I am . . . not sure of my feelings on this statue. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/nov/10/mary-wollstonecraft-finally-honoured-with-statue-after-200-years

I understand what it's trying to do, and I know the artist is a woman and we all have different ideas of feminism and celebrating women, and that's fine, but at the same time, I have to ask . . .

Has a man ever been commemorated like this, naked and tiny?

I've read this from the artist, Maggi Hambling (who I'm sure is great), and . . . no, still not sure I get it.

‘As far as I know, she’s more or less the shape we’d all like to be’ – this seems a regressive idea? https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/mary-wollstonecraft-naked-sculture-maggi-hambling-b63158.html

The whole notion of ‘everywoman’ is difficult, too, even when considered separately from the memorial. How to embody womanhood, in all its diversity and complexity, in one shape?

Surely not possible. And even if it were, I really don't think it would be this shape.

I wonder (humbly, not being an artist) if a better approach would have been to, say, have many women – with features, not an amorphous phallic mass – gathered around Wollstonecraft, or holding her up. Something that both commemorated her personally and connected her to women now.

I'll conclude by pointing out that, after a long campaign, London still doesn't have a statue of Mary Wollstonecraft.

It does, however, have a statue of a tiny naked woman with a thigh gap, crafted by an artist who, I just learned, once said a few slaves might be ‘very handy’

I am grateful to the people who fight for statues of women, nonetheless, and I hope Mary Wollstonecraft does have her own one day. I'm sure some women will find this one empowering; personally, I would have much preferred one of Mary herself.