You're far more likely to see a statue of a man than a woman in your nearest capital city, new data has revealed.
A Monument of One's Own, a not-for-profit community advocacy body campaigning for statue equality, has released details of a 2021 survey of capital city councils to SBS News for this year's International Women's Day.
The City of Adelaide had the highest proportion of statues of women with six out of 33 (18 per cent).
Like many other councils, when it came to women it paid tribute to queens as well as religious figures including Catholic Saint Mary Mackillop. Others recognised include social and political reformer Catherine Helen Spence and former state governor and the first female judge in Australia, Dame Roma Mitchell.
In the Melbourne and Brisbane council areas, around 15 per cent of statues were of women. They included four-time Olympic champion runner Betty Cuthbert at the Melbourne Cricket Ground and Brisbane-based shirtmaker Emma Miller, who campaigned for better conditions and pay for women.
Canberra only had one statue of a woman out of 10.
The survey found there were no statues of women in the City of Hobart, where all five were of men; or the City of Darwin, which has two male statues.
Source: SBS News
The City of Sydney and City of Perth councils did not respond to the survey.
A City of Sydney spokeswoman told SBS News the majority of figurative sculptures in its local area were not under council care and suggested researchers also contact the NSW Government.
Information provided on the Monument Australia website, a volunteer-run resource that is partly crowd-sourced, lists at least six statues of women in the City of Sydney, including two of Queen Victoria. Cricketer Belinda Clark, as well as athletes Betty Cuthbert and Marlene Mathews, have statues within the Sydney Cricket Ground precinct.
Queen Victoria is a popular subject of statues around Australia but images of colonialism have been the target of Indigenous rights protesters in recent times. Source: AAP / Darren England
Monument Australia lists at least two statues in the City of Perth, including early Australian feminist Bessie Rischbieth.
The number of female statues will also be boosted on Wednesday to mark International Women’s Day.
Statues of Australia's first women federal parliamentarians Dame Dorothy Tangney and Dame Enid Lyons are being unveiled outside Old Parliament House in Canberra, and a new statue of Australian poet Louisa Lawson will also be unveiled in the NSW regional town of Mudgee.
The City of Melbourne is also for at least three new statues of significant Victorian women.
"When you look around town, it’s clear more needs to be done to publicly recognise the significant achievements of Victorian women," Melbourne Lord Mayor Sally Capp said.
The council said only nine of Melbourne's 580 statues depict and celebrate women from Melbourne's history - making up less than 2 per cent. Only five of 25 statues on City of Melbourne land depict women.
The lack of female statues has become a focus in recent years, with global movements including Statues for Equality, , pushing for more women to be celebrated.
One of the more recent statues of a woman to make headlines was of Australian rules footballer Tayla Harris, unveiled at Melbourne’s Federation Square in 2019. The statue is currently in storage but will be put on permanent display in Docklands in mid-to-late this year.
Victoria Point Owners Corporation chair Dr Janette Corcoran said it suited the new sporty location, close to the Docklands Stadium, and “it’s also a visual signal that young women are welcome here”.
AFLW star Tayla Harris at the unveiling of her prototype statue in Federation Square in 2019. Source: AAP / David Crosling
Alongside the Victorian Trades Hall Council, it has commissioned the installation of a statue of women’s and workers’ rights activist Zelda D’Aprano, who chained herself to the door of the Commonwealth Arbitration Commission in 1969 in a protest against gender pay inequality. It’s expected to be unveiled outside Trades Hall in Carlton in May.
The Canberra War Memorial is also expected to unveil a statue later this year to honour nurse Vivian Bullwinkel, who will be the first woman honoured at the memorial.
Yorta Yorta Elder Aunty Pam Pedersen Nicholls in front of a statue of her parents, Douglas and Gladys Nicholls, in 2017. Source: AAP / Joe Castro
That includes Sir Douglas Nicholls, the pastor of Australia’s first Aboriginal Church of Christ, and his wife Gladys Nicholls. They were both prominent campaigners for Indigenous rights and played an instrumental part in the 1967 referendum.
Why there are so few statues of women
Professor Wright said she understood why there were historically more statues of men as statuary in settler states was predominantly an expression of 19th century colonialism.
"It is about asserting dominance and authority over a place," she said. "So colonisers went to ‘new worlds’ and started building effigies to themselves all over the place.
"And who were the founding fathers? Who were the civic leaders? Who were the people who were on the frontlines of claiming a continent? Well, they were all white men. So they were building monuments to their own purpose. And white women, though they participated in the colonial project, didn't really take up the civic space in that same way.
It is about asserting dominance and authority over a place.- Clare Wright, Historian and A Monument of One's Own co-founder
"I understand why historically there haven't been statues to women in that sense - but I don't think that's the whole story," she said.
"The question is whether we still want to apply that principle now. Can we make our civic landscapes more inclusive, more diverse?"
Professor Wright said the push for more women statues was a form of "commemorative justice".
"We can do a lot to revise history, we're doing it in all sorts of other ways and statuary can be an arm of gender equality, it can be an arm of truth-telling."
"That's why I call it ‘commemorative justice’ in that it is making up for, a way of restitution for the various intersectional forms of oppression and silencing and making invisible, people who are not considered to be worthy of public virtue like women, like Indigenous people."
A statue of James Cook in Melbourne that was vandalised in the lead-up to Australia Day in 2018. Source: AAP / David Crosling
"What is put on a pedestal denotes power and authority."
How you get a statue built in Australia
As well as changing perspectives about who should be immortalised, getting a statue built is also a practical challenge.
Professor Wright said for a statue to be placed on public land, the land owner needs to approve it and it often does come down to councils, although they could also be hosted on private land that is publicly available.
"The first thing is actually getting a permit to have the statue located and possibly that's the reason why the statues of Nova Peris and Kylie Minogue are on ice at the moment, maybe they just haven't found a permanent home because no one's prepared to host them, which is appalling," she said.
A spokesman for Development Victoria said the statue of singer Minogue, which was on display in Docklands until 2016, was still in storage after a redevelopment of the site and they were looking at options.
The statue of former Aboriginal athlete and politician Peris, once on display in Melbourne’s Federation Square as part of a Statues for Equality initiative, was originally expected to be displayed as part of the Essendon Football Club’s Indigenous Hall of Fame but its future is unclear following a fallout between Peris and the club last year.
Another barrier to new statues is finding someone to pay for it. Professor Wright estimates a full-bodied statue could cost between $300,000 and $600,000.
A statue of Country Party leader John McEwen unveiled in 2020 as part of National Party centenary celebrations reportedly cost around $500,000 to make and install in Canberra, and was funded by a federal Government grant.
Mudgee’s Louisa Lawson statue was paid for through fundraising from the local Rotary club, with donations from the local council and NSW Government.
But Professor Wright doesn't believe cost is the main barrier to getting more statues of women in Australia.
"There's a statue of Molly Meldrum and of Shane Warne that went up pretty quickly," she said.
The statue of Australian music industry figure Meldrum was crowd-funded through an Australian Cultural Fund campaign and unveiled in the Melbourne suburb of Richmond in 2018. The statue of Australian cricket legend Warne, commissioned by the Melbourne Cricket Club, was unveiled at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in 2011.
"I think money is there, I think it's more a question of perceived cultural value and credibility and who is seen as having social significance and being worthy,” Professor Wright said.
"The whole idea of putting a woman's name on something or a woman taking up space, either nominally or physically in the public arena, is one that we are still grappling with on a deeply sexist level due to entrenched patriarchy combined with white supremacy."
Professor Wright noted the Morrison Government had earmarked $50 million for a redevelopment of Kurnell as part of plans to commemorate the 250th anniversary of Captain Cook's landing in Australia. Works included the restoration of an existing obelisk that pays tribute to Captain Cook, as well as the construction of a new visitor centre, although it has not yet been completed three years after the anniversary in 2020.
"There are hundreds of statues of Captain Cook around Australia," Professor Wright said.
"How many statues of women could be erected around Australia in public places with a federal grant of $50 million?
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews is now eligible for a statue after marking 3,000 days in office. Professor Wright called on him to consider putting funds towards statue equality, and recognising a woman.
‘I want to see a woman’
In Brisbane, schoolgirl Malia Knox, 11, has also been successful in raising awareness about the city's lack of female statues, with a bronze statue of pioneering Australian geologist and astrobiologist Dr Abigail Allwood expected to be unveiled outside the Brisbane Planetarium this year.
Malia’s mother Kelley Knox said her daughter worked with Statues for Equality and Women in Technology to fundraise $20,000 for the statue, which cost around $100,000, and the Queensland Government contributed $50,000. Statues for Equality also co-funded the project.
Schoolgirl Malia Knox outside the Brisbane Planetarium with (from left) her mother Kelley Knox, Queensland Minister for Women Shannon Fentiman and Women in Technology President Bec Langdon. Source: Supplied
“Malia was like, ‘I just want to see a statue [of a woman]’,” her mother said. “She said, ‘I’d really love there to be a statue at the Brisbane Botanic Gardens’ because currently there’s statues of men, pictures of men, plaques of men, and there’s actually zero representation of women in the whole botanic garden.”
Professor Wright said there was a role that statues could play in reassessing the nation's values.
"In this day and age, I think statuary is a way that we can express as a nation who we choose to remember and who we choose to forget.
"We can now look back and say that there were women who were contributing to the building of our cities, to our regions, to our public culture, to our political culture, and they have not had the recognition that they deserve ... and now we can do something about that."
International Women’s Day is marked on 8 March.
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