Based on an image of the Suffragist leader holding a banner reading “Courage calls to courage everywhere”, the work also features photographic etchings on its plinth depicting 52 women and a handful of men who were central in the push for women’s suffrage. In advance of the unveiling ceremony Gillian Wearing talked to The Art Newspaper about this historic work. Not only is it the first ever monument to a woman to be erected in Parliament Square, it is also the first statue in the area to be made by a female artist. She was particularly focussed on the rights of working women. She campaigned against child labour and child sexual abuse and was involved in the criminalisation of incest. She campaigned against the practice of excluding women from courtrooms when sexual offences were under consideration and fought to see the legal profession and civil service opened up to women and for equal access for women to divorce. She was a proud and committed feminist and wrote the introduction to the republished Vindication of the Rights of Woman in 1891, by Mary Wollstonecraft. Because at every level of our society where change can be affected, where legislation and policy can be made, where real power sits, it is still men who dominate those spaces. Criado Perez, Caroline (26 March 2016). "I sorted the UK's statues by gender – a mere 2.7 per cent are of historical, non-royal women". New Statesman . Retrieved 24 April 2018.

Winterson is not an author who messes with the English language, she commands it. Uses it to within an inch of it's life and has you breathing heavy with laughter, anger and unrest.Caroline advised me on this, as we see very few bronze statues of middle aged women. Also all the statues in Parliament Square are of men who were captured at moments they were important. That is from middle to old age. Winston Churchill's sculpture was derided by some when it was unveiled as it showed a frail old man. But now we accept it as a symbol of him. And I feel the same with this sculpture. What is important is the achievements of Fawcett and the moment she was at her most influential, which was when she became president of the NUWSS in 1907 at 60 years old, having been a member for ten years.

a b c Elwes, Annunciata (14 September 2017). "Emmeline Pankhurst or Millicent Fawcett? Battle over Westminster Suffragette statues". Country Life . Retrieved 26 April 2018.

Data Visualisations

Two years ago, nearly 85,000 signatories put their names to a petition started by Caroline Criado Perez to erect a statue of a woman in Parliament Square. Millicent Fawcett will be the first statue of — or by — a woman to stand in the historic London plaza, and it’s thanks to the thousands of people who pledged their support that she’ll be standing beside monuments to activists like Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi. I feel sorry for men who have to keep hearing this stuff because they don’t notice it either. They aren’t behaving like sexist shits (mainly), it’s really, truly and honestly that men in public life is just the norm. We’re not gender-blind—in fact, I think we see double—we notice a few women here and there, and we think, oh, this is equality—look, there is a woman.