I don’t want to tear statues down. I want our cities and suburbs to build new statues to new heroes
In March 1911, the first International Women’s Day was marked by protests and demonstrations by more than a million women around the globe. The idea of one unified day of action was a strategy to promote equal rights for women, including suffrage. Nine years earlier Australia’s white women became the first to win equal political rights with men. White women, because the same act of parliament that made Australian women the most enfranchised in the world also disenfranchised all Indigenous Australians.
In 2002, the centenary of Australia’s world-leading act of political progressivism, senator Amanda Vanstone launched a design competition to build a fitting memorial to the achievement of universal adult suffrage. Vanstone had earmarked the place for the winning design on the lawn in line with the steps of new Parliament House and the War Memorial. A year later, amid controversy and secrecy, Vanstone’s office for the status of women announced that the contract with the winning artists had been cancelled. The primary objection appears to be that the chosen position was too prominent and “might possibly obscure views of the War Memorial”.
Continue reading...from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2EGGenJ
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