Mary Wollstonecraft must finally have her statue | Letters
We are joining the call made last International Women’s Day, by over 80 female politicians, academics and public figures, for the pioneering human rights champion Mary Wollstonecraft to be memorialised. Wollstonecraft was the first to call for gender equality, over 250 years ago, when she challenged the male philosophers and politicians of the time, including Burke and Rousseau. She called for women not “to have power over men but over themselves”.
As a key Enlightenment philosopher, her ideas on justice and education have become core values here in Britain and beyond. Her words directly informed Gladstone’s plans for state education in 1870. Mary Wollstonecraft was neither privileged nor formally educated, but she achieved greatness and became a leader of ideas in her own time. She remains so in ours.
Statues of those she influenced, including Millicent Fawcett, Thomas Paine and William Gladstone, will stand proud in our squares.
Please join our call to break the “bronze ceiling” and celebrate the extraordinary life and legacy of Mary Wollstonecraft. Support www.maryonthegreen.org and/or sign the petition being launched on Thursday 8 March 2018.
Tom Watson MP Shadow secretary DCMS
Andrew Adonis
Jason Isaacs Actor
Jeremy Corbyn Labour leader
Vince Cable Leader Liberal Democrats
Sam West Actor
Jeremy Hardy Comedian
Ian Rickson Theatre director
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Tom Hollander Actor
Guy Parker
Bernard Donoghue Association of Leading Visitor Attractions
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Tom Franklin CE Citizenship Foundation
Matt Griffiths CEO, The National Foundation for Youth Music
Dominic McGonigal Chair, C8 associates
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Tim Roache General secretary, GMB
Chris Kitchen General secretary, National Union of Mineworkers
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Mark Evans CEO, O2
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Kevin Courtney Joint general secretary of the National Education Union
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Ben Hearn Director, Upstream Accounting BP
Professor David Morris
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Alain Desmier Chair, Islington Lib/Dems
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Soutik Biswas BBC journalist
Professor Andrea Sella

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