in power we are never going to be able to change anything for the better.”To mark the centenary, parliament has launched Vote 100, a year-long programme of events including:
  • Free talks focusing on the campaign for women’s suffrage and women in parliament, given by speakers including the Labour MP Harriet Harman.
  • A public exhibition featuring key historic objects from parliamentary collections, going on display in June.
  • Special tours of parliament highlighting key moments in the campaign.
  • Support for hosting “EqualiTeas” – tea parties where invitees learn about and celebrate women’s suffrage.
Parliament has teamed up with Royal Holloway, University of London, to produce a Mooc (massive open online course), titled Beyond the Ballot: Women’s Rights and Suffrage from 1866 to Today. And in September it will host an international academic conference on female MPs past and present in collaboration with the History of Parliament Trust.The mayor of London has launched a #BehindEveryGreatCity campaign to “champion the fact that it is the achievements and contributions of women, from all walks of life, which make cities like London great”. The year-long programme of events includes a display of works by female artists on the LondonUnderground.“This year we are right to commemorate the huge progress made since 1918 when some, not all, women first got the right to vote,” said the mayor, Sadiq Khan. “We want to mark the progress we’ve made in the last 100 years, but as importantly to use it as a springboard to go forward to fight gender inequality.”Research commissioned to mark the milestone has found that half of all young women in the UK would support a change in the law to require political parties to have equal numbers of male and female parliamentary candidates.Less than half of young women are confident that equal representation in parliament will be achieved in their lifetime, 58% of 18- to 24-year-old women support the use of targets in political parties, and 53% of 18- to 24-year-olds and 51% of 25- to 34-year-olds support a change in the law, according to a poll carried out by the Fawcett Society.“This research is clear: improving women’s representation makes political sense, but we should all be worried that people, even younger women, do not believe this will happen in their lifetimes,” said Sam Smethers, the society’s chief executive.“The fact that progress has stalled shows that we must take proactive steps now to address women’s under-representation. That means legislating to require parties to take action. It also means cleaning up our politics with an independent mechanism and meaningful sanctions to address sexual harassment in parliament, in our parties and in local government.”Credit: Guardian

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