When feminist activist Caroline Criado-Perez was running through Parliament Square one day, she noticed something troubling. All the statues there were of men. Of the 11 famous political figures there, including Winston Churchill, Nelson Mandela, and Mahatma Gandhi, not a single one was a woman.
So, to combat this underrepresentation of women and celebrate the approaching 100-year anniversary of women's suffrage in England, she started a petition to gain women a place in Parliament Square. Specifically, it asks the government to erect a statue of a suffragette by 2018.
The petition, addressed to London Mayor Sadiq Khan, currently has 69,446 signatures, including ones from Emma Watson and J.K. Rowling.
That's not surprising given that Emma Watson is an outspoken feminist and the UN Women Goodwill Ambassador. The author of the book that brought Watson to fame has also identified herself as a feminist.
"The women who fought for our rights — the suffragettes — deserve to be commemorated in front of the building they were locked out of for centuries," Criado-Perez wrote in an article in The Telegraph. Hopefully, they soon will be.
AdvertisementADVERTISEMENT