Labor and Greens women MLAs are promoting a petition to erect a statue of a prominent woman in Canberra by 2023. “Too often new statues in this city … have celebrated yet another old white man”, says Greens MLA Jo Clay. They argue that such a statue would be a source of inspiration for women and girls, someone they could model themselves on.
If their argument is that women are underrepresented in the category of achievement traditionally represented by statues, they are mistaken. Men predominate in this category because they have achieved more; there have been relatively few women explorers, prime ministers, chief justices and Nobel laureates. That observation reflects no discredit to women, but rather to the social and economic barriers they have historically faced in reaching positions of leadership.
If the argument is that an act of positive discrimination is needed to inspire women, the MLAs may have a point. But there is a significant downside to this approach.
When you visit the town squares and cathedrals of European cities, you see many monuments to historical figures. But what the educated visitor soon realises is that most of these figures are ones they have never heard of. They conclude that the monuments are reflections of a personage’s past power or wealth, not their contribution to humanity. In Vienna, for example, there are magnificent monuments over the tombs of Austrian emperors, but no equivalent for Mozart, who was buried in an unmarked grave.
In Australia, we like to think that more enlightened principles are at work today in the erection of monuments at public expense. A statue today is earned, surely, not the result of wealth or sycophancy.
But a statue erected primarily because of a person’s gender compromises that principle. Like the traveller in Europe, people will grow cynical: this woman is commemorated in bronze because she was best female chief justice, not the best chief justice.
Most up-and-coming women I speak to would be horrified if they were perceived to have won a position based on gender preferencing, rather than their own worth. Is the position really any different when it comes to memorialising their achievements?
Positive discrimination can backfire sometimes. For several years, the ABC classical music station has been heavily promoting female composers, claiming that the preference for old white composers undervalues the contribution to music by women. Thus, on any given day, one will hear multiple works by women, whose names are largely unfamiliar, even to classical music buffs.
Recently the station sponsored the Classic 100, a poll of its listeners as to the 100 best pieces of classical music. Although over 127,000 listeners voted, one – just one – work by a female composer made it to the list. The listener re-education program has apparently fallen on deaf ears.
Australia, unlike old Europe, is a society based largely on merit. For that reason, any departures from that principle – however small, however well-intentioned – should be viewed with the deepest suspicion.
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