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The Great War (1914-1918) Forum

Remembered Today:

Women's Memorial


Chris_Baker

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I have been sent the attached photo of a memorial to the women who served in WW2, to be unveiled in Westminster next year. Apparently it will cost £1 million. The photo is not too sharp I'm afraid, but you should be able to see the "coat rack" - like design.

What do you think?

Anyone know why WW1 is not mentioned?

Anyone know much else about the origins of the project or thinking behind this design?

Do we have any female members who saw service - if so, what do you think?

post-8-1090135521.jpg

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The sculptor is John W Mills (the creator of the blitz fire-fighters memorial: Blitz).

The project designer is National Heritage Memorial Fund and the sculpture is the result of a campaign specifically to commemorate women of World War Two, led by Vera Lynn, Betty Boothroyd and Princess Anne, whom I think have headed the Memorial to Women in World War Two Fund. The choice of design was announced in April.

I understand that it’s planned to be 7 metres high and depict hats, uniforms, overalls and gas masks hanging up on a coat stand. It will be placed in Whitehall near the Cenotaph.

There is a press release here

I like it. I think it will be interesting and intriguing to look at, and the delight will be in the attentiveness to detail. I find the concept reflects humanity and warmth, like an intimate commentary on the individual women whom he recalls.

Gwyn

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Gywn.

I'm sorry but I don't like it, I know you said it was of coat hangers but it just looks as if they are hiding their faces,

Mandy

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According to this article in the Telegraph, Chris’ photograph shows only the plinth. Its is topped by the figure of an air raid warden shielding three children from a bomb blast. Apparently it is the joint work of John Mills and Anthony Stones.

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I'm not sure if I like it or not although I am pleased to see that women's contribution to WW2 is being acknowledged in this way.

It would be interesting to know why only involvement during WW2 and not WW1 is being recognised. If an academic has been involved my guess is that it might relate to "change".

If you accept there were political issues rather than "reward" issues relating to the female franchises of 1918 and 1928 then WW1 bought mainly temporary change to the female role in the UK - its not that simple I know but generally women expected to revert to their former roles within a parochial society after the war ended. This reversed the process of change that war had forced during 1914-18 and in the inter-war period legislation was passed in the UK to maintain the reproductive role of women ie. Women having to leave employment on marriage.

The female role changed once again during WW2 and this subsequently led to permanent, or at least began a trend, that led to a permanent change and legal equality - not just in employment but in language ie. Chairman changed to Chairperson.

Therefore, in some circles of academia, real female emancipation is associated with WW2 and not WW1.

For anyone interested there is a great book called BEHIND THE LINES: GENDER AND THE TWO WORLD WARS, ed by Higonnet, Jenson, Michel and Weitz (1987), Yale University Press.

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On digging around a bit more, I found this article in History Today. It is more recent than the Telegraph piece and the accompanying picture shows a model without the figures of the warden and children.

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Thank you for sharing the link, Clive. I don’t get a Sunday newspaper so I didn't know the project had been publicised today.

I suppose the photo doesn’t do justice to the design because sculpture isn’t meant to be viewed as a two dimensional picture and as a whole in one glance (unless it’s something like a Henry Moore), especially out of its context and at the wrong size. It’s meant to be walked round, touched, its textures explored, visually and with hands.

The silhouette and the first impression is only a part of it; I meant that one needs to go close up to peer at the details and the surface texture. Even the artist’s marks are intriguing. It needs to be seen in natural lights or shadows and in changing weathers. It needs a real setting and moving background (people, trees, clouds, reflections). I like the choice of bronze because to me this opens up all sorts of possibilities for interplay which stone doesn’t.

Then, I would have some empathy with or reaction to it and it would make me think, reflect, engage. I’m not a visual artist and have no training in visual arts or vocabulary for art, so I can only respond as an ordinary viewer, and I can’t analyse why visual art affects me, but I’m interested and open minded. I think I will like it.

Gwyn

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It is definitely just the 'coat rack' now. You can hear Betty Boothroyd talking about it here.

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Clive,

thanks for the link, it is much better with the top on (no disrespect to Chris for his first pic) but i'm still unsure.

'Women at War' both first and second should be remembered.

The Women during the first war did alot for this country and for the boys who were fighting.

There are still a lot of those Ladies living now and I wonder how they feel at being left out!!!

Mandy

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The impression I get from the scraps of information found on the internet is that the empty-clothes base and the air raid warden top were two quite separate and distinct entries for the competition. The first was designed by John Mills who also created the WWII firefighters memorial; the warden and children was by Anthony Stones.

It is almost as if the committee could not decide and shoehorned the two together to make a statue and plinth. I would have expected that to infuriate both artists but John Mills looks reasonably satisfied in the Telegraph photo. The statue and plinth do not look as though they belong together though.

In the end, they seem to have settled for the John Mills design alone. I like it as a piece of art. The abandoned clothes are atmospheric and make you think about those who left them behind. Some of the answers to that question may be not entirely appropriate for the memorial. It is intended to commemorate all women who undertook war work but the limp and left-behind clothing makes one think of the fallen. Alternatively, they could be suggestive of a job done and a return to 'women's work'. I find that annoying and I hope it is not the right interpretation. I think it is certainly an attempt to show the wide range of war work, and it may be just a practical device to fit more symbols in a given space.

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Alternatively, they could be suggestive of a job done and a return to 'women's work'. I find that annoying and I hope it is not the right interpretation. I think it is certainly an attempt to show the wide range of war work, and it may be just a practical device to fit more symbols in a given space.

The same thought occurred to me, Clive. I found the 'empty clothes'

a bit creepy, and also tainted with the idea that women's clothes are their sole definition. Women didn't 'play 'dressing up' in the war, any more than than the men did.

I doubt if a monument to, say the Black Watch, would be acceptable if it portrayed a kilt and sporran hanging on a rack.

We have many fine photos in this forum of monuments which convey the courage, strength and endurance of military personnel, the grief and pity of the spectator. I'd like to see one like that for the women.

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There are still a lot of those Ladies living now and I wonder how they feel at being left out!!!

I don't see this as a case of any one being left out, rather a case of not being included. There is a difference. You could take your argument to a further level and say why are the women nurses of the Crimean war not included? answer because its not a memorial to either the Crimean War or the Great War.

Andy

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'Women at War' both first and second should be remembered.

The Women during the first war did alot for this country and for the boys who were fighting.

Hi Mandy

I think this is a charity specifically set up for the purpose of remembering women in the last world war.

Why don't you email or wrote to Betty Boothroyd and ask her opinion on remembering women in the Great War as well? (I'm not being sarcastic, I'm making a serious suggestion.) Then let us know what she says! (I mean in a separate memorial, not this one which has been designed to say something specific.)

The contact details and email addresses of Members of both Houses can be obtained via the Parliament website.

Gwyn

PS I might email John Mills via his representing gallery and ask him about his design concept. Might. Did.

Edited by Dragon
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I found the 'empty clothes'

a bit creepy, and also tainted with the idea that women's clothes are their sole definition. Women didn't 'play 'dressing up' in the war, any more than than the men did.

I doubt if a monument to, say the Black Watch, would be acceptable if it portrayed a kilt and sporran hanging on a rack.

Couldn't agree more

I think that the women deserve better than this

Regards

Michael D.R.

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Gywn,

I will e-mail and keep you posted.

Mandy

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I think it is rather good - and look at the reaction it has provoked. Better a challenging piece of art that provokes thought about women in WW2, than a bland piece of formal statuary that would largely pass without comment after the novelty has worn off.

Terry Reeves

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Here's another photo, of a miniature of the eventual memorial. Must say I am much taken by Betty Boothroyd's rather fetching outfit.

I understand that the caption on the memorial may read "The Women have hung up their coats and returned to whence they came". Shades of "Mary Ann in the kitchen"?

post-8-1090170791.jpg

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Some of the bravest women of the Second World War were those of the SOE who were dropped into enemy occupied territory knowing that if they were discovered they faced humiliation, torture and death. It was an incredibly lonely existence away from any hope of help or the companionship enjoyed by the conventional armed forces. Several endured unbelievable torture such as having their finger and toe nails pulled out by pliers one at a time day after day by the Gestapo to try and make them betray their fellow agents.

There was no differentiation between the sexes - male and female agents faced the same risks. In fact women were favoured as agents due to the fact that a young woman was less likely to attract the wrong sort of attention and could move around more easily in a country where men were conspicuous most having been been conscripted into forced labour. The women and men of SOE showed an exceptional degree of courage which in my opinion is unsurpassed in vitually any other theatre of the war, and deservably several were awarded the George Cross.

Tim

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Chris - is it certain that is the planned caption? I can hardly believe how patronising it is. :rolleyes: Maybe one of our arty Pals could make a model of Betty's outfit and ask her if that is how she wants to be remembered - might change her mind about the form of this memorial.

As Tim has pointed out, the courage and endurance of female agents entitles them to respect . When I read of the memorial, my first thought was of SOE, then the Australian nurses whose slaughter in the surf was so movingly described in Eric Lomax's 'The Railway Man'. Then the women and children of the Japanese prison camps...come to think of it, they must have left a lot of empty clothes behind them.

I still think they should all be remembered with more respect. This kind of art isn't supposed to be controversial - it is supposed to keep a memory alive.

Marina

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... I understand that the caption on the memorial may read "The Women have hung up their coats and returned to whence they came". Shades of "Mary Ann in the kitchen"?

Maybe it is an ironic observation that at the end of it all, women were expected to slip away and busy themselves with pipes and slippers instead of holding on to the independence, skills and positions they had earned during the war.

Ironic or not, I don't think it is a good inscription. I don't even think it is good English.

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Maybe it is an ironic observation that at the end of it all, women were expected to slip away and busy themselves with pipes and slippers instead of holding on to the independence, skills and positions they had earned during the war.

Hi,

I think that we were all expected to breed - afterall wasn't it after WW2 that the family allowance was first introduced?!

Alie.

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I prefere the nurses memorial in Reims, France. I don't like the modern styel. But i like the idea to have a memorial for the woman. But why not WW1 ???

Forgotten?? <_<

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:blink: It's not my cup of tea! Clothes rack is not too inspiring.

Cheers Shelley :)

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