Erecting a statue as tribute to a public personality of repute has been the practice across the world. There was a time when Chennai’s Marina beach front displayed an array of such sculptures on lofty pedestals. One that stood out was that of the fiery Kannagi, open hair cascading down to her hips, eyes blazing, shown brandishing her anklet to prove her husband Kovalan’s innocence. He was accused of stealing the Queen’s anklet that was similar to Kannagi’s. Her fury is said to have burnt down  the town of Madurai. The story is narrated in Silapadigaram, an ancient Tamil epic poem by Elango Adigal, part of Sangam literature.

Come to think of it, there are very few statues of women, as compared to those of men, in public spaces. This is perhaps due to the fact that the number of men in public life outnumbered those of women. One interesting recent report from Denmark asks why women statues were mostly nude whereas the men were shown clothed. Curiously, Louise Moerup who runs a school in Copenhagen decided to “clothe” the nude statue of Venus that she encountered daily in the park on her way to work. “It wasn’t really the nudity that made me want to knit her dress,” Moerup said, “but the absence of women who are remembered for their achievements. Knitting the dress was my humorous way to make people look twice and notice what’s missing.”

And so the trend she set, came to be known as “yarn-bombing” as women knitted halter necks and tops to cover the nudity of several such statues. Louise says the movement was an attempt to draw attention to the sparse numbers of women statues rather than focus on nudity or otherwise. 

Only when there is equal representation of women in public life can one hope to also see the number of women achievers rise and also get statues erected as tribute to them. Until the gender imbalance in real life is corrected, one cannot hope to suddenly see more of the female gender in public representations of tributes such as statues.

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