The Nancy Astor Statue is a Monument to White Feminism
We could have chosen a better representative for women in politics.
In November 2019, a statue of the first woman to take her seat in Parliament was unveiled in Plymouth. Hurrah, I hear you cry, for the representation of women in statue form is dire. Only 20% of UK statues are of women, and most of these are fictional, unnamed, or royalty. There are only 27 female statues in UK public spaces that are of notable, non-Royal, real people. The representation of women in public life certainly does need improving, both in reality and in those we immortalise in metal, stone, and paint.
But Nancy Astor’s statue is a controversial choice.
Astor took her seat in the House of Commons on 1st December 1919. She wasn’t the first woman elected to Parliament, though. That was Constance Markievicz one year earlier, who stood for the abstentionist Sinn Féin party and never took her seat in Westminster. Markievicz took part in the Easter Rising and was a suffragist. She came from a charitable family, which influenced her politics as a socialist and labour activist.
Nancy Astor was born into a slave-owning industrialist family in the US. She moved to England in her twenties and lived as a socialite, marrying a member…
