A stone, female statue stands under a blue sky, a hand placed thoughtfully under her chin.

Beth Williams

At the beginning of June, the statue of Welsh educator and poet Sarah Jane Rees, known by the bardic name Cranogwen, was unveiled in Ceredigion, Wales.

While the sculpture joins over 800 public statues that exist across the UK, Cranogwen is only one of around 80 real-life women to be commemorated this way.

The Gender Disparity of Statues

Men make up a large majority of all statues across the UK. In London, only 4 per cent of statues depict women, while animals make up 8 per cent of the city’s statues.

Over 100 statues of women exist across the UK. Yet, that amount decreases dramatically once statues of royalty, mythical and fictional female characters are disregarded.

The gender parity of statues is a global problem, with named female statues making up between 2-4 per cent of all statues in nearly every country. Australia is home to more public statues of horses than of women.

The disparity in statues commemorating women in areas like sports is even more prominent. There are 240 statues of athletes across the UK, but only three of them are of sportswomen. In the US, only two of the country’s 300 baseball statues commemorate female players.

Monumental Welsh Women

Monumental Welsh Women is a non-profit group that seeks to celebrate the contribution of women to Welsh society through the resurrection of statues in their honour. When the organisation was established in 2016, not a single statue of a real-life woman existed in Wales.

“Their achievements have not been celebrated in the way that men’s successes often have”

Discussing their work, they said: “Despite the amazing contribution of Welsh women to life in Wales, their achievements have not been celebrated in the way that men’s successes often have – by being immortalised, commemorated and celebrated with public statues.”

The organisation’s aim was to resurrect five female statues within five years. With three now built, only two remain until they achieve their goal.

They estimate that each of the three statues costs at least £75,000 to construct.

The Female Statues of Wales

As part of Monumental Welsh Women’s collaboration with BBC’s Hidden Heroines campaign, an expert panel selected five women to be put forward to a public vote for the honour of becoming Wales’ first female statue.

“The statue marks the first sculpture of a woman of colour in Wales.”

Betty Campbell was announced as the first winner in 2019, with her statue unveiled in Cardiff in 2021. The statue also marks the first sculpture of a woman of colour in Wales.

Born in Cardiff’s Tiger Bay, Campbell became Wales’ first Black headteacher in the 1970s, despite being told as a child that her dream role was “insurmountable”.

Campbell was also a passionate black history activist.  Her school, Mount Stuart Primary School, led the way for multicultural education before Campbell went on to help establish Black History Month.

In 2022, Elaine Morgan’s statue was erected in her hometown of Mountain Ash. Morgan, a feminist and writer, successfully pitched her first television scripts before she even had access to her own TV set.

She was also an evolutionary theorist that campaigned for a stronger focus on feminist research within the field. Her landmark book, The Descent of Woman (1972), became an integral text in the female liberation movement.

Cranogwen

Cranogwen is the third, and most recent, woman to be commemorated in statue form in Wales. Referred to by historians as “the most outstanding Welsh woman of the nineteenth century”, Cranogwen defied the gender norms of the Victorian era in her various professions, including as a master mariner and lecturer.

In 1865, she gained overnight recognition when she became the first woman to win a poetry prize at the National Eisteddfod at the age of 21. She went on to become the first female editor of Y Frythones, only the second Welsh magazine dedicated to giving a platform to women’s issues.

Which female statues will be next to break the mould?

Alongside Monumental Welsh Women, organisations across the country are beginning to recognise and combat the issue of gender inequality in the commissioning of public statues.

“Is it realistic to expect a 46 per cent increase in female statues within such a short time frame?”

On International Women’s Day 2021, the Public Statue and Sculpture Association launched a database to document the number of female statues that are on public display in the UK, with the public invited to contribute to the record.

The global initiative Statues for Equality has set an aspirational goal of reaching complete gender equity in public sculptures and statues worldwide by 2030. While this is a commendable target, is it realistic to expect a 46 per cent increase in female statues within such a short time frame?

While it is positive that gender inequality in statues is being recognised, there is still a long way to go until monumental women are celebrated as visibly as their male counterparts.

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Image courtesy of Pxfuel. No changes were made to this image. Image licence found here.

Originally from North Wales, Beth is a third year English and Journalism student at Cardiff University. As well as a contributor, Beth is the editor-in-chief of "Gair Rhydd", her university's newspaper. When she isn't writing, you'll find her reading, cooking or on a (very slow) run.

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